6PR with Burgo: We’re heading down south … with a blanket

In the 1990’s my brother sang in The Neptunes and one of their best songs was, ‘Down South’. It was about surfing, heading down south once you’ve finished the exams and having a good time before having to come back to Perth. Just saying ‘down south’ is enough. If you’re from Western Australia you know it means Margaret River, wineries, beaches, forests and lots of small towns along the way.

It also means camping grounds, farmstays, old pubs with a few rooms upstairs, forest cottages and beachside resorts. Enjoy the link below to my chat with Burgo.

When you head down south maybe our travel talk will remind you to pack an extra blanket and remember to stop at those roadside stalls for chutneys, jams and pickles. And remember to stay somewhere nice which for me is always the Pullman Bunker Bay. It has everything and is close to everything!

Pullman Bunker Bay just west of Dunsborough
My legs and feet always look good at Bunker Bay
Always make time to stop for local produce
Always pack a blanket

6PR with Burgo! Sports Tourism is all about saying, ‘I was there!’

On 6PR Weekend Wrap Up, I found myself sharing the airwaves with John Burgess, an icon of Australian television and radio. A tv game show host legend and a radio dj when dj’s were gods of the airwaves. It was very cool to laugh our way through stories about sports tourism.


From callers with tales about naked West Indian cricketers to iconic events and venues around the world and close to home, with a lot of laughter we covered more ground than the MCG.

Enjoy listening to the first half of the show in the file below. Just like a Grand Prix driver, we go off track from time to time but we got to the finish line in style!

6PR – Where are the best bakeries in Western Australia?

It was lots of fun to learn where our best bakeries are. Heats in Cockburn was a surprise that many callers say have the best donuts. Rottnest Bakery wasn’t a surprise nomination and it’s a great example of what we like about our favourite bakeries when we travel. They’re part of that rite of passage moment that defines your arrival. You haven’t really arrived on Rottnest until you’ve been to the bakery.

Williams Woolshed has a sausage roll that will get you through the day and Mount Barker with its range of gourmet pies was a popular choice.

A good bakery can be a reason to travel or it might just be the traditional break on your way to somewhere down the road.

The cream bun at Rottnest Bakery will give you the sugar rush you need to cycle around the island
Williams Woolshed sausage rolls have become a reason to stop in Williams for my family (pic Williams Woolshed)
Many bakeries are on the main streets of country towns. The Toodyay Bakery has a balcony veranda overlooking the Main Street, perfect for watching the world go by as you wait for your cottage pie to cool down.

6PR Weekend Wrap: Animal experiences on our travels

On 6PR with Rusty, we swam with dolphins, watched some bilbies and even made time to debate whether a cream bun should have mock cream or real cream.

Enjoy listening to the show on the bar below. Let me know if it inspires you to head down to Dryandra or Rockingham or anywhere that’s got an animal experience you can be a part of.

Have a Go News: Cunderdin on the ground and in the air

Astronaut Michael Collin’s once wrote that he wondered what John McGee, author of every aviators favourite poem, High Flight, would have written if he’d been able to go into space. I wonder if my own words, far less grander than High Flight, would improve with more height. I don’t think so. Gliding above the flat, wide landscape below me was a remarkable experience that I’m happy to share with you in the published story below.

ABC Statewide across Western Australia heads down our favourite roads

On ABC Statewide we took a drive down our favourite roads. From Broome to Cape Leveque in the far north, to the roads of the Midwest during wildflower season, the big loop from Perth to Kalgoorlie, Esperance, Albany and back to Perth and how about the Zig Zag Scenic Drive up on Gooseberry Hill?

Personally, I still think an unsealed road in the Wheatbelt is hard to beat but the Broome to Cape Leveque road (back in the day) was a great experience.

Broome to Cape Leveque – couldn’t be redder, couldn’t be bluer, couldn’t be happier.

The art of this great staycation is right there on the walls

The Adnate Art Series hotel is a hotel you might noticed in Perth because of the huge mural on the eastern face of the hotel. It’s one of the biggest murals in the world and is a big hint to what lies within.

Want to know more? Enjoy reading my story, published in Have a Go Newspaper, distributed throughout Western Australia and online.

haveagonews.com.au

With a pool overlooking busy Hay Street and His Majesty’s Theatre just a minutes walk away this is the perfect cbd hotel to spend some time away having fun.

A very cool bar with very cool drinks and very cool staff. They won’t even throw you out if you’ve got wet feet from the pool.

ABC Weekend Explorer … how murals are changing the world around us

On ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast we found mural trails in Kuching and Milan and in ever increasing numbers here in Perth and our regional communities. Where’s your favourite mural? Where’s your worst?

Enjoy listening to our discussion below and then find a way to find a mural next weekend, and then walk to another one, and another one. You get the idea.

This mural in Kuching is one of my favourites and recently found its way onto a list of the Top 100 Murals of the World.

ABC Weekend Explorer … time to get some red dust on your boots

For ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast we thought we’d head over the escarpment, through the Wheatbelt and head up the wide open road to Kalgoorlie.

We had callers with tales of brothels and gold in the gutters and the culture of a community that sometimes gets mistaken for being only about the colour of your high viz shirt.

Enjoy listening to our show in the file below and learn about rotundas with Afghan architecture, big holes in the ground, wide streets and where to play Two-Up!

Astrotourism … a new frontier

On the Weekend Explorer for ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast, I recently explored space and rediscovered my memories of Skylab and discovered observatories, big dishes, astrotourism towns, astronauts in Carnarvon, emus in the sky and starlapse wonder by local photographer, Dan Paris.

Listen to the link below to learn more about Astrotourism and some really good music but really bad space jokes:

And for a mesmerising starlapse above Mount Augustus and other great Western Australian sites, go to @danparisphotography