“Do you come from a land Down Under?

Where women glow and men plunder?

Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?

You better run, you better take cover.”

Men at Work

Australia is a country that is on almost every traveler’s bucket list. Why is that? Well, we wanted to find out for ourselves and headed Down Under after our travels in New Zealand.

Our first days in Melbourne started out very well. We rented a small room in one of Melbourne’s suburbs because something more centrally located was very expensive. 

From here we wanted to plan the upcoming months, look into the golf courses we wanted to play, and search for the perfect campervan that would take us on our great Australian road trip.

One of the first things we realized in Australia is that the Aussies love abbreviations. And they love to shorten words, which sometimes led to misunderstandings. Avo in the Avro? Ah, what?

A Language Guide for Australia

Interested in everything that we experienced and saw?

We arrived in Melbourne, Victoria at the end of November 2019.  And at that time, we had no idea what was to come.

The devastating bushfires that ravished the country, the floods in Queensland, and the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests that rocked the world were the furthest things from our imagination as we arrived.

We traveled north through New South Wales, or NSW as it is known, and then saw many of the top highlights in Queensland before traveling south again through NSW.

On the way we did a few House Sits while slowly traveling along the east coast of Australia.

After COVID travel restrictions eased, we decided to travel back to Queensland and through the Outback into the Northern Territory. It was already very hot and the rainy season was about to start, but we wanted to see everything the NT has to offer.

Traveling further, we crossed the border into South Australia, where our travel plans were again altered due to COVID. After nine months of changing travel plans, we finally made it to Tasmania!

Our travels through Australia took place during a difficult time, and we weren’t able to complete our original travel plan. However, traveling through Australia in 2020 and 2021 gave us the opportunity to meet more locals, and see this incredible country from a different angle. We feel confident in saying that all the memorable moments would have never happened if not for COVID. We arrived as tourists, but truly felt that we left as Aussies!

Without the help from all the locals we met, and from our mates, we could have never made it!

Unfortunately, the borders to Western Australia never opened during our time, which means that the WA remains to be explored.

So Australia, we will be back!

Because we were in Australia for so long and had so many unforgettable experiences, we organized our blogs by state and territory. We made it to the Australian Capital Territory, or the ACT as it is known. However, our time in Canberra was during the devasting bushfires of 2019, and we didn’t explore as much as we hoped.

Unfortunately, the borders to Western Australia never opened during our time, and the WA remains to be explored!

Puttering around the World wishes to acknowledge and pay respect to the Australian Aboriginal Peoples as the traditional and original owners, and continuing custodians of this beautiful land.