Explore
Avalon gathers at first light, and nature does the rest
First light on the Avalon headland, where friends swim together, warm up over a lovely coffee and a chat, and a cockatoo keeps a local company in the hope of sharing his pastry.
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Explore
Walk the Whitsundays the Ngaro way
Australia's newest great walk crosses Whitsunday Island from Whitehaven Beach to Hill Inlet, created with the Ngaro people, and its first season is nearly booked out.
Explore
Western Australia just burst into bloom
Early rain has brought Western Australia's wildflower season on weeks ahead of itself, and the everlastings are reaching their carpet stage right now.
Explore
The bat nado rises at sunset
The Yolo Causeway carries Interstate 80 over the marshes west of Sacramento. Underneath it lives California's largest city bat colony, and watching it leave is free.
Explore
The quiet giant of Queens Park
A Moreton Bay fig at Waverley, and the whole neighbourhood of living things that leans on her.
Explore
Thirty two kilometres, three nights, one island
Australia’s most protected island walk is open again, and the birds it is named for went from two thousand to forty thousand.
Explore
How to visit the Torres Strait, and how to ask
Two islands you can simply fly to, and the form you fill in for the rest. A practical guide to going north.
Explore
Sleep in the lighthouse keeper's cottage, nine kilometres out to sea
No cars, no shops, no road. Barunguba Montague Island has a granite lighthouse, eight thousand penguins and two cottages you can book.
Global Good News
The walk that Year 10 built
A 262 kilometre loop through the far south west of Victoria, cut by hand by school students and kept going by volunteers ever since.
Global Good News
The island where the crabs have right of way
The second half of the journey continues at Christmas Island: off the wharf into 28 degree water, hauling the ocean's cargo up through the jungle, and the joy of one turtle who came back.
Global Good News
The underwater highway at Julian Rocks
Our founder books two days in a row for her favourite swim in the sea off Byron Bay, and comes home with sore cheeks from smiling.
Global Good News
The reef where the fish dance
Our first Places to Explore column: a volunteer week in the Cocos Keeling Islands, and a moment on the reef I return to whenever I close my eyes.