Travel and culture
I really, really wanted to like Esperance. This was our first proper town in Western Australia, a lonely outlier on the state’s southern coast. The name had a nice ring to it, a hissing rhythm when pronounced in Australian English. Esperance – it’s French for “hope,” named after a ship in the same expedition that… Continue reading Little Gnomes and Big Trees in the South West
Kilometres: 12,300 or so New countries: 2 Size of Guatemala if you were to stretch it out and flatten all the hills: Probably enough to cover the Pacific Ocean "After all this," said Rob when I left him in Tuxtla Gutierrez for a two-month break from Baxter, "you're either going to be really excited to… Continue reading Cancun – Antigua: Gringos in Guatemala and Breezy Belize
Kilometres: 9833 Mexican states: 13/32 Pre-jungle insect bites: 0 Post-jungle insect bites: approx. 345,423 "I'm dirty and salty and damn it feels good to be a cyclist again," I wrote with distressingly bad grammar on the first night after we left Guadalajara. From the very start of this trip, hosts and acquaintances in big cities… Continue reading Guadalajara – Mexico City: To the Huasteca and back again
We pick our way through the pick-up trucks crammed into a dusty side street and hand thirty pesos (AUD$2.50) to the girl at the gate. Her eyes are bright as she welcomes us in and we step into a walled-off lot of scrappy grass, a third of which is taken up by a building that was… Continue reading Ramiro the Cockfighter
Kilometres: One thousand and something! "Evergreen State"s crossed: not quite one. Star-spangled flags spotted: about 7.3 per person. As I pedalled out of Nicholson Street after a few days with some family friends, I thought "Well, I'm a cyclist again". I left Penticton full, happy, excited and, well, in pouring rain and into a driving… Continue reading Penticton – Randle: A full plate in Washington state
On September 9 Steve Austin's morning show on ABC Brisbane's 612 station ran a story about my trip. They said they visited me during one of my "training sessions", to which a friend quipped "so she came over for a beer, right?"Apparently it's going to be played again on Radio National this weekend, so look… Continue reading The Naked Pun on ABC Radio!