Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Australia

  • Australasian Adventures, Part 3 (Vistas)

    I’ve always liked climbing to the heights, whether by foot, automobile or elevator. Fortunately the parts of New Zealand and Australia we visited included many such opportunities. Some were man-made while others appeared as natural features on the magnificent terrain. Most days brought plenty of chances to appreciate the scenery in all kinds of different…

  • Australasian Adventures, Part 2 (On the Waterfront)

    We rarely ventured more than a few kilometres from water. New Zealand made that pretty easy, being composed of islands after all. We also stuck to a rather narrow band of eastern Australia beginning with Sydney and driving north along the coast for about three hours. Almost every scenic vista we found included a body…

  • Australasian Adventures, Part 1 (Preparations and Arrival)

    Finally, after months of anticipation and planning, the time came for our trip to Australasia. I took suggestions from the Twelve Mile Circle audience and tried to incorporate them wherever I could. We ended up spending a week in New Zealand and a week in Australia. Those who follow the 12MC Twitter account already know…

  • 12MC Coming to New Zealand and Australia

    A funny thing happened on the way to Oklahoma City, where I hoped to spend our summer 2018 holiday chasing new counties. The family overruled me. My wife pointed out that our older son will be on his own soon. He’ll be off to college in a couple of years. Opportunities for family vacations will…

  • Simply Boring

    Speaking of boring places, the phenomenon didn’t confine itself exclusively to Oregon. Sure, the largest Boring town existed just outside of Portland. However, because Boring was also a surname, it spread to other locations as one might expect. Residents tended to have the same sense of humor about living in Boring places everywhere. The same…

  • Boring, Dull and Bland

    Boring, Dull and Bland hopefully doesn’t describe Twelve Mile Circle or my social life although maybe observers would disagree. It referenced a unique relationship between three very special communities. One day a Scottish bicyclist took a scenic ride through Clackamas County, Oregon, just outside of Portland. Then she passed through the unincorporated community of Boring.…

  • Odds and Ends 13

    Twelve Mile Circle occasionally features topics that don’t warrant an entire article. I collect these items in a spreadsheet and present them all together every once in awhile. However I hadn’t done one of those in awhile and the topics began to pile-up on my list. Odds and Ends 12 appeared all the way back…

  • Gibraltaresque

    I didn’t intend to feature Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. I talked about that one before. For example, a major road crossed its airport runway. Fun stuff! One other little tidbit interested me too, its etymology. Gibraltar came from the name of an Arab or Berber military…

  • An Arm and a Leg

    I stumbled upon Joe Batt’s Arm again. I first became acquainted with Joe Batt and his arm when Twelve Mile Circle investigated Mundane First Name Places about a year ago. The settlement grew along an inlet, colloquially called an arm, that formed a part of its name. It still amused me all these months later…

  • Even More Ladylike Places

    Most readers probably anticipated that after slogging through Manly Places, Even More Manly Places, and Ladylike Places, that the next in this series would be Even More Ladylike Places. That seemed absolutely necessary in my mind to create symmetry and closure. However I’d written a variation on this theme already with the recently-published Ladysmith. I…