It's been a lovely summer in the southern Appalachians, with hardly a day in the 90's, and I rue its passing in advance. Especially since where we're about to travel, we'll be greeted by the shank of winter. One thing that can be said for southern Australia just now: it's not tourist season. On our first trip to Australia, some 14 years ago, we ran the east coast Port Douglas to Hobart. Now it's time for the circle tour of points west. And so we're off in a few days, for our late summer replacement holiday. Replacement, because for reasons I'm beginning to get over now, Australia wasn't our first choice of destination. Not that we won't love cruising aboard Sydney's ferries. I have the idea that weather permitting, my camera and I will just hop aboard and see where we go. Melbourne holds out the promise of an Australian rules football match, Melbourne v. Carlton, a rivalry, I gather. R W Apple's 1996 New York Times love letter to Perth is reason enough alone to fly west. We'll stop in Broome and Darwin and scoot across the Timor Sea for a brief visit to Dili before the big finish, one of the world's great train journeys aboard the Ghan, across the "Red Centre," the continent north to south in 51 hours and ten minutes. We'll post a fairly raw, unedited stream of photos to EarthPhotos.com. Give us a bookmark and watch here starting about the third week of August. And we'll have the odd thing to say about the things we see on the blog Common Sense and Whiskey. Why not RSS subscribe for free? Follow the link and you can subscribe on the main page.

As we say in the Appalachians, y'all, "Come go with us."

Here's the remote avail chart for this trip: