Travel Stories
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The Australian Outback: Dry land, dry characters, dry throat
4 Feb 2007 | 12 min read
On a hot and cloudless morning in the arid Outback, Doug taxies his single-engine Cessna onto the rocky runway at Arkaroola, a strip of man-made flatland some 500kms north of Adelaide. He makes a routine safety check, kicks the plane into fast-forward and we rise into a blazing blue sky, looking down on a parched landscape of scrub and dusty earth. The waterless creeks beneath us are merely... > Read more
Sorrento, Italy: Where life takes a holiday
29 Jan 2007 | 4 min read
Giuseppe the concierge welcomes us with a slight bow and a broad smile, then waves us towards the front desk. I am flattered and surprised that he knows our names, but the reason becomes apparent as we sign in. We are the only two guests in the 50-room Grand Hotel Cocumella which occupies a balcony seat in the pretty town of Sorrento across the bay from Naples. The Italian Jesuits who built... > Read more
Beyond Whistler, Canada: And the road goes on forever
29 Jan 2007 | 4 min read
There's always some mild embarrassment when you don’t enjoy some place everyone expects you will. "Oh, you'll love Whistler," they all said. But I didn't. Admittedly I didn't see it at its snow-covered best and I’m sure this town just north of Vancouver is very pretty and vibrant in ski season. But I was there mid-week and between seasons. There were only bare flecks... > Read more
Denniston, West Coast, New Zealand: Damned and damp
21 Jan 2007 | 3 min read | 5
The weather was perfect: fiercely cold, low mist and a chilling drizzle. This is ideal when you are at Denniston, because only in such miserable conditions can you get some small appreciation of what life must have been like here a century ago. At 600 metres above sea level and with the coast barely visible through the rolling mist, this former coal mining town in the hills above Westport is a... > Read more
Northland, New Zealand: After the Flood.
2 Nov 2006 | 8 min read
For me there are two ideal kinds of lie-down, totally relaxing, long weekends away with a good book. The first and most obvious requires endless tropical warmth and hours of sunshine, and a beach or pool within waddling distance of the deck chair and buffet. The other is . . . Well, it’s sort of what we got when we went to the Golden Sands Beachfront Apartments at Cable Bay in... > Read more
Canada: Driving and Blogging from BC (A compendium of on-the-road blogs)
8 Oct 2006 | 15 min read
So, five years on from 9/11 and what have we learned? Mostly that with heightened security arrangements we have yet to figure out a way of getting masses of people through airports without causing frustration, delays and rancour. As one who likes to fly -- yes, the seats are still uncomfortable but someone feeds you, brings you drinks, there are movie choices and no cellphones, so what's not... > Read more
Taipei, Taiwan: Red room for a blue man
19 Sep 2006 | 2 min read
I wish I could remember the name of the place so I could recommend it -- but then again, maybe it's best I can't. I had spent a tiring week travelling around Taiwan by myself, negotiating train timetables and ticket offices, and finding hotels, temples and places to eat. By the time I got back to Taipei where I could count on a tiny bit of English being spoken I was weary and just wanted a... > Read more
Rarotonga: A moment in the frame
7 Sep 2006 | 2 min read
Every now and again -- if we are really lucky -- we realise we are in that postcard perfect world we have lingered over in the pages of glossy magazines, but images which we persuade ourselves only the combination of weather, a talented photographer and PhotoShop could allow to exist. But then, suddenly, there we are. We are the person just beyond the frame of perfection frozen in the lens.... > Read more
Thailand and Vietnam: Things have changed
27 Aug 2006 | 2 min read
Good news came by e-mail: Raymond is in touch again. The last time I saw him was a year ago when he was managing a luxury hotel in Thailand's Golden Triangle. He was a young and handsome Swiss guy who had the world's best job: making sure the lodge ran smoothly, tasting imported wines, being nice to nice wealthy people, eating beautiful food, and watching the river flow. We hit it off... > Read more
Sydney, Australia: High, wild and gone
27 Aug 2006 | 1 min read
Frank was never going to make old bones. He was an Aussie wide-boy and after a wild, suburban youth and service in Vietnam he'd returned to Sydney and become a stuntman. He was stocky, but larger than any room he occupied. His speaking voice terrified children and his raucous laugh set off car alarms, but he was gentle with his young daughter. Frank was likeable and tough, but you also... > Read more
Perth, Western Australia: Journey to the end of the world
16 Aug 2006 | 2 min read
For many years I thought Perth was in Western Australia. Then I went there. My recollection is this: up at around 5am to get a taxi to the airport to wait two hours before departure, three hours to Melbourne or Sydney or wherever it was to wait another two hours before the five hour flight to Perth. It seemed to take a couple of days to get to Perth, and when I arrived it was the middle of... > Read more
Singapore: A cheap treat
16 Aug 2006 | 2 min read
Singapore is awash with cheap eats and fine dining. From the outdoor restaurants in Chinatown and Little India to the exquisitely presented fine cuisine at the Zhang Jin Jei-designed My Humble House, it would be a hard heart or a cynical palate that couldn't find something interesting, if not outstanding. Local knowledge is always helpful when looking for a place to have dinner, so when my... > Read more
Fiji to Vancouver and beyond: My life lovin' friends: Parts One and Deux
24 Jul 2006 | 5 min read
Part One: Travel isn't usually conducive to long-term friendships. Any fork in the road can mean you and your new-found companions may part company, paths never to cross again. Which made is such a rare pleasure that I have seen Bob and Mary (from then-Vancouver and now-Victoria BC) a couple of times since we first met on a cruise around Fiji's Yasawa Islands one February. Bob'n'Mary... > Read more
Rome, Italy: The healing doll
17 Jul 2006 | 2 min read
There are few churches in Rome more interesting, or more overlooked, than Santa Maria in Aracoeli, tucked in beside the famous Vittoriano, the massive white monument which dominates Piazza Venezia and looks like an old Olivetti typewriter. But walk up a very steep flight of old steps and after a wheezing climb you enter one of the more fascinating places in the city. And tucked away in... > Read more
Vietnam, China and Elsewhere: First cut is the deepest
6 Jul 2006 | 2 min read
Much in the way that I always take a photograph out of the window of any room I stay in when I travel (if there is a window, and often there hasn't been), it has also been a habit of mine to have a shave in a country I am passing through. It's always an interesting experience and, if a cut-throat razor is involved as it often is, then a very trusting one also. You may come out feeling crisp and... > Read more
Coastal Trek Lodge, Vancouver Island, Canada: Where the wild things are
10 Jun 2006 | 6 min read
Halfway up the long, ever-climbing road where the numbers on the letterboxes are in the many thousands we see small flecks of white on the side of the road. Damn, but it is getting cold up here in the clouds, so I pump up the car heater and turn on the wipers to clear away the tiny drifts of snow. Finally we arrive at number 8100 on the exotically named Forbidden Plateau Road and pull the... > Read more
The Pacific Ocean: No time to stop and chat
9 Jun 2006 | 2 min read
She was what my mother would have charitably described as "unfortunate". I saw her first on the Promenade Deck as the ship slipped its lines and slowly headed for the open sea. She was standing alone, but even in a crowd she would have been hard to miss: overweight, in her 30s at a guess, her dark hair pulled tight at the temples and hanging in a long and unruly ponytail, thick... > Read more
Southern Thailand: The untreated truth
9 Jun 2006 | 2 min read
The bamboo and thatch bungalows on the beach had the feel of a village: the family which owned them lived there, so did the staff of the small restaurant and their extended families, plus a few other unspecified people who came and went every day. I stayed a week or so in this quiet part of an island off Thailand's central east coast, initially eyed warily by an Australian new-comer, the... > Read more
Travel with seniors: practical advice for older travellers
6 Jun 2006 | 4 min read
We were in a crowded post office in Venice when I said to my mother-in-law Sue, "You know the first thing you pack when you travel? Patience." We needed it that morning. We were sending home unwanted clothes and a few souvenirs. We'd queued to buy the box, queued again to have it weighed and get the necessary paperwork (in duplicate, not to be filled in at the counter), then queued... > Read more
St Maximin, France: The love of life
21 May 2006 | 1 min read
My friend Amanda's reputation -- some might say cheerful notoriety -- is well known around Uzes, a charming medieval town in Provence about 40 minutes north of Avignon. Amanda's village of St Maximin -- 10 minutes outside Uzes and where the writer Jean Racine used to stay -- has visitors and residents from all over the world, and many of them have been guests at Amanda's huge 18th century... > Read more