iOS app Android app More  James Moore   Finding America's Past
In Australia's Present  Posted: 05/22/2012 7:00 am  I spend a
bit too much time in the Hill Country of Central Texas thinking
about Australia. I've only been there once but I've been
interested in the continent and its culture since I was a boy.
There is little wrong with an island that is the size of the
U.S. and has about 25 million inhabitants, and most of them live
along the coast. Australia presents itself to outsiders like a
gigantic national park with gleaming cities along its perimeter.
Storm Across the Great Southern  On a motorcycle ride across the
continent from Perth to Sydney, the recurrent notion I had was
that I was touring a country that had the charms of 1950s
America and the technological benefits of the 21st century.
There did not appear to be litter along any roadside and every
community, regardless of its size, was freshly painted and
neatly trimmed. The weeks I was in Oz may have been the longest
I've gone in decades withou