Walkabout Australia Archives
I was driving through the New South Wales regional centre of Goulburn a week ago and noticed, with much amusement, that the city’s most distinctive and iconic landmark (forget the War Memorial, the excellent gardens in the main street or the superb local Catholic Church), the Big Sheep (or Big Merino as some prefer), had been moved about 300 metres up the road. At the moment it is standing there waiting for the workmen to build the gift shoppe, or whatever, below its belly. Worth seeing just for the air below it.
canada goose uk shop This is a 4 1/2 star room in a superior hotel. You would pay well over $300 to stay in this room. It has a star rating, but what does that star rating actually mean? canada goose uk shop
If there is one controversial area in the tourism industry it is the whole issue of star ratings. You can stay in a 4 1/2 star hotel and it can be pretty damned awful. You can stay in a wonderful historic house or hotel and it won’t even have a star rating, because they don’t have a hair dryer in the bathroom.
canada goose clearance They don’t have a rating because they buy canada goose jacket don’t want to get a 2 1/2 stars for a house that doesn’t quite fit the narrow range of factors air conditioning, hair dryers, size of beds and so on that are necessary to get a high rating. canada goose clearance
What do you think? Are star ratings worthwhile? Are you surprised by the ratings of some places? Do you book accommodation on the basis of star ratings? Do cheap Canada Goose you recognise that, for example, some old hotels are actually rated as Guest Houses rather than Hotels? Any comments? Let’s see if we can build up a canada goose deals feeling for the value (or lack of value) of the star rating system.
canada goose uk black friday This is Graham Clarke from Harry Nanya Tours explaining some ancient bones, possibly 20,000 years old, on the dry shores of Lake Mungo. It is one of the great Aboriginal tourism experiences in Australia. A genuine opportunity to experience just how old human settlement buy canada goose jacket cheap has been on this ancient continent. canada goose uk black friday
All over the world Indigenous Tourism, for want of a better word, is booming. Over the past decade I have had extraordinary Maori experiences in New Zealand, close contact with shamans from the San people in the Kalahari Desert, interesting experiences with Saami deer herders in Finland and, just by accident, I stumbled on a very non touristy (I was the only non local there) Hopi dance festival which went on for days.
canada goose uk outlet In Australia Canada Goose sale we really do have amazing Aboriginal experiences. I have eaten marinated kangaroo cooked on an open fire in the Flinders Ranges, marvelled at the Tjapukai in Cairns and wandered around Sydney checking out the rock art sites all over the city. canada goose uk outlet
What have been Canada Goose Parka your experiences? Share them with everyone because it seems to me that Aboriginal cultural tourism is set to be one of the huge tourism growth industries in the next decade. And what do you think about this kind of tourism? Is it OK for tourist buses to pull up to a site in the Northern Territory where the locals perform a corroboree and get photographed as canada goose though they Canada Goose online are on display? Or does Indigenous Tourism need to be more complex and subtle than that?
Recently, when I was in New Zealand, I went out from Queenstown to the famous bridge where people go bungy jumping. It’s a fun thing to do. There is something wonderfully crazy about bungy jumping. The man standing next to me was an Australian who had just paid for both his children a girl about 17 and a boy around 14 to jump.
Canada Goose online “Are you going to have a go?” he asked and then he added “I would but I’ve got a bad back.” Canada Goose online
I looked at him and with just the right level of jaundiced cynicism I said: “Have you seen how much it costs? $150 to jump off a bridge. I wouldn’t pay $10 to jump off a bridge.”
canada goose store “Oh! http://www.mycanadagoosejacket.org It’s not the jumping off the bridge. It’s the bit where they pick you up at the bottom,” he replied. He’d just paid $300 and he wanted to feel that he’d got value for money. canada goose store
Now this got me thinking. At what point do people consider holiday fun activities too expensive? How much would you pay to go on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk? How much would you pay to go down a cave? To watch Aboriginal dancing? To ride on a banana boat? to go scuba diving?
cheap canada goose uk I guess another example, which was beyond my level of financial tolerance, was the person I met on a Great Barrier Reef island who was perfectly happy to pay $800 for a day of deep sea fishing? cheap canada goose uk
Where do you draw the canada goose coats on sale line? What are the experiences in Australia that you simply will not do because they are just too expensive? At what point do you stop and say “That’s an outrageous ripoff! I don’t care. I am not going to pay that kind of money.”
Australia has become an obsessively seaside country. All the major cities with the notable exception of Canberra are located on the ocean and, when it comes to holidays and retirement, few people opt for the inland and the desert, preferring to lie on a beach somewhere.
canada goose clearance sale This has produced a huge tourism problem for country towns. How do they attract visitors? The old and popular strategy was, as with the picture from Stockinbingal in New South Wales, to get a whole lot of bits and pieces and create a local museum. Did they ever really work? But the question I have is double barrelled. If you were to head away canada goose clearance from the coast where would canada goose coats you go? And what is there that you would want to see? canada goose clearance sale
Your answer may help those poor rural tourism people. They need ideas and suggestions. You can really help. And no cheating: we know you have to head inland to go to the snow but, I suspect, that is only because it doesn’t snow on the Gold Coast.
cheap Canada Goose Most overseas tourists coming to Australia want to see our funny animals. There is nothing quite so important to visitors to have their photograph taken with a kangaroo or a koala. The experiences are twofold. There are animals in the wild and there are animals at Animal Parks. If you were confronted with visitors canada goose black friday sale who demanded to see kangaroos and koalas (let’s not even think about the platypus and all those nocturnal creatures like bilbys) where would you take them? And, if you really do feel inspired, where can you see those hard to see Aussie animals? Canada Goose Jackets I once had a Travel Editor who promised anyone the front page of Travel if they could guarantee (and that’s the operative word) a platypus sighting. cheap Canada Goose
Canada Goose Outlet Me! I take them out into the bush but that is not always practical. So what are the alternatives? Canada Goose Outlet
canada goose coats I have lived at Kiama on the NSW South Coast for the past 27 years and in the last decade I have seen whales every May June going up the coast and every October November coming down the coast. I love the creatures and it is always a joy to stand on the front veranda and see them roaring up the coast in autumn (nothing like a man on a procreative mission) and mooching back in spring. That photo was taken on the best whale watching I ever did. In the season there are boats that go out from Huskisson on Jervis Bay and on that occasion, apart from getting pix of some of them breaching, we ended up surrounded by about twenty of canada goose store them. Now here are the questions, dear bloggers: is there a “best” in terms of whale watching? Where should you go Canada Goose Outlet and when should you go? Or, more to the point, is whale watching hugely overrated? I will admit that I have been out many times and seen nothing more than the occasional hump and, in fairness, I have never seen a better display than I did when I went to Argentina. canada goose coats
Oh, and for those who want to keep in touch with this whale thing I am off to New Zealand in a week and will be blogging about an NZ whaling trip where you view them from the air that will be up on the Trampabout blog around 14 June.
canada goose factory sale An Australian showing a friend from overseas the sights of Sydney would, inevitably, want to take them to the Opera House and show them the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They’d probably even advise a guided tour or a performance at the Opera House and, at very least, a walk across the Harbour Bridge if not a walk over the top. canada goose factory sale
uk canada goose But what about the rest of Australia? What are the essential buildings in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Melbourne and Hobart? What about the person travelling to Ballarat? Bendigo? the Gold Coast? Cairns? uk canada goose
canada goose coats on sale What do you consider are the essential buildings that everyone, overseas visitors as well as Australians, should see on a trip around the country? canada goose coats on sale
I have my list which I will reveal later but I’m interested in what others think are essential. Over to you.
canadian goose jacket There is a very cliched list of iconic Australian places Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great canada goose outlet Ocean Road which gets trotted out whenever someone wants to make a list of places all Australians should visit before they die. While not wanting to disparage the icons it seems to me that there are literally dozens of great locations and experiences which, for no good reason, get overlooked. I think particularly, as one example, of Ningaloo Coral Reef in Western Australia which, by any fair measure, is actually better than the Great Barrier Reef and you can dive off the beaches along the coast and be in an underwater wonderland immediately. What are the others? What are your favourite and special Australian places that should be visited by everyone before they die canadian goose jacket.