GREEN TRAVEL

I've got another trip over the Tasman coming up in a couple of weeks. Every time I click 'confirm and pay' during online checkout, my eco-conscience has a little wobble. No matter how hard I try to manage my carbon footprint, I often make certain lifestyle choices that make me wonder if a handful of large footprint actions aren't blowing my credentials out of the water. For me, this mostly boils down to driving a car to work, air travel and mostly unavoidable food miles.

CLEAN GREEN - IN THE HOUSE

I live in a little studio space that opens out directly into a well-established garden. Living in the tropics, this basically means one thing; being prepared to share my space with critters - the good, the bad and the ugly. Despite my open air, open door and barefoot approach to living, the bug situation isn't as bad as you might suspect, especially with my crack team of house geckos on patrol 24/7. There are also at least 5 resident frogs hanging around my bathroom and laundry (with countless more in the garden).

DECLUTTER BLITZ, THE CRAFTERMATH

Up until recently I've enjoyed the luxury of either living in a fairly decent sized house or, if not, I've had access to the free service known as 'parental house storage'. Either singly or in combination, this has meant not having to really face the problem of what to do with my worldly goods...ALL my worldly goods. After I moved back to Australia in 2012 - well, there it was. All my other stuff. Waiting for me. In a poignant Toy Story 3 kind of way...

SOUTHERN SHORES

Happy 2015!

I saw in this new year in proper holiday mode. As expected, by the time Christmas rolled around I'd had about as much of the endless buildup heat as I could take, so I gave myself a little break and headed down to Melbourne to tick another experience off my personal bucket-list - driving the Great Ocean Road.

ECO FREAK

Don't stop now, this is hipster country

One of the things I love about Melbourne is the splendid abundance of earth friendly shops. From supermarkets that stock nothing but organic, fair trade, cruelty free, free range and low packaging to stores that specialise in products for sustainable living, in some of the trendier Melbourne burbs it seems you can't go more than 10 paces without stumbling across a shop bursting with a downright Scandinavian level of eco-friendly merchandise. Not to mention every possible configuration of kale and quinoa you could imagine.

A LITTLE MORE AOTEAROA

A few more snaps from my recent holiday, which - after Hawke's Bay - included a little time in Wellington (where I watched 'What We Do In The Shadows' in what must be the world's best cinema (The Embassy, if you're ever in Boot-town, schedule a visit)