About Us

Hi. We're Ken and Cally Hardaker, 60 something retirees who love to travel. We've clocked up 130 countries so far and don't intend to stop there. In fact, we want to fill in as many gaps on the global map as possible over the coming years.

We originally decided to keep a travel blog as a way of documenting our experiences and for keeping in contact with family and friends when on the road. Since starting the blog in 2016 we’ve found that many other people are interested in what we write about. We love hearing from other travellers about their adventures and picking up tips and ideas.

We like to organise and manage our own trips. We enjoy being independent and having the freedom to change our plans if the mood dictates. We also enjoy the process of planning a trip, so pre-packaged group trips are not for us, though we know that they work well for many people, especially people travelling alone and those with limited time.

We live in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. For those that don't know Tasmania is the small island state at the bottom of Australia. Tasmania is still a relatively undiscovered tourist gem internationally but this is slowly changing as the rest of the world learns about what we have to offer. Those of us lucky enough to live here know what a great place it is so we also want to use our blog to promote Tassie.

Our Approach to Travel

As we said, we like to be independent and plan our own trips. With the resources available nowadays, especially on the internet, it has never been easier to do this.

We're at a point in life where we want a bit of ''low cost comfort'' when we travel rather than roughing it to save a couple of bucks. This generally means mid-range accommodation rather than hostel dorms; it means occasional restaurants and a nice bottle of wine, not starvation rations; and it means sometimes paying a few dollars to a local guide or travel company for an interesting day or overnight trip (for example see our stories on Greenland, Ethiopia and Togo).

We'll post travel tips and ideas from time to time of things that we have found useful (see our Travel Essentials).

Reviews and Recommendation

As Ken's mum always used to say “if you can't say something nice about someone don't say anything at all”. Hear, hear mum.

We recognise that harsh reviews about someone's restaurant or guest house can have a very negative impact in this interconnected, socially networked to the nth degree world that we live in. We think it is unfair to give a business a bad review as anyone can have a bad day unless they are absolutely diabolical. So, we prefer to accentuate the positive when we have had a particularly positive experience. Case in point, we stayed at a beautiful little guest house in Ella, central Sri Lanka in December 2014 called Waterfall Homestay. It was a great experience so we were happy to make the effort to put a good review on Tripadviser.

We share the writing, both the reviews and stories, so we indicate at the end of each piece whether it is Ken or Cally doing the telling or a joint effort.

Why ''Dodgy Knees?”

In reality we both have dodgy knees – Cally from a horse riding accident in her late teens and Ken from a rugby league injury in his early 20's. Both resulted in knee reconstructions at the time that have left us with arthritic left knees.

When thinking of a name for the blog we thought of “Dodgy Knees” as to us overcoming the pain in our knees is symbolic of our determination to be active and enjoy our 50s and 60's (and hopefully beyond) and not let the wear and tear of time stop us from doing the things we want to do.

So, pull on your knee guard, take a pain killer, and grab that walking stick and come with us. The world is an amazing place and there is so much to see and do. You wouldn't be dead for quids!