northern territory | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Oct

Roadtrip to Uluru and Australia’s Red Centre, Michelin Keys now rate the world’s best hotels & dogs on planes

As Australia celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Uluru Handback, host Belle Jackson shares how you can take a bite of the red dust on a roadtrip around the Red Centre Way.

From Alice Springs/Alice Springs to Watarrka/Kings Canyon and Uluru, here’s your list of where to stay, what to eat and some of the best experiences on a drive holiday in the Northern Territory.

Also, the world’s best hotels are recognised in the new Michelin Key hotels guide; Australia’s Lizard Island is the only the three-key hotel, with Longtitude 131 near Uluru, Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island and Drift House in Port Fairy, Victoria. Click here for the full list.

And dogs on planes – are you on board? Virgin Australia has become Australia’s first airline to allow dogs in the cabin, launching its new trial, as well as more generous carry-on limits.

Belle’s recommendations on the Red Centre Way include:

Ooraminna Station, 40 mins from Alice Springs, https://www.ooraminna.com.au/
Ormiston Gorge, West Macdonnell Ranges https://nt.gov.au/parks/find-a-park/tjoritja-west-macdonnell-national-park/ormiston-gorge
Kings Creek Station https://kingscreekstation.com.au/
Ayres Rock Resort, https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/
Standley Chasm, West Macdonnell Ranges, https://standleychasm.com.au/
Northern Territory Tourism https://northernterritory.com/

Other places mentioned:
Melbourne Winery https://www.melbournewinery.com.au/
Virgin Australia https://www.virginaustralia.com/au/en/

#northernterritory

Jul

The World Awaits podcast goes to Spain and Nauru

It’s been a big couple of weeks in GlobalSalsa World – Turkiye, Australia’s Northern Territory and I’ve also also refreshed my podcast, with a fresh new name and a little nipping and tucking at the format. It’s now The World Awaits podcast, and you can listen to the latest edition here .

This week, fellow travel writer Kirstie Bedford and I take you to Spain and Nauru – at opposite ends of the tourism spectrum. I interviewed one of Australia’s best known travel writers, Ben Groundwater, who is a Spain aficionado and total foodie. Ben invited me on his Flights of Fancy podcast, with Nine Media, a few times – sadly now defunct (but still live if you’d like to take a listen), so I asked him to return the favour.

After embedding himself in San Sebastian in the Basque country, for a year, Ben is a great one to chat about how overlooked Spain is outside the major hotspots such as Barcelona. You know I”m a lover of this country as well, especially after my train adventure in Andalucia last year, which started in (very touristy) Seville, but pushed on through to Jerez, Cadiz and then I ended up in Spain’s most beautiful pueblo blanco, Vejer de la Frontera. If the chat makes you hungry, you can join Ben on one of his foodie tours to San Sebastian with World Expeditions, next year.

You’ll also hear from Lisa Pagotto, founder of Crooked Compass tours. Lisa goes seriously off track in her travels – she’s talking to Kirstie about travelling in the beautiful island of Nauru, best known for its role as the host site of Australia’s detention centre for refugees (please don’t go there, a particularly ugly part of Australia’s foreign policies). I travelled with Crooked Compass on a week-long hike in Palestine a few years ago. How’s that for off-beat travel?

Anyway, tune in, I hope you enjoy the show, and let us know what you think, or where you’d like us to go next on the podcast.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever else you get good ear candy.

Sep

State of the nation: Jimmy Rees’s Australia

What saved you during Australia’s lockdowns? Was it cake? Boxes of wine or chocolates? Netflix, or perhaps it was Jimmy Rees.

The Melbourne-based comedian found himself unemployed at the beginning of the pandemic, and in his own words, just started mucking around with videos that he posted on social media – see media www.jimmyrees.com.au And he went viral.

In parodying states and territories’ stances on such issues as border closures, mask-wearing and the convoluted rules around daily exercise and social interaction (“yes, you can book a restaurant for 20 people. No, you can’t have 20 people over to your home for a dinner party”) he revealed much about Australia and Australians.

I’m a fan – I’ve been a fan since I watched him as a children’s TV presenter (yes, I may have potty-trained my daughter while watching him play Jimmy Giggle to a stuffed owl). So I leapt at the opportunity to interview him for this travel feature in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers’ Traveller section, where we asked him to cast his laser eye over the states and territories.

You can click here to read this cover story, where I play straight woman to Jimmy’s wild wanderings, as he covers bogans, wild animals, closed rooftop bars and the Flannelette Curtain (it’s in Tassie, if you’re interested…)

Ah, the Gold Coast. The weather, the beaches, the cruisy lifestyle. Everyone’s got a sports car, and there’s lots of bling. It’s flashy and it’s full of cashed-up bogans. (Actually, I don’t think you really need to say there are bogans in Queensland. It’s like a silent “k”). But Queenslanders are like, ‘yeah, we know, and it’s fine. But we have the best weather, so where would you rather be?’ Well, perhaps not Brisbane. You fly into it and then realise it really doesn’t have a beach and you ask yourself ‘Why did I come to Brisbane? I should have just gone to the Goldie or the Sunshine Coast to be with all of the cashed-up bogans’.

Enjoy our wander through the Lucky Country!

Nov

The hidden isles: Six of Australia’s lesser-known island adventures

The island theme continues here at GlobalSalsa – which makes sense for us Melburnians, who have just come out of 181 days (give or take) lockdown. Some of us are leaping around on the city beaches, happy to be rubbing oiled shoulders with our neighbours. Others of us are looking for anywhere but here, preferably without the threat of a pandemic. Enter the island holiday.

My latest story for Traveller suggests some lesser-known islands around Australia for holidays. So I pushed the boat out, and went to the Cocos Keeling Islands. Closer to Indonesia than Australia, the Cocos are four-hour flight west of Perth, a few wee scraps of land in the Indian Ocean. Continue left and you’ll eventually hit Mauritius (you’d hit the Maldives if you veered north)

Also in the round-up is a lighthouse stay off the NSW south coast, a tiny triangle of land off Tasmania’s Freycinet coast and the Northern Territory’s contribution, and island in the Windex-blue Arafura Sea.

If you fancy a little escapism, click here to read my low-key island stays.

Oct

Budget isles: cheap stays on Australia’s islands

This was going to be my year of the islands. My list included a food festival on Tasmania’s Flinders Island, a visit to another Bass Strait island, King Island, where my grandparents farmed the land after WWII, and Queensland’s sparkly jewels were also on the list.

My latest story, published this week in the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, is in response to a recent story that Australia’s millenials don’t enjoy travelling around their own country because it’s expensive and boring (if you want to delve more deeply into it, have a look here).

Yeah, we’re never going to be another Bali, because we have minimum wages, we try to discourage exploitation of animals etc etc. But you can still camp on Whitehaven Beach, internationally lauded as one of the world’s most beautiful beaches (that’s a debate for another time), for under $40 a night.

From Kangaroo Island in South Australia to Magnetic Island off Townsville on the Queensland coast, here are a few suggestions to get you going. One thing to remember: islands are islands and therefore take a bit more work to get to. But while you’re kayaking through turquoise waters, or flying over a pod of dolphins to get to said island, isn’t the journey as important as the destination?

Mar

One morning, two icons: touring the Top End, Australia

It’s a strange think to talk of lack of time when time is all we’ve got at the moment as we while away our time in self isolate.

Yet time is always precious: I wrote this short piece about a new air tour of two of the Northern Territory’s most popular national parks – Litchfield and Kakadu, just before this COVID-19 virus took hold of our country.

The little local airline – NT Air – says the best time to visit this part of the Top End is now, just after the Wet, when the territory is deluged by monsoonal rain, and everything is green and glowing.

The Wet will come again, this virus will pass. Those benefiting are not just shareholders in gold, supermarkets, toilet paper manufacturers and face mask factories. Nature, too, is benifiting from our global lockdown: she will heal as we stay away from our most loved destinations, including our national parks.

So put this trip on your inspiration list, to fly via light aircraft between the so-called Lost City rock formation in Litchfield to the billabongs and dramatic escarpments of Kakadu.

Click here to read the full story, published in the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers.

Sep

Healthy hiking holidays: from Patagonia to Tasmania and Spain’s classic Camino

Last month, I found myself hiking along a section of Chilean Patagonia’s most famous walking route, the W.

The route curls around the Paine Massif, a majestic family of jagged peaks, whose tops were shrouded in cloud and cloaked in snow. Condors hunted between their teeth, and the air jolted to the sound of avalanches, hundreds of meters above me.

It all taps into the recent story I wrote for Prevention magazine, a women’s health publication, about five great hiking holidays. In it, I included the W, but also Tasmania’s new Three Capes Walk and the Larapinta Trail in Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as the Kumano Kodo in Japan and the Spanish classic ultra-long walk, the Camino de Santiago.

Why do we walk? To get fit? To slow down? To go on pilgrimage?

The benefits include better health and spending time in nature, while some walks, like the Kumano Kodo and the Camino, were very deliberately designed to create time to clear your head and sift and sort through the bigger problems in life, says Di Westaway, founder of Wild Women On Top.

“Finishing a trek that takes you outside your comfort zone is a confidence-building exercise. It might be really arduous at high altitude, with plenty of “OMG, what was I thinking?” moments, but that exhilaration and achievement afterwards is a huge personal lift,” Diane adds.

You can read the story online, or you can just pull your hiking boots on now…

Jul

Hotel review: Hilton Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

It’s peak season up in Darwin, as southerners rush north to escape winter (and hey, I’m not blaming anybody here). The Hilton is the city’s only official five-star hotel, and the pool is one fine reason to check in.

The 236-room hotel has held this city-centre position for years: old Darwin hands will remember the Hilton Darwin as a Crowne Plaza. The hotel is just behind the mall, and should you feel the need to swim with crocs, the croc hotpot of Crocosaurus Cove is just a few steps away.

Click here to take a look at the review I wrote for the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age.

Jul

Hotel review: Hilton Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

It’s peak season up in Darwin, as southerners rush north to escape winter (and hey, I’m not blaming anybody here – anyone notice that this is the second hotel pool shot I’ve blogged this week?)

The Hilton is the city’s only official five-star hotel, and the pool is one fine reason to check in.

Click here to take a look at the review I wrote for the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age.

Jun

Light shines on Red Centre

Australia’s Red Centre is the dictionary definition of remote – scattered hamlets of humanity, vast cattle stations and long, open drives. Perfect for the baby roadtripper. No, really. It’s just a three-hour drive on sealed roads between Uluru and Ayres Rock Resort to Kings Canyon, add on another leg and you’ve hit the heady delights of our favourite outback town, Alice Springs.

If it piques your interest, take a look at my story for BNE magazine on the Red Centre Way, a classic route for a cruisy long-weekender roadtrip, which can easily stretch out for a week.

Click here to read more.

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