That’s me wandering up Mount Owen in western Tasmania, feeling free, exploring new places – what makes me happiest, alive. Thinking back on it, I’m not sure if Tintin was the catalyst or if exploring was a twitch embedded deep within my lineage.
Tales of Tintin – adventures of lost gold in the Amazon, pyramids in Egypt – fascinated me from an early age. I would often dream of adventure, and near the end of high school I started thinking about different languages and how these strange sounds evolved. I began to realise the world was enormously varied and my life was just a tiny part of it. I wanted to wander far and discover it all.
Not long after, I picked a career as a chef because I could travel with it. Then I read my mum’s first book, an inspiring biography on my adventurous cousin. That was it. I now felt I had no choice. I had to go.
Years of travel has taught me many things, some of which are:
That I never really loved cooking
That my heart tells me wonderful things when I listen
That botfly maggots can lay eggs through thick corduroy
That people with very little can be so very kind
That jaguars sound like an owl before they purr
That Germans make great muesli
That I really love food (I was just on the wrong side of the counter)
That being in nature makes my eyes widen, my spirit soar
That parts of Bolivia look like the moon
That we’re all on a journey together
So what’s Travelling Type about anyway?
It’s a place where I share with you what I love to do. I particularly love culture and history, which you’ll find in a lot of my articles. You might have noticed I like the odd ‘mystery’ too. I think of myself as an open-minded sceptic (is that an oxymoron?), as I believe that while there’s a lot of ‘fluff’ in the world, there’s still much that lies undiscovered.
One of my favourite quotes, from Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) – “there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life.”
I also write about off-the-beaten-path type places, such as ghost towns, caves and spots that are (relatively) seldom visited in order to satiate the explorer in me.
What else will you get on Travelling Type?
Travelling Type is currently an Australian-based travel blog and I hope to inspire you to see more of this wonderful country, perhaps through new eyes. Here you’ll find articles on Indigenous Australian sites, great Australian drives, things to do in Australian cities, family travel and my local region in the Northern Rivers, NSW. Click on my Australia page to get some ideas for your next trip.
Update: February 2017 – I’m now focusing this blog on Tasmania, so I hope you’ll stay with me as I explore its culture and history and provide travel tips on this amazing island state.
Interested in working together? Please visit my press page.
Thanks for reading!
Andy.