Tag: travel
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Unsettled
What’s a moment that made you question reality? Fifteen months ago we went to Antarctica. It was my wife’s birthday present. More than that, it was something she had wanted to do since she was a little girl. I had known this about her for years. Some people want to see Paris or the pyramids…
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Planned Enough to Be Surprised
How do you plan the perfect road trip? I am not sure I have ever planned the perfect road trip. I am not sure such a thing exists. Every road trip is different. Some are carefully mapped. Some are held together by a rough idea, a few necessary bookings, and the hope that something good…
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The Grace of Welcome
What’s the most interesting local custom you’ve encountered? The most interesting local custom I have encountered is not interesting because it is quaint. It is interesting because it asks something of us. I am thinking of Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies. They are not the same thing. A Welcome to Country is…
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The Festival That Failed
What is the best concert you have been to? The best concert I have ever been to was Narara Music Festival, on the Central Coast of NSW, at the end of January 1984. It had a great line-up. INXS. Mondo Rock. Sandii & the Sunsetz. Simple Minds. The Pretenders. Talking Heads. Eurythmics. Cold Chisel. Australian…
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What the City Offers
Which is the best thing to do in your city? Because I live and work in a university residential college, there are always students coming and going. They come from rural towns, interstate, and all over the world. They arrive with suitcases, excitement, uncertainty, and sometimes homesickness. They have come to study, meet people, begin…
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The World Becomes Larger Again
Have you ever been camping? We love camping. Not because it is always comfortable. It isn’t. Sometimes the ground is hard, the toilets are basic, the weather turns, and the wildlife is more determined than expected. But camping gives us something we find harder and harder to come by: simplicity. No distractions. Limited device use.…
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The Places That Leave Me Cold
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why? I love visiting new places. Often they are not the places other people expect. I have travelled on every continent, including Antarctica, and some of the places that have most moved me were not the polished or well-known ones. They were places with…
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More Than a Meal
What is your favourite restaurant? I have never been able to answer questions about a favourite restaurant in the singular, as though one place could do all the work required of it. Restaurants are not interchangeable. There are restaurants for celebration, for conversation, for family, for beauty, for comfort, and for memory. To ask for…
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Modes of Encounter
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike? Every trip says something about the person taking it. That’s what I think. Not in a grand psychological sense. Just in the small way choices reveal us. The pragmatist books the plane. The romantic takes the train. The free spirit wants the car…
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P Plates, No Plates
Have you ever unintentionally broken the law? At seventeen I spent a summer working in a used car yard. I’d only just got my licence, so I was on my P plates—back when they were wired onto the number plate, long before magnetic ones made life easy. The boss told me I could take whatever…
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A Measured No
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do?What would it take to get you to do it? Every now and then someone says they went skydiving on the weekend like it’s a normal weekend activity. They’ll say it casually—like it’s on the same level as trying a new café. I’m always interested and usually ask…
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Australia Day
Write about a few of your favourite family traditions. As I write this, it’s 26 January—Australia Day. It’s the official national day of Australia, marking the 1788 landing of the First Fleet and the raising of the Union Flag of Great Britain at Sydney Cove. It’s also a contentious day which divides people. I personally…
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A New Kind of Freedom
Think back on your most memorable road trip. Late May 2021, between the two NSW COVID lockdowns, we took a road trip because it was the easiest kind of travel that still felt possible. No airports, no border rules, no sudden cancellations. It wasn’t the trip we would have chosen in a normal year. It…
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The Car That Carried More Than Us
What is your all time favourite automobile? I’ve never been a car person. I don’t follow models or specifications, and I don’t care about engines for their own sake. Cars, to me, have always been practical: a way to get where you need to go. But my father loved cars and he developed a passion…
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Cities as Conversations
What cities do you want to visit? I’m not really someone who carries a list of destinations in my head. Places don’t usually attract to me on their own. They arrive through people—through stories, relationships, and small associations that linger. Montreal comes to mind first, though I’ve never been there. My wife travelled there by…
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The City Is Never Empty
Do you ever see wild animals? One of the quiet joys of living in Australia is discovering how thin the line really is between suburbia and the wild. We talk as if the bush is “out there,” somewhere beyond the edges of our cities, but the truth is that the wild never left. It waits…
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Two Items, Two Stories
What are your two favourite things to wear? If you asked me for my two favourite things to wear, the answer doesn’t come from my current wardrobe. It comes instead from two garments that hold stories — one formal and academic, the other casual and sun-faded — each stitched with memory. 1. The Graduation Gown…
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My Favourite Animals
What are your favourite animals? There are so many animals I love that it’s hard to know where to begin. But when I think about it, my favourites aren’t just species—they’re moments. Each animal carries a memory of a place, a glimpse of beauty. Dogs are the obvious starting point. They’re uncomplicated creatures—give them food,…
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A Sliding Doors Reflection
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? To be honest, I’m happy where I am.Sydney has been home for most of my life—its light, its seasons, its familiar rhythms.But every now and then, the imagination wanders.I find myself thinking in parallel lines, picturing the other lives that might have unfolded…
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The Ones Who Stay With Me: John Coburn
When I think about my favourite artists, I don’t immediately picture a museum wall or a famous exhibition. I think of the painting that hangs in our home — one that has moved with us from house to house, always finding pride of place. It’s by John Coburn, the Australian abstract painter whose work captures…
The Afterword 