Category: Travels for Fun
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EXPLORING TBILISI
Joseph and I traveled to Georgia from 7 July to 1 August 2017 for a father/son adventure featuring some trekking in the Svaneti region in the Caucasus and exploring Tbilisi, Kazbegi and Batumi This is Part 1. Tbilisi. DAY 1. Departure from Adelaide. The beginning. Joseph and I depart on our long awaited father/son adventure and I bid adieu to my home of 22 years. Farewell Adelaide. DAY 2. Doha to Tbilisi. We arrive in Georgia … but not the Georgia you’re thinking of. DAY 3. Tbilisi. Joe and I discover…
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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Last Sunday morning, I felt like getting out in the woods and stretching the old legs with a good long bushwalk. The Cleland Conservation Park is just five minutes from our home and offers endless kilometres of quite challenging hiking trails. But as I drove past the Crafers bus stop and started driving up to Mt Lofty I was concerned that I was going to have plenty of company on the trails. Lots of people were getting off the bus carrying hiking sticks and water bottles and starting the trek up…
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CUSCO: THE FORGOTTEN JOURNAL
Our son, Xander, has left on a grand South America adventure which will take him to Brazil, Argentina and Peru. One of the highlights of the trip will be a seven-day trek along the Inca Trail. I told Xander about my own experiences in Cusco and Machu Picchu when I was about his age. And I told him my biggest regret: I didn’t keep a journal. So before he departed, I advised him to take plenty of pictures and write it all down so 30 years later he can relive those…
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ABOARD THE DELPHIN IN THE AMAZON
While a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a course on tropical agriculture and studied under the great Amazonia scholar Dr William Deneven. I was mesmerised by his tales of the Amazon. And so was my classmate, Oliver Coomes, who decided to write his PhD dissertation on the riverine peasants – the ribereños – of a tributary of the Peruvian Amazon known as the Rio Tahuayo. When class wrapped up for the summer Oliver got ready to leave for a year of research in the Amazon. I told…
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LONG-TERM GAINS IN THE AMAZON
Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria, Peruvian Amazon – 1989 ‘Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.’ Edward O. Wilson Those of you in my generation growing up in America probably had the same Sunday evening pastime as my family: we would watch the National Geographic specials. I loved that show and would dream of venturing off to far off, exotic lands in search of untouched natural wonders. On one of those evenings I vowed that someday I would travel to the Amazon. But I didn’t…
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CLIMB THAT GODDAMN MOUNTAIN
‘Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.’ Jack Kerouac There’s one thing I learned early on while working in a mountainous national park in the Pacific Northwest: never let a little cloud cover deter you from climbing a mountain. I had a few days off from my job as a ranger in the summer of 1980 at North Cascades National Park and drove over to neighbouring Mt Baker National Forest to climb up to the…
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ALONE AT NITINAT
‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’ Henry David Thoreau, Walden ‘I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.’ Henry David Thoreau If someone were to ask me what was my favourite trek ever, I wouldn’t miss a beat in replying it was my six-day trek along the West Coast Trail…
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VALE VICTOR
Good friends are hard to come by; endearing friends even harder. Victor was one of my greatest endearing friends and his sudden passing today leaves me in a state of total loss. I greatly admired Victor for all of his photographic journeys and adventurous exploits but what made him such a great friend was his gentleness and kindness. It is easy for great people like Victor to get self-absorbed in their own lives and accomplishments but Victor was not like that. He always showed a concern for and interest in others.…
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CHENNAI TO ADELAIDE
We have safely reached home after a long overnight flight from Chennai via Kuala Lumpur. On our last day Padma asked us what we missed most about home. The boys mentioned beef. They missed their all beef hamburgers and sirloin steaks. Every time we saw a cow on the road I could see them salivating with the thought of beef. For me it was blue sky. We arrived in India at a time when the seasons were changing and as a result we had three weeks of haze. Or it could…
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