When I think of backpacking, I think of dragging a battered backpack along the road and changing from buses to trains to coaches to trains to buses. I’m not sure if this next admission will make me lose my Backpacker Cool Points (Ha… like I had any of them) but in the whole time I’ve…
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An old refrain has rung loud and true this week: sexual and reproductive health and rights are integral to the empowerment of women. A number of organisations congregated in New York on Monday to discuss the role of said health care and rights in women’s lives at an International Planned Parenthood Foundation forum. Western Hemisphere…
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Since September, I’ve felt like I’ve been constantly moving. Whether it was driving down the west coast, or across the Nullarbor or the Great Ocean Road, or flying to Sydney and then flying to Hobart and roadtripping around Tassie. I have just over two months left on my visa and I’m staying in Victoria. I…
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This clip of a mutant giant ninja dog received more views on YouTube in 2014 than any Australian movie trailers. It’s a sad fact that we’re better known for our kangaroos than we are for our Luhrmanns, and that even great Aussie films like Samson and Delilah won’t scrape up half the sales of shitboxes…
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When I last wrote, I was about to embark across the Nullarbor, the iconic journey spanning the lower part of Australia. I’d been warned that the Nullarbor was, well, a bit tedious after you get over the fact that there is nothing above knee height in view for possibly three days. The novelty wears thin….
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I’m writing this while sitting in a soggy Kombi watching out the window as the predicted thunderstorm rolls in. When I first arrived in Sydney all those months ago, I was talking with a woman in a hostel who said that the south-west was her favourite place in Australia. She described the white beaches, the…
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Seriously? Again? Bronywn Bishop already had her go with her ‘ban the hijab in schools’ mantra in 2005. Now it’s time to up the ante with the ‘ban the burqa’ mantra. It boggles my mind when political figures like Jacquie Lambie draw links between the burqa and terrorism. What’s the connection? This ‘ban the burqa’…
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This week, the ABC has devoted lots of airtime to bringing mental illness into the spotlight. Titled ‘Mental As’, the suite of programming coincides with Mental Health Week and is all about removing the stigma from illnesses that are not always physically apparent, yet can be truly debilitating. On Wednesday night, viewers were treated to…
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One of the best pieces of advice I could give to someone who is thinking of travelling is not to make concrete plans. The beauty of travel is the spontaneity of it and if you have a strict itinerary that you have to stick to, you’re going to miss out on a lot. In my…
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I am of firm believer that everyone should go on a road trip at least once in their lives. I don’t mean a long car journey somewhere – that doesn’t count. I mean a proper road trip. One that lasts days of driving to places, and stopping when you feel like it. One where you…
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At the moment, I’m in a rather enviable position compared to most foreign backpackers in Australia. I have just had the last of my 88 days signed off for my second year Visa and I have only been here for just over four months. Now I have almost eight months up my sleeves to…
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My name is Brianna and I am a former employee of the Australian Public Service. This may sound like a dirty little secret or admitting that I am in some kind of 12-step recovery program for an addiction, but if you are anything like me three years ago, you may not really know what it…
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Unless you have avoided all forms of media over the last few weeks, then you have most likely heard about Baby Gammy. But on the off chance that you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, a Western Australia couple paid for a surrogate in Thailand and she gave birth to twins, one of…
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Josh (Josh Thomas) is a gangly, light-haired young man who describes himself as looking like a ‘fifty-year-old baby,’ and he has just ordered a massive sundae. He’s talking about not being able to properly enjoy things, and complaining about his ‘rubbish face.’ Across from him, his girlfriend Claire (Caitlin Stasey) waits for him to…
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