I was in an elevator last night, on the way to dinner, when a young family got on – a mother, and two of her children. They started talking about whether they would even get off the ship today, when we dock in Noumea. “So where are we tomorrow, mum?” asked one – “Can we…
As I type, the Princess Cruises’ Sun Princess is turning around in the Brisbane River, and I am typing frantically, to get this written while we still have cellphone coverage. You see, ship internet generally sux – especially for uploads – and there was a huge crowd at the reception desk anyway. So I have…
I was involved in an online discussion the other day, ahead of our impending cruise of the South Pacific when someone asked about whether there was clean water available – and whether the water in the bathrooms on board was safe to drink. The original poster was assured that while the water in the staterooms was safe,…
If you’ve ever wanted to go to Stonehenge in England, you may be disappointed to find that for most of the year, you can’t get anywhere near it. Oh, I am not talking about crowds of tourists getting in the way – I’m talking about physical barriers around the stones, to prevent damage to the…
Its now been just under 10 weeks since I gave up the security of a regular paycheck and full-time work, to hang out my shingle as a freelance travel writer / voiceover artist / whatever. And I’m still having a blast – but I have to say, things are slowwwww … Oh, I’m keeping the…
What do quake-shaken Napier New Zealand, cyclone-slammed Innisfail Nth Queensland and hurricane-hammered South Beach Miami have in common? An architecture more normally associated with New York, and LA, and Paris. How so? It’s largely a matter of timing. In 1918, Innisfail was slammed by a cyclone that killed around a hundred people. So bad was the damage in…
I was going through some raw video the other night when I found a two minute slice-of-life as we rode the Peak Tram in Hong Kong back in 2010 – and I remembered being told that it was a funicular railway, rather than a cable car. I asked Shirley if she knew the difference – and…
“It’s not travelling – it’s a mad dash through nine bloody countries in 18 bloody days, that’s what it is! And I have to be mother, and father, psychiatrist, host, teacher, interpreter, peacemaker and jokemaker to a silly crowd of Americans identical to my last silly crowd of Americans.” That was the view of tour-guide Charlie…
As a travel blogger / writer, I follow lots and lots of other travel bloggers and writers. And I noticed today that many of them regularly post pics of food. As do I. That prompted me to take a quick look at the number of food pictures we have from our travels. And particularly of street…
Despite working as a journalist for more than three decades, sometimes a story comes along and just sucker punches me. Tropical Storm Erika’s a good example. It was just a few months ago that I was in Dominica, with my wife, my two sisters, and two friends. We commented on how poor the country was, but…
Cairns Communications 