TRAVELABROOD

KARIJINI OUTBACK WESTERN AUSTRALIA AUGUST 2015 Karijini National Park is located in West Australia's Pilbara. 1400km North of Perth, the closest towns are Newman, Tom Price and Karatha. We flew from Perth to Newman where we collected a 4WD and drove the 160km to Karijini. Newman is a mining town, mainly populated by BHP Billiton. Mt Whaleback is the main Iron Ore mine, with Roy Hill (owned by Gina Reinhart) also using the town for accommodation and housing. Flying into Newman over the desert and the red, red earth and not much else is like admiring an aboriginal painting. It is so beautiful and if you have never been to outback WA it is definitely one for the bucket list. August is also the start of wildflower season and you don't have to go far to see the picturesque flora.  We reached  Karijini Eco Retreat  just before sunset. We had booked a couple of Delux Eco tents complete with ensuite for the duration of our stay and booked in...

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS EASTER 2015 This Easter the brood travelled to the Blue Mountains in NSW. We were a party of nine all up and rented a fabulous house  on the cliff top in Leura. Arriving in Sydney on Good Friday, we knew that major shops wouldn't be open, so stopped on route and collected necessities from the local market.  Heading up the mountain it started to rain, so by the time we reached the house we were surrounded by clouds and the impressive views from the kitchen were non-existent. Not to worry, the forecast was for the rain to clear by Sunday and as it was getting late in the day we were more engrossed in getting dinner on the table and enjoying a vino. Elysian Rock Lookout in the Cloud (This is the same outlook we had from the house) The world heritage Blue Mountains have amazing walks and vistas. It is advised to check the National Parks website for any alerts as we found that some of the walking trails were closed for the duration o...

EL QUESTRO WILDERNESS PARK KIMBERLEY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA There are two kinds of star gazing campers, those who like to sleep under the stars and those that like accommodation with stars (aka Glampers). Our brood falls in the later category. Whilst we appreciate the beauty of the outback, the red earth of the Kimberley that gets into everything and the clean crisp air you breath and water you drink, we have a huge appreciation for a flushing toilet, a fan and a hard floor under foot. Kununurra is located in the far north of WA, approximately 40km from the Northern Territory border. With a population of around 4'500, it caters to a large tourist trade as it is the gateway to the the Gibb River Road and Kimberley. We flew from Perth to Kununurra and hired a 4WD for our week adventure to El Questro , along the Gibb River Road. We were visiting during the peak tourist season and the July school holidays, so we had booked all of our accommodation and hire car well in ad...

USA ROADIE LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO, SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, LAS VEGAS, PALM SPRINGS & SAN DIEGEO 20 December 2014 - 10 January 2015 With three weeks break over the Australian summer holidays, we headed for the USA! This year it was just our immediate gang ie: two forty-somethings and two teenagers. As per usual we had spent months putting together our itinerary and booking as much in advance as possible in order to get the best times, tickets, seats and restaurant reservations. Don't forget we were travelling over the Christmas/New Year period, so reservations needed to be made in advance as places are often closed for the holidays or booked out months in advance. Not to mention, the Australian Dollar was pretty good when we started booking this trip, but had gone down quite considerably by the time we departed. We were quietly thanking our lucky stars we had pre-paid as much as possible. The trip from Perth, Western Australia to LA via Sydney is really, really ...