Park by the Sea

Last year about this time, I visited one of Sydney’s most accessible National Parks. It is the Royal National Park, which is about a 45 minute drive from the city. Being transportationless, I took the train there – also a 45 minute ride.
I met up with a guide from the Sydney YHA, an outdoors/social organization. [...]

You Can Check Out My Photos Now

I’ve just added a link to my blog that will allow you to access my  photostream in Flickr. Just look to your right, and it is the link that says “Brad’s Travel Photos.” If you follow that link, it will take you directly to my Flickr account where you can see my photos organized into [...]

Red Dawn

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My alarm woke me up the other morning at 6:30. Looking out the window, I noticed that the entire world was orange, and I said “That’s nice, but I’m going back to bed.”
Luckily, I thought better of it. So, I grabbed my camera and walked out into the streets of Bondi. There I noticed that the world [...]

Conservation Volunteers of Australia

Lately I’ve been giving back.
You see, although Australia was once rather isolated from the rest of the world, it no longer is. And as part of an ever shrinking global humanity, it has experienced some of the pitfalls that occur when old footsteps reach new shores.
In this case, those footsteps brought with them mud from [...]

Two New Friends

I don’t even have to leave Sydney to enjoy nature and to hike some of the most beautiful trails I have ever seen. According to one website, there are 60 National Parks in and around Sydney.
One of these parks is Sydney Harbour National park, and it is a short ferry ride from downtown. This park [...]

Get This…

As many of you know, I was born in Wheeling, West Virginia and spent most of my life in and around the Upper Ohio Valley region of the state. I have a strong connection to W.V., mostly because of the time I spent hiking, camping and generally enjoying the mountainous terrain – most notably that [...]

A Rare Sight

Two weekends ago, I was able to enjoy one of my favorite hobbies – camping.  One of my colleagues knew that I was interested in camping and got me in touch with a friend of his who was planning a trip to the Yalwal area of New South Wales.
Yalwal is the site of an old [...]

To Snow or Not to Snow? That, My Friends…

A strange thing happened my first week in Sydney.  Or so they say it happened. I feel compelled to blog about this occurrence, because several people commented about it on one of my first blog posts.
What is this mysterious occurrence, you ask?
On Sunday July 27, the day after I arrived in Sydney, early reports indicated [...]

Making Camp

The other day, I took a walk through Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens on my way to the harbor. I did not explore the entire Gardens, so when I do, I will dedicate a post just to them.
What I want to write about today is an interesting group of creatures I encountered as I took my [...]

Relies on Fire

Today I met some Aussies who were no exception to the norm – very friendly. One of them worked closely with one of the ex-prime ministers of Australia. That explains why she was interested in hearing about my brother who lives in Washington D.C. The other is a cosmopolitan girl who introduced me to her [...]