The Sapphire Coast

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The Sapphire Coast

The introduction of a new public holiday in Victoria, the "Friday before the Australian Football League Grand Final" presented a great opportunity to put as much space between ourselves and the football as possible. I was buoyed on by our previous whale watching expeditions and having recently watched a documentary about the killer whales of Eden is southeastern New South Wales to the point of proposing a trip to the so-called Sapphire coast, the marketing name for the Bega Valley and surrounding coastline. The driving would be plentiful, but there would be whales!

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The Australian Capital Territory

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The Australian Capital Territory

I was fresh off the plane from Europe and once again found myself in Melbourne. When I had moved to Paris, I had endured the winter in Melbourne and arrived just as the autumn in Paris was getting going. The flip side of this is when I left, I had enjoyed the European summer - although it was unreasonably cold during my time in Germany - and the Australian summer was really starting to get going. A fixture of the Australian physics world is the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) congress, which was to be help in Canberra. There was a large contingent of students and postdocs heading up, so rather than flying, it was more economical (and fun) to hire a van and drive up; it would also allow us to do some adventuring.

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Iceland

/ Iceland/
Iceland

Previously I have mentioned destinations that were “must-see” during my time in Europe (Zermatt, Norway), but there was nothing more must-see than Iceland. Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by this remote island that seemed to have some of the wildest landscape going around. It was planned from day one of my time in France that I would be going to Iceland for a couple of weeks during summer to really try and see everything it has to offer. The trip could accurately be titled something like “driving to places in Iceland to go hiking”, which should mount a convincing argument for why one should visit this remarkable place.

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Provence

/ Provence/
Provence

When one thinks of Provence, normally one thinks of hilltop villages surrounded by fields of lavender. We had visited Provence previously, but for outdoor activities, but not the classic provençal experience. The weekend of le quatorze julliet had once again arrived, so we wanted to be somewhere to enjoy the fireworks; googling around let me know that Avignon was a good choice, so we set our sights on a weekend of enjoying all that Provence has to offer and seeing what is supposed to be one of the best fireworks displays in the country.

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