An unexpected stop prompts the question: Just what is the deal with the Dog on the Tuckerbox?
On the road to Gundagai
The best you can say about some cars is that they give you a place to sit when you’re stuck in traffic. This one, though, a 1999 Toyota Corolla in gunmetal blue, felt like an...
A ten-day camel trek through the South Australian outback. With your parents.
Lessons from camels
For reasons that are still unclear to me, I agreed to go on a ten-day camel trek with my parents. When they invited me my initial reaction was I’ve got a whole LIFE going on here...
The prospect of 12 hours in Singapore airport gives rise to an existential crisis
The stopover
My trip overseas had been a failure, and not even a spectacular one. I’d gone away only with the vague plan of coming home feeling better. I sat around for days in romantic villas...
There’s more to throwing a party than putting out some dips
The perfect host
The first time I attended one of Manoli’s parties was around the time of the global financial crisis. I remember him smashing out the lights of his own house so that we might “...
When European Christmas meets Australian suburbia
A beautiful mess
My mother was an atheist, but she was a Catholic atheist, so she had certain expectations. At Christmas she watched us run around in the heat like savages, chasing cricket balls,...
When you’re driving a bus full of tourists through the Australian outback, a packet of chewing gum may be your only hope
The art of tour guiding
Tour guiding in Australia is easy on some levels: you feed your charges well, take them to the right places, and try to keep their feet warm. But extreme weather, mechanical...
Catching a ride with strangers is harder than it looks
The dying art of hitchhiking
I stood outside Pakenham a hopeful man, trying to hitch a ride from Melbourne to Sydney. I watched all the sensible people drive past. After two hours I was so sunburnt I looked...
My brief and successful career as a landscape labourer
I had a brief and successful career as a landscape labourer. We were building some big park for a new residential community. It was my job to dig trenches, lay pipes and trudge...
We don’t daydream now we have iPhones
Last year we celebrated New Year’s in one of Australia's worst towns. There was no phone reception and no way of contacting the outside world, which explained in part...
A response to Robyn Annear (on Australian literary magazines)
Dear Robyn,
I am writing to say that I enjoyed reading and appreciated your article in the Monthly.
I'm interested to hear if your criticism is with literary...
