About Us

 Welcome to the dreaming track!

We're Doug and Amber - a footloose Australian couple seeking a life of discovery in a world that's already fully mapped and signposted. We know that the only discoveries left to be made in the world of travel are personal ones and we've created this site in the hope that we might be able to help you unearth your own.

We met in early 2007, recognised in each other a kindred spirit and subsequently let our wanderlust get seriously out of hand. We spent seven months leisurely exploring the Malay Peninsula, Thailand and Laos before suddenly changing tack and fleeing a freezing Hanoi hotel room for the springtime flowers of Tunisia. We were there to join an exploratory overland truck trip that was slated to cross North Africa into the Middle East, heading via Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan to Central Asia, following the old Silk Roads all the way to Beijing. Alas, it didn't turn out that way. The Chinese said no and June 2008 found us unceremoniously dumped in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the truck hightailing it back to the better known roads of the Middle East and Africa.

Sometimes the unexpected is the best. We loved Kyrgyzstan, extended our visas and decided that since we were there we might as well check out Tajikistan as well. Fabulous. Tajik hospitality. The Pamir Highway. The Hindu Kush. The Wakhan Corridor. Afghanistan! All those ruined Silk Road fortresses, caravanserai and historical intrigues. Tajikistan was fantastic, but it was a tough thirty days - we needed four weeks on a Thai island afterward to recover ;)

Since that hectic year we've returned twice to South East Asia, once to explore Indonesia's Maluku province where we discovered the neglected jewels of the Banda Islands and most recently aboard a traditional Phinisi schooner, sailing from the Kei Islands near Papua via the southern arm of the Indonesian archipelago to Bali.

The dreaming track's a work in progress and we're not sure where it'll take us. We know where we want to go though: We'll unashamedly admit that, like many others, we dream of being able to provide for a life of travel from a life of travel. Amber's pretty much over being chained to a desk creating applications designed to make other people money and Doug crossed the Rubicon when he sold a successful photography business to pursue a career supplying an image library with travel photography. It's a dream, but all the waypoints on this track are out there in the real world.

Well - there you have it. If you'd like to see some pictures from where we've been or are hunting some visual inspiration, check out the dreaming track travel photography section. For travel tips and stories, go here. If you happen to see a dreaming track image you really like, photographs and prints on canvas are for sale in our shop. Oh - and if you're a curious munchkin who's read this far and needs to know more about us than we've revealed here (or if you have any other questions, comments or feedback), by all means contact us.

 A bit more about Amber...

Amber's travelling life seemed fated when she left home at 14, spent some time in New Zealand and then headed for the big smoke of Sydney where she put herself through high school and taught herself programming. Her subsequent career as a web programmer specialising in PHP applications development took her to the US, Canada and Japan but, like her first impetuous departure, it was the unplanned, spur of the moment trips that yielded the richest experiences. Like the time she walked out of work and jumped a bus in Calgary, Canada to begin an unaccompanied odyssey that would a short time later see her lost in the deserts of Baja California, to be rescued by Mexican sea urchin fishermen. Other (some would say more responsible) explorations have led her to places like the spectacular, star spangled emptiness of Egypt's White Desert and Greece's Oracle of Delphi where the answer to the question "Why?" remained unanswered.

 A bit more about Doug...

Doug left home at 12. With his family. On an ocean voyage to South Africa to visit his father's relatives. It was a long time before he got to leave Australia again, but those hours spent gazing at untrammelled ocean horizons planted a seed that eventually grew to a tree, the canopy of which he's only just begun to explore. It began with a quest to India while his kids were young, followed ten years later by an expedition in the footsteps of Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, trekking the Karnali River valley from western Nepal across the mountains to Tibet's Kailash-Manasarovar region. It was while dodging tumbling boulders in rain induced Himalayan landslides that he realised that a "holiday" had suddenly become an adventure. He was hooked.

 The bottom line.

We've been around a bit, solved our fair share of problems, learned a few tricks and met many intrepid travellers who've passed on more of the same. We've taken a zillion photographs and burned a few miles of video tape. We've got plans! The dreaming track is here to share them all with you.

 What's next?

Back to Kyrgyzstan, to buy three horses at the Karakol animal market and spend six months completing a double transect of the country. 2500km (1550 miles) with a possible deviation across the Pamirs to Murghab in Tajikistan for the At Chabysh Kyrgyz horse festival. Adventure and the unexpected have always proved the catalyst that makes a good trip great for us. We both like mountain wilderness and really loved Kyrgyzstan. We spent a total of four weeks on horseback there and didn't want it to be over, so we've been thinking... an expedition's in order! We're well into the research, but it'll be 2011 before we can manage it - we've a lot to learn. And a lot to save!

Track our progress toward this particular dream on our Kyrgyz Long Ride pages.