Planning New Guinea

I’m getting ready to go to Papua New Guinea (PNG). My original plan was to fly to Port Moresby back in July when I was in the Solomon Islands. However, the flight schedule from Honiara was too unpredictable. There was only one flight a week and it was expensive and really didn’t fit into the …

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Diving the Reef

I’m staying in Cairns a bit longer than I had originally thought for a few reasons: 1) It is warm and sunny here. 2) There are lots of girls in bikinis walking around the beach. 3) I have an opportunity to take my camera in a super fancy water proof housing and go diving with …

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Visiting Fraser Island

Perhaps the biggest attraction on the drive from Brisbane to Cairns is Fraser Island. Fraser Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and holds the distinction of being the worlds largest sand island. If you look at a map of Australia, you will notice that the east coast of the country curves. Right after the …

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ANZAC Day in Australia

Today is ANZAC* Day in Australia, New Zealand and several countries in the Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji I think). It is the day which Australians and Kiwis remember their war dead. In the US it would be the equivalent of Memorial Day, or Remembrance Day in the UK. ANZAC Day, from what I’ve gathered, …

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My Weekend At Tassies

I didn’t plan on spending a lot of time in Tasmania. It had nothing to do with Tasmania per se, it just had to do with my schedule and the fact is Tasmania is an island, it is really far south, and it is now autumn here in the southern hemisphere. I planned five days …

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The Banana Republic of Cairns

I’ve finally arrived in Cairns. Total damage done: nine days, four World Heritage Sites, and 3,030 km (1,882 miles). I’m staying in Cairns for five days to catch up on my photos and get my things together for Papua New Guinea. I’ll also be able to spend ANZAC Day in Australia, which should be interesting. …

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Disaster Strikes

All the effort I went through to back up my photos may have been for naught. I took everything to a FedEx/Kinkos store in Sydney to send it back to the US. So far, the package hasn’t been entered into the FedEx system to track packages, and there hasn’t been a charge to my credit …

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You Do Not Need A Guidebook To Travel

If you have been reading the news the last few days, you have probably come across the “scandal” about the Lonely Planet writer who wrote parts of the Colombia guide book without ever traveling to Colombia. Actually, it is a non-story. He was never supposed to go to Colombia. He was just supposed to write …

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Buh Bye Brisbane

My very brief time in Brisbane is over. I have several people in the area who contacted me, but I wasn’t able to meet up with anyone. My apologies to everyone. Queensland is really big. It is bigger than Alaska and 2.5x bigger than Texas. I still have over 800 miles to go to get …

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