It started with a list.

Granted, with my dad it often starts with a list. Sunscreen. Bug spray. Very groovy flap hat. That sort of thing. Old joggers – because you will fall in the water. Crash helmet. Because you will hit your head on a submerged rock and die.

We’re canoeing down the river in Kangaroo Valley, on the south coast of New South Wales, and dad won’t let anyone in their canoe without presenting a ticked-off checklist of necessities. Change of knickers. Sunglasses. Mum-made sandwiches. We have it all.

We’ve been told there are rapids and that we’d be supplied with helmets accordingly. The water is high given all the recent rain and someone carked it in this river a few years ago when it flooded, a kid on a school trip from Sydney.

In the event, the rapids were little whooshes of foam over five centimetres of water. Still, and somewhat amusingly to the rest of us, my sister’s boyfriend manages to capsize the both of them in it, leaving the rest of us to scoop up their flotsam of camera cases, water bottles and oars floating down the river.

For the most part, though, it’s altogether tranquil going. Particularly as dad’s an especially deft rower, so I spend much of the day with my feet up and oar in the bottom of the boat.

Six canoes in total, the twelve of us float downstream, pausing occasionally to yell at each other over the roar of the cicadas “PEACEFUL, isn’t it?” “Yeah, TRANQUIL – BEWDIFUL day!” and park in amongst the branches overhanging the river for snacks, only to find the canoes suddenly teeming with spiders. The water dragons, scores of them that line the banks, thankfully don’t find their way into the boats.

Crash helmets might have come in useful later, on the minibus trip back to the canoe depot where the cars are parked. With two dozen people (plus one wasp that kept on trying to get in through my

window) piled in, plus all the canoes dangling off the back of the trailer, we have some slight momentum issues trying to climb the hill leading up from Bendeela camping ground. No doubt the lone cyclist trailing behind us is somewhat alarmed to see the sight of us barreling backwards down the hill, engine stalled and brakes screeching.

But after a few more false starts and the distinct whiff of the gear box burning we’re on our way again, careening around a hairpin bend, which, thankfully, no one is coming around. Back to dry – and flat – land again.

Some of you may have heard of a recent Aussie tourism ad which ends with an undisputably hot bikini-clad chick lying on a beach saying “So where the bloody hell are you?” For more on the travesty of it being rejected internationally on account of the ’swearing’, check out this post by The Travel Show. Though may I just point out that the plural of dunny is, in fact, dunnies. Although good on you for not caring - very Aussie of you.

Huskisson, not far from the World’s Best Hamburger Shop That Wasn’t, is named after William Huskisson, the unlucky Secretary of the Colonies who was run over by a train in 1830. His tenure was followed by an enterprising fellow named Dent who arrived in these parts looking for timber to nick off with for shipbuilding in Sydney, which was not altogether bad as it kicked off industry in the area.

His namesake is the unassuming Dent Street, which leads down to the Lady Denman maritime museum (where an old Sydney ferry is parked on dry land inside a shed). The complex includes Timbery’s aboriginal workshop, where boomerang throwing classes are given, and, for thrill seekers, there’s also a “world-standard collection of surveying instruments.”

What is quite entertaining is a stroll along the Wetland Walk, an elevated boardwalk which kicks off beyond the fish lagoon and leads between the native mangroves of Currambene Creek. Now this is a seriously creepy place.

The cicadas are louder here than mid-city traffic, and the muddy wetland is teeming with thousands of crabs which burrow into the mud as you pass by. The mangroves’ roots are like ultra sucking machines, digging into the muddy earth far below seabed level. Part way to the viewing platform, on the right side, is the skeleton of a long abandoned dinghy. It’s not the sort of place I’d like to be caught in the dark.

There is one thing I came to Australia for. Family? Neh. Christmas? Herm. No, it was hamburgers.

Near my folks’ place, in Vincentia on Jervis Bay, is the best hamburger shop in the world. Granted, normally when people say such like I ask them if they’ve really been to every one of them in the world. But when it comes to hamburgers – like my international quest for cheesecake – I believe I’ve taken a pretty good shot at it.

For a negligible $2.80 you can pick up a thick and juicy rissole dripping in beetroot juice and a slice of pineapple – cos you’re not a real Aussie if that combo leaves you squeamish – and that’s AU$2.80, which is less than a buck fifty in euros.

Anyway, today we drove to Vincentia specifically for this purpose. We parked out on the street and were salivating by the time we shoved our way through the supermarket, along the arcade, down the mall to the corner…

…where the best hamburger shop in the world had once stood. Now it was a dark, blacked out, empty shop front. Not technically boarded up but it may as well have been.

It was a travesty. We had to go across the carpark to the new, boutique takeaway, where coffee goes for $5 and hamburgers for a cool $8.50 a pop (just over four euros). Sure, you might be thinking just over four euros would be a pretty sweet deal in London or Europe. But it’s a whopping outrage in regional Australia).

Like I said. It’s a travesty.

Enterprising locals in Jervis Bay these days make a killing off bottlenose dolphin and humpback whale-watching cruisies; they apparently can reliably be seen except for the one time I suggested my Norwegian flatmates give it a burl and then they were nowhere to be found.

Once we did a canoeing trip right across the bay, though on account of me being right pathetic with an oar me and dad were in the embarrassing spot of getting towed across by the guides and their outboard motor. The marine park is swimming, so to speak, with sea eagles and penguins, and gannets, so people keep telling me, not that I’ve got any idea what gannets are.

Oh, and for all those Europeans who think that beach consist of fenced-off strips of grey rocks, take good note here of what a proper beach is. It’s got sand. And as far as sand goes, Hyams beach in Jervis Bay has reputedly got the whitest sand in world.

For those of you who really want to knock over some solid sightseeing, Hyams Beach is also just around the headland from Blenheim, the resident nudie beach. NB: Unlike in Sydney, where you can get all sorts of litigated for trying to take a pic of your own kid on the beach, cameras are a-ok here. So go crazy.

I’ve got something really disturbing for you here. Yes, even worse than that vid I had where the ice skater rips open his partner’s cheek with his skate. It’s an Aussie male in the throes of teendom speaking publicly. Yes – god help us all.

In fact, it’s even true. You might have caught it already – guy’s parents go away, guy throws bash big enough to destroy street, suburb, etc. What to do about it? Act like a wanker on national telly, of course. Get a load of the presenter, as well.

Unlike the infamous backpacker trail from Sydney north to Cairns, the south coast of New South Wales is chock full of beaches that are equally stellar and altogether far less crowded.

It’s a well-kept secret that’s becoming less so, with Sydneysiders in recent years deciding they can no longer afford to migrate north for their hols so instead go south (not without effectively driving up the prices here for locals).

But anyway. It makes for better cafes.

Jervis Bay, as dad never tires of reminding us, is the place where Sydney was supposed to be. Captain Cook’s instructions on that fateful night in 1770 were to moor at the next liveable harbour, which, at 15 k’s long and the deepest sheltered harbour on the continent, Jervis Bay could certainly have had a stab at.

But old Cooky wasn’t well rested and perhaps had been on the sauce a bit, so in the dark went and sailed right by, and didn’t anchor till Botany Bay, in Sydney.

Still, in the early 19^th century Jervis Bay rivaled Sydney Harbour as major port. After its initial rip-off of being bypassed, though, it then copped a long history of stuff being nicked from it.

Whalers, for one, used to knock off the whales that are now so fervently sought by sightseers. And wool from local sheep was carted off to Sydney, and tree trunks nicked by city folk for their ships. Even today nearly 8,000 hectares of it belongs to the Australian Capital Territory for its federal sea access and a place for snipers-in-training to shoot up.

For a recent collection of the funniest travel stories from here there and everywhere, check out this post from the Travel Snob. Especially the dude who flew to the wrong Sydney. Probably something I’d do myself if I wasn’t from the place.

I’ve arrived. A little worse for wear, to be sure. Happily, though, I’m collected by my parentals at the gate. Granted, it takes some time for us to find each other given we’re a family straight out of Lilliput land. At five foot nothing and a half, I’m a damn sight close to the tallest in the Edwards line.

We drive down to their place and make it by mid morning. Now, this may be misleading on account of me always saying I’m from Sydney (for which I’ve got good reason, because to tell a non-Aussie – or most Aussies, for that matter – that I’m from Nowra is to invite blank stares and immediate lack of interest), but in fact I grew up about three hours south of there.

And in spite of having the usual healthy dose of desperation to escape the place all through my teenage years, I’ve come to appreciate its beaches, for one, and my mum’s homemade brownie, for another.

So it’s not without some excitement I make the return trip home. This despite appearances, since by the time we get there I fall into bed and stay there solidly knocked out for the next 17 hours.

Well, that’s England done. Not overly thoroughly, admittedly, but elsewhere calls. I’m off Downunder.

Lots of people would be all kinds of excited about this, but I’ve been there lots of times. As in, you know, the first 21 years of my life. Still, it will be nice to have a merry old time with the friends and folks again. Temporarily, at least.

At Schipol airport, Amsterdam: boarding at last! But it’s the interminable airport game: just as you are graciously permitted to leave one lounge you realise you’re only going as far as the ‘boarding’ lounge where they will strip you of miscellaneous personal effects, such as bottles of water, your favourite pair of expensive tweezers and your pet rocket launcher.

Boarding again! For real this time. But you lose hope now because you find you’ve been stuck with the wretched middle seat, doomed for the next ten hours to be both climbee and climber. It’s the worst of both worlds. What’s worse, there’s no individual tellys (curses on KLM!) and you learn that the three words you do not want to hear on a long haul flight from your neighbour – with the possible exception of ‘I’m a terrorist’ – are ‘I’m in software’.

Three hours later after I’ve politely thumbed through my Swedish neighbour’s Phd thesis – which evidently he does carry around with him – but firmly declined a PowerPoint presentation on the ins and outs of back-ending (websites, people…), an episode of Ugly Betty beams up on the communal screen. Ah – sweet, sweet Ugly Betty. But it’s been dubbed in Japanese.

I beg the stewardess for an eye mask and pretend to sleep the rest of the way. I even sacrifice the morning meal of porridge with unidentifiable floaty bits for the cause.