Song dynasty writer Liu Yi once wrote “Reading ten thousand books is not as useful as travelling ten thousand miles.” Now, I’m not sure that’s true – because I’ve seen a number of travellers who would have been better off to stay at home, given how little they have learned in their journeys. I am…
“… and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.” I can’t say that seeing Multnomah Falls in Oregon transformed me into Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit – but I have to say, my immediate impression was…
“I wonder if one day that you’ll say that you care? If you say you love me madly, I’ll gladly be there like a puppet on a string.” Puppet shows are common the world over – and for those of us in the west, whether its the traditional Punch and Judy show, or something more modern…
“The morning light teaches the most basic of truths: Light chases away darkness.” There’s much to be said for Jared Diamond’s environmental call-to-action, “The Collapse” .. it was a book that certainly shook up our views on how weather interacts with sociology. It considers how changes in the climate can lead to massive changes in human…
This week’s series of pictures are those that remind me of some favourite quotes – like Joyce Kilmer’s famous poem “Trees”. “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the earth’s sweet flowing breast” The tree ‘prest against the earth’ here is in Portland,…
It was Ferdinand Magellan who coined the name Pacific (peaceful) for the largest ocean in the world – despite the fact that it can be anything but, at times. It seems he had just sailed around Cape Horn, at the southern end of South America – and after the storms of the Southern Atlantic ocean,…
I don’t know what it is about churches that attracts me when we travel – after all, I’ve been an agnostic since my teenage years. But there is no doubt that churches, temples, shrines and mosques draw me like a moth to a flame. And that was true in Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia,…
Back in 2006, on our first overseas trip, My wife (Shirley) and I were joined by my sister and her husband as we stayed at a Worldmark resort on Denarau Island in Nadi, Fiji. We were already owners in the ‘time-share’ holiday company but my sister and her hubby were not – so they were invited to…
For many Australians, a flight to a holiday island destination in the Pacific means flying to Fiji – a flight of around five hours. But for North Americans, Fiji is 12 hours or more by plane … whereas Hawaii is only 5, and has the benefit that you don’t even need a passport. 6.45…
See that boat through the rock arch in today’s picture? That’s bobbing about in the Pacific Ocean. Whereas the boat in the foreground is in the Gulf of California – and the arch marks the end of the Baja Peninsula – or Lands End. The point where a sea, or gulf, meets an ocean…
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