OZtralia.tv Blog

A Weekend With Friends In Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

We just spent the weekend with friends who live by the sea. Lakes Entrance is a lovely town on the south coast of Australia that offers both lakes and seaside tranquillity.

We arrived by train from Melbourne - took just under four hours - and headed to the beach where a long line of fisher folk cast their lines into the wild surf. Apparently it was a fishing competition.

Next day thirty vintage cars moved into the main street and parked in long rows so people could peer into their leathery insides, check out the motors and admire the ‘flaming’ paintwork.

The local market was on and people were swinging their clubs on the golf course. I joined the throngs browsing the bookstores, found an interesting book and settled into a cafe overlooking the waterfront called the ‘Six Sisters and a Pigeon’ (no sign of any pigeons but the sisters serve a bonza hot chocolate).

Yup, a weekend, in a small Australian town. Travelling Australia? Settle into a small town for the weekend.

June Events in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

June in Australia offers big events and small ones. Here are a few of the more interesting goings-on you may want to check out:

Milton Scarecrow Festival

Name says it all…

The Rocks Market

Sydney’s leading lifestyle market, featuring a delectable range of arts, crafts, homewares and collectables.

SYDNEY NSW, Sat 7 Jun - Sun 8 Jun 2008

National Celtic Festival

PORTARLINGTON VIC, Fri 6 Jun - Mon 9 Jun 2008

Monto Show Society Drover’s Cattle Drive

Experience the life of a drover and take part in a cattle drive along the stock routes in the Monto Shire.

MONTO QLD, Mon 9 Jun - Tue 10 Jun 2008

A Look At Australia’s Rough and Tough

By: Phoenix Arrien

A man called Tony Mokbel is back in Australia to face the music as we say here. He is a criminal who was found in Europe and has just been brought back here.

It brings my thoughts to the criminal history of Australia. Britain, who had laid claim to this continent over 200 years ago, ignoring the indigenous population, had a serious over-population problem in its prisons at the time. So they solved it by shipping many of them over here to do hard time trying to create settlements out of a very different land and climate to anything they had previously known.

The criminal-made-good is part of this land now, as many of the convicts did their time and settled here. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s bushrangers roamed the countryside stealing cattle, the odd purse and generally making a name for themselves.

Ned Kelly is the most famous of these bushrangers. He was even portrayed in a few movies, firstly by none other than Mick Jagger and most recently by the newly deceased Australian actor Heath Ledger.

There are many places in Australia that you can travel to see where and what these wild men did. I recently visited the Victorian Highlands where towns such as Glenrowan boast monuments, shops, cafes, hotels and god knows what else, all marking the fact the Ned passed this way, drank at this bar, stepped upon this thresh hold and breathed the same air.

I think of Christopher Skase, a man involved in crime who escaped to Europe and never paid for his misdeeds. He is dead and reviled to this day.

Then there is Alan Bond. He was a hero who financed Australia’s win in 1983’s America’s Cup, got involved in white-collar fraud and ended up in jail. He is out and has been welcomed back into society with warm (if a little wary) arms and a reputation as a bit of a ‘larrikin’.

In true accepting convict fashion: if you do the crime then do the time, then you are all right in this country, mate!

Do You Need A Guide Book While in Australia?

By: Phoenix Arrien

The guidebook industry (especially here in Australia) is buzzing with the release of a book by a former Lonely Planet (LP is an Australian travel guide book company) writer Thomas Kohnstamm. He has written about getting poor pay while researching guidebooks, how he reverted to various shady practices to get by while writing them and how some parts of guide books are researched at a desk, instead of out on the road.

Now I am not going to enter into the current debate about guidebooks, their effectiveness and the ripple - no tidal wave - that has been unleashed amongst the guidebook companies because of this.

What I am interested in is our dependence on guidebooks in the first place. Before travel writers, people simply headed off with perhaps, just a list of recommendations from friends. How exciting!

As a travel writer, I often take guidebooks along just get an overview of what there is of interest, mainly because I lack the time to wander around a place, get lost and find myself again.

Someone else has been there before and has done the hard legwork…most of the time. I have found them useful most of the time and wrong a little of the time and completely useless and a timewaster in just a few cases.

I think that guidebooks are, on the whole, very useful, though I am glad there has been this recent shake-up. I think improvements in guidebooks will arise from this event.

But back to our dependence. Next time you are travelling in Australia, leave the guidebook in your room for a day…or a week. Go out amongst the people and the kangaroos and wander. You will find surprises and challenges that guidebooks often keep out of reach.

You may also get lost and have to actually walk up to someone and ask directions, thereby meeting the locals. What fun!

Giving You The Best Australian Travel Experience

By: OZtralia.tv Staff

We are proud to continue to give you the best travel experience for Australia online.

From our video map, you can see all of Australia. But now, from our direct pages, we also give you a wealth of written information on every location we cover in Australia.

Below are links so you can check it all out yourself.

Watch videos and find information about
all the amazing Australia’s travel destinations:

» Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest
» Sunshine Coast - Noosa
» Brisbane
» Canberra
» Melbourne
» Byron Bay and the Rainbow Valley
» Sydney
» Whitsunday-Overview
» Rainbow Valley
» Hobart and Southern Tasmania
» Northern Tasmania
» Perth and the Sunset Coast
» Cairns and Port Douglas
» Surfer’s Paradise and the Gold Coast
» Uluru
» The Great Ocean Road

Today while sitting at our offices in New York, I could not help but think back to my team’s recent time in Australia. I miss it a bit…

Over the last two years we have had the great pleasure of visiting Australia and film in the country. While there, I have to admit, there were times one felt like all he wanted to do is go home. However, looking back it sure was a fantastic journey and we look forward to going back to the great “Land Down Under” soon.

On OZtralia.tv, it is our mission to show you how great travel in Australia is, and get you excited about traveling there yourself one day.

We hope you enjoy!

-Heath, OZtralia.tv Executive Producer