For mind-blowing places, people and adventures you need to see to believe.
What’s the big deal about Boodjamulla? For starters, this vivid green waterway that blazes a palm-fringed path through ancient sandstone and across parched spinifex plains towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, is blissfully estuarine crocodile-free. Given that so many NT waterways are currently closed to paddling and swimming (while the booming..... . .
Want to get lonely for a while? Join us as we tackle the back road to Karumba, skirting the southern fringe of Cape York on the little travelled Burke Developmental Road. Here, wild things outnumber travellers, and big river angling and shady waterfront camps are ours alone. After adventuring underground at Chillagoe Caves, we discover Indigenous..... . .
North of Cooktown at remote Connies Beach, a strip of silky white sand fringed by pandanus and coconut palms arcs around Cape Flattery’s shimmering blue bay. Attracting only a handful of adventurous 4WD campers at a time, this peaceful spot where big tuna get airborne and sea eagles soar, promises great fishing, whether you’re trolling for..... . .
Imagine an extravagant castle full of luxurious bathing pools and rooms built for pleasure that was so secret you could only enter via a hidden underground passage tunnelled beneath a lake. This was Indonesia’s Taman Sari about 250 years ago and it was here that the city’s king pin – Sultan Hamengkubuwono the 1st – indulged his..... . .
For families with small children, Nepal is an unlikely destination to spend time in the outdoors, but after three weeks on the Annapurna Circuit, I’m happy to say that it has been one of the best family adventures we’ve tackled so far. With superb mountain views, intriguing cultures to encounter, and enough teahouses and hotels dotted along..... . .
This is madness. We’re cycling out of Jakarta through traffic like we’ve never seen before: a surging sea of motorbikes and buses, trucks and taxis, all squeezing and racing and suddenly braking along impossibly slender streets. We push on through it (quite literally at times), following the lead of speedy motorbikes and hoping like hell..... . .
This rugged limestone outcrop, fringed by forest and tamed by a steep, concrete staircase of some 1000 steps, adds some serious ‘Wow factor’ to the otherwise sleepy town of Phattalung in Southern Thailand. Plenty of limestone spires pierce the horizon around Phattalung, but Khao Ok Thalu turns the most heads. It’s named for a gaping hole..... . .
Motoring across Hartley’s Lagoon on a hot and humid wet season morning, hungry, yet-to-be fed salties surface from the depths into clear view. Sidling alongside our tiny boat for their share of the breakfast bounty, three and four-metre-long crocodiles come within arm’s reach, snapping their formidable jaws around a tasty morsel dangling from an..... . .
Flanked by long stretches of white sand beach, sites at this unassuming camp are keenly sought after, snapped up by travellers with self-contained motorhomes, caravans and campervans long before day’s end. The chance to free camp on such a beautiful stretch of Tassie’s northwest coast would be enough to ensure Hall Point’s popularity, but there is..... . .