Australia is far from the only country with a bizarre fetish for brassy highway-side attractions (a road trip across the likes of Canada, the United States of America and New Zealand will confirm this) but nobody, it seems, engineers the garish and jumbo quite like Oz. What do you expect from a country-continent with two … More

A little over a year ago I was strolling through Buenos Aires, admiring the grandiose monuments that dot the Argentina capital – austere generals on horseback, defiant revolutionary leaders, proud presidents – and remarking to an amiga porteña that, while impressive, it all felt a little archaic and propagandistic. We eventually arrived at Plaza de … More

New Zealand. Stunning proof that good things come in small packages. This well-worn cliché, in one form or another, gets trotted out by default with every profile of the island country in the southwest Pacific. So too, inevitably, do a few others. New Zealand. See a continent’s worth of geography in one country. New Zealand. … More

With over 200 cellar doors within an hour’s drive of Adelaide, South Australia is indeed the paragon wine capital of Oz. But stellar grape harvests hardly comprise the only pull in the state, as this digest of South Australia’s best so ardently evinces. There is sublime Adelaide of course, Australia’s fifth-largest city and the vibrant … More

For native sons Baz Luhrmann and Peter Weir, Sydney, New South Wales and, indeed, Australia, is much more than home but a lucid backdrop and stand-in for films like The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge!, The Cars That Ate Paris and Picnic at Hanging Rock. But domestic directors are far from the only ones to shoot … More

My husband and I are avid birders and will be in Australia this autumn for a long holiday. Where do you recommend we go to see some exotic native bird life? Rachel L., London Scarlet-chested Parrot, Gluepot Reserve, South Australia – Photo credit As you probably well know, Rachel, Australia is indeed for the birds … More