Johann Herbig was a Prussian tailor who lived inside a hollow tree. His wife, Caroline Rattey, a Lutheran Pole, was a born survivor.
On the day of her dad’s funeral in 1857, the plump lass was stabbed by a burglar and left to hang on a wattle tree. Her weight, however, saved her life, the branch [...]
Imagine a bank smack-bang beside a brothel – and don’t make any jokes about hasty withdrawals. Opened in 1900, the Union Bank of Broome, on the northern tip of WA, was busy with pearling capital for two generations.
The brothel was flat-out too, as was the opium den and mah-jong saloon in the same red-light district. [...]
Claire Adams was the Claire Danes of her day. During the 1920s the petite Canadian sylph graced the big screen in such silent gems as Yellow Fingers, The Painter Flapper and Oh, You Tony! [Exclamation mark hers.]
Her fame was a passport around the world. She stormed the States, wowed Europe and in 1937, popped across [...]
The Barcoo Hotel of Blackall, in outback Queensland, has a Hall of Flame – a gallery of the many pubs the town has lost to fire, including the Barcoo itself, twice!
The Barcoo in fact was once briefly owned by Jackie Howe, the world’s fastest shearer who clipped 321 sheep by hand in 7 hours, 40 [...]
Superbowl is not just the climax of American football, but the grand-daddy of dunes 40 minutes’ drive from Kalbarri, midway up the WA coast.
Picture a wok with 70m walls, pitched at 45 degrees, and the terror should be creeping into your system. Since Kalbarri Sandboarding doesn’t just take you to the lip – they also [...]
The movie, Apocalypse Now is not the only place to see helicopters and mind-altering substances in the same frame.
For those with cast-iron bellies (and plumpish wallets) you can hop aboard a Red Squirrel, or Bell Long Ranger, and chop-chop your way around Sydney’s outskirts on a grand-scale pub tour.
Kicking off with bubbly, the chartered chopper [...]
HOBART, TAS – How would Joseph Conrad describe the wreck? Gnawed by time? Abject before the eyes of God?
Either way, novelist Joseph Conrad (nee Korzeniowski) once skippered the ship left to rust in Otago Bay, though when she was a seafaring barque, and not a coal barge working the Derwent River.
Speaking of wrecks, Bowen Bridge [...]
Once upon a time, back in the 1920s, the sick and frail swam in Paralana Hot Springs. Bubbling at 60 degrees, the waters were deemed therapeutic, with more kapow than Lourdes.
Unfortunately they got that last bit right. The steam is a blend of carbon dioxide, helium and radon. That’s right, radon. This slimy radioactive soup [...]
LAUNCESTON, TAS – Bigger and whiter than Moby Dick, the Free Church of Scotland lacked a quorum of worshippers. As a last resort, it switched to Presbyterian, but soon the second flock fizzled out as well. The august church, with lavish spire and majestic masonry, was deconsecrated in 1981.
Metal sheets covered up the Holy Spirit [...]
When the Cairns Courthouse changed address in 1992, moving uptown and up-market, the old courthouse became the Courthouse Hotel.
Step into the main bar and the solemn vibe still pervades the chamber, despite the Cougar Bourbon posters, the footy replay, the pool tables and the glare of the Coral Sea.
Though the grand magisterial days have [...]