Autumn in Australia & a lengthy road trip
Plus spotlight on the Faroe Islands
It’s autumn in Australia, officially the best time of the year, in my humble opinion. The days are mostly warm(ish), but there’s a crisp undertone to the mornings and nights. The leaves of deciduous trees are preparing their descent to the ground, slowly changing colour, from bright green to equally as vibrant reds, oranges, golds and browns.
They make an excellent compost – I’ll be collecting the castoffs from my own neighbourhood to add to my Vegepod, delivering what are probably much-needed nutrients to the soil.
I’m on the road at the moment, having driven around 1500 kilometres over the last week (with another roughly 1100 clicks required to make it back home). A lot of the drive has consisted of monotonous highway, but there has been some highlights:
the measures country towns take to attract tourist attention, including Big Things statues, painted silos and in central NSW’s case, a giant driveable solar system
seeing two emu run across the road, well ahead of the car, and saving the life of an echidna, as it waddled across the road, oblivious to the three cars that were about to come upon it (I slowed down so they had to as well!)
an epic sunset, with stormclouds abound – nature as always, puts on the ultimate show.
I’m quite excited for the trip back, which includes a detour down a new(ish) tourist drive, the Snowy Valleys Way. I’ll be using the new ‘Notes’ function on Substack to post highlights, mostly to get a feel for how it works. Seems like Twitter, but far less icky.
Spotlight on: the Faroe Islands
This windswept archipelago is located between Scotland and Iceland. It is incredibly green and chock-full of waterfalls.
I love travelling to places that are a little off the beaten path and especially adore Nordic countries. The Faroe Islands fit the bill – they don’t get nearly as many visitors as nearby Iceland and are a self-governing Nordic territory.
The islands are a popular hiking destination and are actually pretty driveable. You can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time and there’s no shortage of things to see and do.
I mostly travel to eat and had one of the best meals of my life at local restaurant KOKS (which has temporarily relocated to Greenland). A degustation, one of the first plates I ate was local sea urchin. It melted straight into my mouth, in what I can only describe as a taste sensation.
Have you been to the Faroes, or are you keen to go? Here’s a list of must-do activities and some tips for first-timers. Plus a guide to the top things to do in the island’s colourful and quirky capital, Tórshavn.
Other posts on Birdgehls.com
As this is the inaugural Substack post, I’ll share what’s been published so far this year (2023):
Some quick links
Thanks again for subscribing. Until next time!
-LC