Our final image in this series is of the Norwegian Jewel, the cruise ship we sailed on in October 2016. This particular shot was taken from on board a ‘tender boat’ as we disembarked for the day in Cabo San Lucas, our final port-of-call on our Mexican Riviera cruise. I’d like to say that we…
Martinique is a lovely French island in the Caribbean – with stunning black beaches, and quaint little fishing villages, and a tragic past. Twice, in the past 250 years, nature has tried to wipe out Martinique (or at least the human habitats on it). The Great Hurricane of 1780 produced a storm surge which killed…
Odysseus (he of the Odyssey) was a complex character – but it was fair to say that he was a man of his time, when women were expected to stay faithful but men were granted a more … flexible morality. But his relationship with Nausicaa was even more complex than most. The story goes that Odysseus…
There’s a reason that the South Pacific has been a magnet for holiday-makers forever, it seems – and that’s because it can be so gob-smackingly beautiful. Take the Isle of Pines (or Iles Des Pins in French – it is, after all, a part of New Caledonia. The island (called Kwenyii in the local Kanak dialect)…
This photo stinks! Well, at least its subject does. Hong Kong literally means “Fragrant Harbour”. Yes, well. I could think of lots of words to describe Hong Kong, but I’m not entirely sure “Fragrant” would come to mind. Oh, it’s not as pungent as (say) Bangkok with its smelly khlongs – or Beijing with its…
Today’s view is one of the most recognisable in the world – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, crossing from the city of San Francisco to the Marin headland. In the foreground, a kite-surfer rides the choppy swell as waters from the San Francisco Bay meet the Pacific Ocean. The Golden Gate is the actual channel connecting…
Sound shells at seaside resorts aren’t new – they are as old as the holiday trade – but Napier’s sound shell looks more California than Clacton-on-sea. That’s because this, like much of the New Zealand town, was built in the Art Deco style after the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake. It was built by the Thirty Thousand…
If you grew up in Australia or New Zealand (or the UK, or many Commonwealth countries) chances are you are familiar with the BBC show “Till Death Do Us Part starring Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett. But if you were in the US, the equivalent show was All In The Family – which featured “Archie…
I’ve mentioned in earlier posts this week that Napier’s Art Deco architecture is the result of the town being wiped out by an earthquake in 1931, and the decision to rebuild in the aspirational, modernistic style. I also mentioned that the reason New Zealand gets so many earthquakes is that it sits on the…
The Pania reef, or Napier Breakwater, is a reef in Hawkes Bay New Zealand – and the subject of a statue on Napier’s Marine Parade. The story goes that Pania was a mermaid who lived with her people in Hawkes Bay – but who each night would emerge onto land at a stream which flows through…
Cairns Communications 