Taking blind and low-vision travelers on the road.

Heading on a road trip isn’t the same for every Australian. Sometimes poor accessibility limits opportunities for blind or low-vision people to hit the open road. We talk to a tour guide who is using every sensory input to create a rich road trip experience for blind and low-vision travelers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Road trips are embedded in the Australian way of life.
It's all those long coastal stretches and straight lines through
the Red Center. We'd love to get out and about
in our magnificent landscape, but not everybody has the same
kind of access to heading off on a trip. We're
about to meet the man who's taking road trips to
new sensory heights. I'm Amanda Keller and I'm buckling up

(00:24):
for brain fuel great Bussy stories from the Road, fueled
by Ample Australias own.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I started to look at the barriers that would stop
blind and l vision people from traveling and kept coming
back to requiring a little bit of extra assistance. If
you needed to go on a road trip, you would
need someone to drive you. I don't know if you're
trying to organize road trips with your family, but everyone's
got different ideas, right, It's quite a big barrier to overcome.

(00:51):
So I just wanted to make another option for blind
and la vision travelers.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's James McFarlane of Cocky Guides with his Triple Life.
He takes blind and low vision travelers on sensory tours
all over the country from fin North Queensland to the
South Australian Coast on day trips and week long adventures.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So didn't really know what I was doing. Just got
a community group from Vision Australia to volunteer to do
a couple of day trips and they really loved the
way we presented trips and just grow from there. It
was just purely curiosity and the desire to open up
travel to an underserved community.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Australia is incredible to look at. There's no doubt sparkling
blue water, lush rainforests, dusty painted out back. But there's
so much more to experience, so many sounds, smells, flavors
and sensory sensations and extraordinary people to meet.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
We've recently taken twelve travelers to North Queensland, had a
road trip from cans down to Magnetic Island. I talk
about Adelaide. We'll spend a lot of time on the
Floria of Peninsula. Some of the activities will do they look,
We'll visit the Willunga markets, some of the best markets
in South Australia, and we're not just walking through tasting produce,

(02:13):
but we're actually meeting the growers and producers we'll visit
places in McLaren Vale Lloyd Brothers beautiful winery, but they
also have some of the most amazing olives. We get
to sit there for the afternoon. We'll have a nice
lunch and try their olive tappannades and olives and wines,
everything that's grown on site.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
James introduces his tour groups to all sorts of experts,
each sharing a unique part of their own interaction with
Australia's landscapes. They meet the people who work the land
and its custodians.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
We beat indigenous elders, so we use a tribal expertise facility.
Walk on country down at Yundi Nature Reserve, so we
have smoking ceremonies, We eat indigenous produce or bushtucker. These
are all the ex speriences we have just in one
road trip.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
For many blind and low vision travelers, James's tours have
opened up a whole new world and love of hitting
the open road.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, we have travelers from all over Australia, so we
take a bit more time everywhere. Yeah, road trip is
a lot about the journey, so we don't just want
to rush through everywhere. My goal is to replace a
sight scene with other sensory elements like touch, taste, and feel.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
From sensory wonderlands or whatever your journey. Ampole is the
fuel that gets you there. Make sure you follow our
adventures for free and your favorite podcast app. I'm Amanda Keller,
and this is brain fuel.