Travel

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  Breadth of field (Dunedin, New Zealand)

  First published in The Australian, August 2019

  01 Both rail and scenery enthusiasts will delight in the half-day train ride from Dunedin through Taieri Gorge to Pukerangi, and back again. This is no slick, Wi-Fi-enabled affair. Think scones, a locomotive lurch that has you waddling down the aisles, and on-board commentary full of “dad jokes”. But oh, the views. Horse studs, pine forests, ferny thickets and the sheer flinty sides of Taieri ...

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  This Daintree Dreamtime Tour Will Change How You See The Rainforest

  First published in AWOL, June 2019

  Mossman Gorge is an hour north of Cairns. It’s in the southern part of the world’s oldest rainforest, the Daintree. I cringe when people say “Australia has no old things”. Yeah, it does. They’re just not built structures (or ruins of them) like in Europe. The dreamtime walk at Mossman Gorge with a Kuku Yalanji guide may change your perspective on Australia’s Wet Tropics rainforest for good. How ...

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  Cool Tasmania: the MONA effect electrifies Launceston

  First published in The Australian Financial Review (Life & Leisure), April 2019

  The festival merch was a bit of a guffaw. The hats were hot pink and embroidered with eggplant and peach emojis (code for penis and butt) while the tote bags read: “London Paris New York Tokyo Berlin Launceston.” After a decade in Hobart, Mona Foma – the summer festival of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) – moved to Launceston this year, lowbrow gags and all. ...

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  Unhurried in Hatta

  First published in The CEO Magazine, March 2019

  Set in the Al Hajar mountains, not far from Dubai, the quiet town of Hatta won’t be quiet for long Even surrounded by water – which in Dubai, you commonly are – still, you can feel it: the dryness of the Arabian Desert the city is built on and within, second in size only to the Sahara. Not far from the city’s outskirts is the ...

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  Old and new speak

  First published in The Saturday Paper, February 2019

  I glide out of Changi Airport in a chauffeured limousine. I have a cold rolled face cloth, The Straits Times’ broadsheet and market updates murmuring on the radio. Had I not been met at arrivals with a ‘HENNESSY’ sign I’d suspect a bullish Asian businessman remained curbside for pick up. My imposter syndrome suggests that guy wouldn’t be sliding around quite so much on the ...

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  Dubai Pool Clubs Are The Freshest Way To Holiday

  First published in AWOL, December 2018

  In a city as persistently hot as Dubai – its coolest month, January, still has average temperatures of 24 degrees and summer temps often top 40 degrees – finding places to swim is more necessity than desire. Luckily, Dubai pool clubs and beach clubs are like those in no other city. The good and very glam news is that travellers on a budget don’t need to be ...

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  How #MeToo has changed the way women travel

  First published in Australian Financial Review, October 2018

  This story was first published on adventure.com “Boyfriend? Husband? I liiiike you,” hisses the young Moroccan man, shaking a menu at me. I veer around him and continue to the ATM on the other side of the square. Dirhams withdrawn, I return to my hotel the long way. A second guy, older, sitting in the shade of a doorway, makes kissing noises to get my attention. ...

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  Moroccan Rhapsody

  First published in the Australian Financial Review (Life & Leisure), August 2018

  At first we’re told the medina has 10,000 alleyways. “It’s a labyrinth,” says our guide, Mohamed. The ancient, walled part of Fès, Morocco, is the world’s best place to get lost, he says. “But have you actually lost people?” I ask. “Four times,” Mohamed says in a tone that pleads, “do not make it five, Kate.” The next day, Fès local, Khadya, tells us there ...

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  Norway’s Future Library

  The Saturday Paper, January 2018

  “I have finished writing my contribution to Future Library,” wrote Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón on April 27, 2017. “It is a moment of relief and exhilaration, of exhaustion and joy. From this moment on I have entered the next level of the game, where I must keep a secret to the end of my days.” Sjón had followed authors Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell into an extraordinary durational ...

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  Getting high in New York City

  The Australian Financial Review, Life and Leisure, January 2018

  On Seventh Avenue in New York City, 45,000 people walk by the Moxy hotel every day. “Try walking upstream to Penn Station at peak hour and you’ll have a problem,” says the hotel’s managing director, Gary J. Thomas. The big fish at Moxy HQ, a brand launched by Marriott in 2014, have done the sums. The new midtown hotel plans to reel the foot traffic in and ...