Around Australia by Schooner

I'm a robust sort of individual.  Not much troubles me. But there are certainly some things that make feel a little bit sick inside. Calls from unlisted telephone numbers.  Turf wars between mommy bloggers.  Anybody called Russ. And, of course, tourism experiences describing themselves as 'authentic'. That last one gives me images of gift shops stuffed full of imported trinkets, and museums staffed by sad-faced pensioners wearing period costume.  Not to mention ghost tours, run by sad-faced pensioners wearing period costume. The signs had begun about three hours south of Cairns - 'Visit Charters Towers, Australia's Most Authentic Country Town'.  So I'd been feeling a bit queasy ever since Mission Beach. But this never-ending drive was meant to be the search for the Real Australia.  Surely, I'd find something in Charters Towers? Charters Towers, circa 1904.  Not much has changed, except the road is now sealed.  And we didn't see any...

In 2008, Mt Isa's mayor picked up some free publicity for putting out a call for ugly chicks to move to his town. Snaggletoothed harridans, he suggested, would be welcome on his patch, as blokes outnumbered the girls five to one, and the hard-drinking miners had the beer goggles on most of the time anyway. After visiting the mining town for the first time, I can tell you this:  the blokes aren't going to be winning any glamour awards anytime soon.  If you're a single female looking for a man, don't come here. In fact, Mt Isa is, in the most gentle terms I can use in a family blog, a shithole. If mineral resources hadn't been found there nearly a century ago, it would probably still be a blot on the map, sometimes passed by travellers on their way to the Red Centre. Instead, it's now a city of more than 25,000. It takes about 18 hours to drive to Mt Isa from Brisbane, or, if coming from the other direction, close to 25 hours from Darwin. That's ...