Dusty Boots Journal

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Stories of authentic journeys and hidden paths around the world.

07/11/2026

'There is a quiet magic in putting on a pair of worn boots, pulling a lightweight pack onto your shoulders, and setting off into the morning light... We choose where to turn, when to rest, and when to go home.' 🥾🌺

Ahead of Remembrance Day on 11 November, Dusty Boots Journal reflects on the profound privilege of the open road. Whether walking the quiet stretches of the Sandakan track in Borneo, standing beside the peaceful waters of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, or passing a weathered sandstone obelisk in an outback railway town, as travelers we walk through a world made peaceful by those who came before us.

Inside this Remembrance Day reflection:
🥾 The Footsteps We Choose: Tracing the contrast between modern travel freedom and past sacrifice.
🕊️ An Act of Gratitude: Why every traveler's simple duty is to stop, read the names, and remember.

Read the full reflection at the link in our bio/comments. 👇

01/11/2026

'To exit or not to exit, that is the question.' 🚗⚓🇦🇺

In his latest dispatch for Dusty Boots Journal, Neale takes a turn off the Hume Highway to explore Holbrook, NSW, a country town bypassed in 2013 that gives travelers every reason to hit the indicator. From its wartime name-change from Germanton to its famous main-street submarine, pottery museum, and the Southern Hemisphere's only human cryonics facility, there is a compelling case for slowing down and trading freeway McDonalds for country town character.

Inside Neale’s Holbrook reflection:
⚓ The Landlocked Sub: How HMAS Otway ended up 500km from the ocean.
🚗 Life Beyond the Bypass: What happens when 11,000 trucks a day leave your main street.
🏺 Roses, Pottery & Cryonics: Exploring Holbrook's most unusual drawcards.

Read Neale’s full story at the link in the journal! 👇

18/10/2026

"‘They’re spare and now yours for the hike,’ Dave said. ‘They’ve got a couple of thousand kilometres left in them.’" 🥾⛰️🇨🇭

In the latest Dusty Boots Journal story, Muz reflects on the unwritten rule of the trail: paying goodwill forward.

While trekking around Mont Blanc, Muz and his friend David met a stranded Canadian hiker sitting in Crocs at a Swiss inn, his boots missing from the drying rack in a tiny village with no gear shops. What happened next is a great example of trail karma.

Inside Muz’s trail reflection:
🏔️ Trient to Chamonix: Tackling 1,000m of Alpine ascent on Mont Blanc.
🥾 The Boot Room Mystery: How a spare pair of boots saved a trekker's entire journey.
🤝 Good Samaritan Acts: Unscripted kindness on Mont Blanc and the Camino.

Read Muz’s full dispatch at the link in our bio/comments! 👇

09/10/2026

"
'The Chateau features in all the photos. I don't know what I thought it was, but naively attributed to it some historical significance. Nope. It's a hotel.'

🏰🚢🇨🇦 In our latest Dusty Boots Journal dispatch, we explore Old Quebec - balancing a lifelong passion for 18th-century military history against the crowded reality of modern tourism. From tracing the steps of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution to dodging 11,000 cruise ship passengers and questioning the necessity of a $7, 30-second funicular ride, we take a reality check on Canada’s famous fortified city.

Inside the Quebec dispatch:
⚔️ Plains of Abraham: The swashbuckling history of timber, fur traders, winter sieges, and pickled generals.
🚢 The Cruise Ship Tidal Wave: What happens when seven floating cities disgorge 11,000 tourists onto cobblestone streets on a Saturday.
🏰 The Chateau Frontenac Myth: Why the world's most photographed hotel is D-Day history wrapped in $1,000-a-night luxury.
🚠 The $7 Funicular Verdict: Why you're better off taking the stairs

Read our full reflection at the link in the journa!

👇

05/10/2026

Moose River is the first little town you encounter after crossing the border on the road from Quebec city into Maine, USA. Not much there, but it does have a golf course and this fine tavern that is open three days each week. Unfortunately we passed through on a Sunday.

Getting through the border checkpoint was a breeze, despite the nonsense that gets propagated on social media these days. Note I am holding a box of Tim Hortons donuts, which I failed to declare. Fortunately the immigration officer did not spot them on the back seat...thus I avoided interrogation and threat of a tariff.

01/10/2026

'Sommeliers of the world, beware!' 🍷🛶🇲🇲

In our latest Dusty Boots Journal dispatch, we look back at a journey into Shan State, Myanmar, to explore the extraordinary aquatic world of Inle Lake.

From clumsy-yet-endearing hotel service and cycling through quiet lakeside villages, to long-tail boats speeding past floating tomato gardens and Shan ladies rolling 700 cheroots a day, this is a reflection on one of Southeast Asia's most unique communities.

Inside this Inle Lake dispatch:
🚤 Life on the Water: Houses, schools, and monasteries built on stilts for 70,000 residents.
🌿 Floating Hydroponics: How the Intha people build floating vegetable farms out of lake weeds and mud.
🎣 The Leg-Rowers: The unique physics behind standing on one leg to fish with conical bamboo nets.
🍂 Shan Cheroots: Rough local to***co blended with wood shavings, herbs, and spices.

Read the full story at the link in the first comment.

22/09/2026

I snapped this furtive rock wallaby near Broken Hill…she clearly has a joey in the pouch. We were there during a particularly wet summer and the landscape, which usually consists of red dust and thin scrub, was blanketed in grass tussocks and desert flowers.

The desert does not always conform with its stereotypes.

11/09/2026

Welcome to the town of Nyngan, in central west NSW. The town is in Bogan Shire, on the shores of the Bogan River. And as a site on the Australian pilgrimage of 'Big Things', there is a Big Bogan - six metres tall with mullet, singlet, esky and dog. You can look it up yourself.

Just down the road I happened upon this place. Top spot, plenty of passing traffic if you count 18-wheelers hitting their air brakes. Comes with a valuable inventory of rotting planks and polystyrene boxes. I wonder if he sold it.

03/09/2026

A population of 12, with a pub, a caravan park, one house, and half a dozen restored historical buildings. Neale takes us south from Cameron Corner and Tibooburra along the Silver City Highway to Milparinka, NSW.

From fixing explosive tyre plugs on the bitumen to contemplating an impromptu game of donga-front netball, Neale explores how an 1880s gold rush town of four pubs, a hospital, and a newspaper collapsed into a fascinating heritage ghost town - and walks in the tragic 1845 footsteps of explorer Charles Sturt at Depot Glen and Mount Poole.

Inside Neale’s outback dispatch:
🛞 Tyre blowouts and outback highway travel tactics.
🏨 The Albert Hotel: Cold drinks and continuous trading since 1880 in a town of 12 residents.
🏺 The Ghost Town: Wandering among collapsed stone dwellings, rusted iron, and broken 19th-century crockery.
🪨 Sturt’s 1845 Tragedy: The survival story behind James Poole’s grave and the stone cairn at Mount Poole.

Read Neale’s full outback history dispatch at the link👇

25/08/2026

I took this picture in a village near Borobadur, Java. Pigeon fancying is not just an English thing. This chap had a dozen birds in four or five cages.

Homing pigeons are pretty amazing when you think about it. They can do things we can't - sense variances in the Earth's magnetic field, adjust direction using the sun, sense super-low frequency soundwaves and faint smells to build a mental map and calculate the way home. All so they can hop back in their cage, have a handful of corn and seed, and stay safe from predators.

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