So close, yet so far away.....

[Jeepers Creepers]

I was at the pub last night and some folks from up the street made comment about us having a camper trailer now.

I told them about our trip to Fraser etc (both past and present) and she said, oh, is it nice over there?, i've never been there before.
They had just got back from 4 weeks in Denmark.

A few years ago, when we had the boat moored at Spinnaker Sound, we took some friends to Tangalooma to snorkel the wrecks.
A mate stood there amazed at what was right on the doorstep of Brisbane. He made a comment about having gone snorkel sucking at Vanuatu, Bali and the likes, yet had never been to Tangles before.

Its funny how folks spent a lot of the old hard earned Johnny Cash to discover diamonds when they are right there for the picking in their own back yard.

Yeah, i've been to a couple of places over the water, but stuff me grandmother, we've got some top spots right here.

[Hairs]

G'day Jeepers,
I have no intentions of ever leaving our shores, Australia has soo much to offer.
If others want to that's fine, but not this little Black duck.
Have a good one.

[aquadux]

G'day Jeepers,
I have no intentions of ever leaving our shores, Australia has soo much to offer.
If others want to that's fine, but not this little Black duck.
Have a good one.

I'm with you. Australia has so much to offer, but let other head OS, more room for us to enjoy the great outdoors.

Richard

[Kit_e_kat9]

G'day Jeepers,
I have no intentions of ever leaving our shores, Australia has soo much to offer.
If others want to that's fine, but not this little Black duck.
Have a good one.

x 3!  I know a poem that says it all for me ... I love a sunburnt country ... a land of sweeping plains ... of ragged mountain ranges ... of droughts and flooding rains ... whether snokelling on some wrecks or driving on the sand ... I can't see how some people don't think it's bloody grand!  Okay, slight adaptation there, but you get the gist I'm sure.

Kit_e

My Country:
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


Dorothea Mackellar

[savio]

Thanks Kit_e_Kat

love both those poems!
I reckon young Dorothea must have been a Swagger mascot in her time 

[bullfrog]

I always wondered if "over there" was so bloody good, why do they want to come "over here' to live??!! This place is good enough for this boy.

[fuji]

I'm with you. Australia has so much to offer, but let other head OS, more room for us to enjoy the great outdoors.

Richar

Problem is everyone from o/s has discovered our diamonds and are arriving in droves!

[GeeTee]

yeah I am lucky enough to have travelled OS but I don't care if I never go again

except to get on the piss at Octoberfest with my London mate, and to drive a lap of Nurburgring

and wow, how good is Moreton Island? I was lucky enough to go there two weeks ago. My new favourite place

[ozbogwam]

Yes Australia has amazing sights but you don't get the amazing cultures that do when overseas, or the truly foreign experience of encountering something so completely different. I can't understand how you can not want to see foreign cultures and countries.

Also in most cases especially throughout Asia it is much cheaper to travel than here unfortunately.

[bobnrob]

Had enough of all the different cultures when I lived in Sydney, that's why I don't live there anymore!

Never been OS, never will. Won't be enough time to see this country as it is 

[Paul Mac]

Problem is everyone from o/s has discovered our diamonds and are arriving in droves!

In fact....arriving in boat loads !

[dazzler]

Travel OS is a good way to broaden your outlook on life IMO.  It sure opened my eyes and I found life is not really black and white.
I have a cunning kick that I hope will have enough in 10 yrs to fund a trip from Alaska to Patagonia on a bike.

[D4D]

I've travelled to most continents, still to get to Antarctica. As much as there are some great adventures to be found overseas, there's no place like home

[speewa158]

l think the well worn OS track is fine if thats your thing . l have done a lap already & will do again to fill in the gaps created by the 1st trip . Been to the long flight bit to the other side cof thye world to see old cultures but the oldest culture is right here . That has to give you a real sence of history . Treg up & get out there 1ST

[Mallory Black]

Before kids Ms B used to do a lot of business travel for the shoe industry so got to see lots of the work particularly parts of China and South America that were well off the tourist map so where she went you really knew you were in another country!

Aussie is great but the whole world's a playground, take the time to seek out places and cultures that are so different to ours and you come home with:
A better sense of perspective about your own turf
the realisation that so much of the inhabited parts of the planet is already effed up by humans
there are some truly beautiful spots everywhere

[db]

Its not really a one place is better than the other (to travel to).  I enjoy travelling in Australia for totally different reasons for travelling overseas - and I hope to give my kids a taste of both.  For me, the best part of travelling overseas is experiencing the people and cultures - good and bad.  The best part of travelling in Australia is experiencing the beauty we have all around us.  I vote for both.

[Pipeliner]

I spent the first half of my life in Europe (UK + trips) and the second half over here, during which work has taken me to Saudi Arabia, USA, Canada, Burma, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Kurdistan.  Holidays have taken us in the CT through most of the east of Australia from Alice/Uluru, Mt Isa and all through Qld/NSW/Vic/SA - only managed Albany in WA so far but the Kimberleys beckon - but we have also been to Europe (Italy, France, UK, next year to Switzerland as well).

If you want to understand how the world works you need to go out and see it.  Yes, there is plenty to see in Australia and I still want to see more, but there is also plenty to see in other countries. 

Bobnrob, the way the different cultures live in Sydney is no indication of the way they live in their native lands!