Tag Archives: nature

A serpentine track of crushed rock switches back and forth across the almost-empty Mongolian landscape. One has to wonder why there are so many bends in a road of ruts and rocks and puddles when it only has to cross a relatively flat plateau! Yet, our Russian UAZ (Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) four-wheel-drives refuse to follow a straight line […]

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There is an irony in being able to see animals better in the wild than you can at a zoo. My husband and I had grandchildren visiting over the Christmas break, so we took the opportunity to spend a day at Sydney’s beautiful Taronga Zoo. Now, I love this particular zoo (see: A Tale of […]

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Is there anything more restorative than mountain air in summer? Australia’s Snowy Mountains are a wonderful place for summer walking. The bonus of being in the Antipodes is that the height of summer falls across the Christmas – New Year break. It is my chance to take time out to reflect on the old year, […]

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You never know what you will come across on a walk in the Australian bush! In October, my husband and I had a brief interlude in Katoomba, the principal town in the Blue Mountains, just a ninety-minute drive from Sydney. Our charming 1930s guesthouse gave us access to the myriad of local arts, boutiques, coffee shops and bistros, […]

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  Stories abound. Sitting high above the Jamison Valley, in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains of Eastern Australia, three unusual rock formations stand out. Collectively known as the Three Sisters, Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo were formed by the ongoing erosion of wind and rain against the soft Narrabeen sandstone of these mountains. According to locally-told tales, these three sisters […]

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