Travel Stories

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Naples, Italy: You have been warned

2 Mar 2006  |  5 min read  |  4

"The thing with Napoli," said Alfonso leaving a pause for effect, "is the tourist people they love it or they do not. But I understand why they do not. The city, she is . . . " To be honest I can't remember exactly what he said next about his birthplace, but it could have been something like this: that Naples is noisy and polluted, the roads are congested, and you can... > Read more

East Coast, North Island of New Zealand: Hawkes Bay the long way

17 Feb 2006  |  8 min read

The handbrake might give you a bit of trouble, says John as he finishes a litany of idiosyncrasies about his beautifully restored 1957 Mark Two Zephyr. I have already heard it can pop out of second, to put in a measure of Valvoline with the petrol, to check the water daily, and that riding the brakes downhill might lead to them overheating and not functioning properly. And now the handbrake... > Read more

The Dalles, Oregon: Hill in a high place

6 Oct 2005  |  5 min read

Sam Hill had a vision fairly common among the wealthy: an agrarian utopia where happy workers would toil in fertile fields, their cheery lives overseen by their benign master -- himself, of course -- from a bastion high on a hill above. Unfortunately Sam -- a railway man and an incurable builder of roads -- picked the wrong hill in the wrong place. It is near The Dalles in north... > Read more

Central Australian Outback: And miles to go before I sleep

6 Jan 2005  |  5 min read

Somewhere about 300km southwest of Alice Springs on a largely featureless strip of the Lasseter Highway I slow down for the laughably named Mount Ebenezer. It is little more than another flat bit, but with a shop, a petrol station and five Aboriginal woman sitting under a tree. Within a minute the car is back on cruise control set at an easy 120kph and I am once more lazily gazing... > Read more