Category: Travels for Fun
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SURF’S UP AT LEEUWIN-NATURALISTE NATIONAL PARK
July is supposed to be cold and rainy, but we’re seeing the contrary this winter. The forecast promised a sunny day, so Joseph, Padma and I drove south for a couple of hours till we reached the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. The Indian Ocean was at its finest and we watched bottlenose dolphins and later humans surfing in the turbulent waves. Joseph hadn’t seen the longest timber jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at Busselton so we popped in just in time to see the tip of the sun dip into the Ocean.
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SAKE IN AN IZAKAYA WITH A FRIEND
In December 1981, I was standing on the sidewalk in San José, Costa Rica while watching the fireman’s parade. A marching band clad in blue uniforms pounded away on their instruments. I looked out amongst the band members and spotted my mate Glen Snyder blowing away on his trombone while keeping in step. Glen and I had arrived in country six months earlier as Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to environmental education projects. Glen lost no time and had already integrated himself into his local community and joined the municipal band. I…
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JOSHUA TREES AND FAN PALMS
In a good year, the Mojave Desert will get 100 mm of precipitation. So, plants need to fiercely compete for limited resources or develop mechanisms to survive by living on next to nothing in terms of precipitation. The Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia) is one of those species which has mastered desert living. Its broad root system can extend up to 11 metres in its search for any moisture. If it can get settled in, a Joshua Tree can live for several hundred years in the higher elevations of the Mojave. Legend…
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THE ROADTRIP TO THE ‘WORLD’S BEST BEACH’
It’s a long way to Esperance. A full day’s drive from our home in Halls Head. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t take our German visitors to Lucky Bay … a beach recently listed as the #1 beach in the World (https://worlds50beaches.com/top-50-worlds-best-beaches/). We wanted to give our guests, Heiko and Susanne, a full Aussie experience so we packed up the car with camping gear and headed for Fitzgerald River National Park. We set up a very comfy campsite and spent a couple of days by exploring the Hammersley Inlet and…
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FROM SYRIA TO HALLS HEAD
Great friendships know no geographic boundaries. So, when Padma and I moved to one of the most remote locations on Earth, we fully expected to be able to get together on occasion with our friends. Padma and I formed many great friendships more than 30 years ago while we lived in Syria. We kept in touch initially with posted letters at Christmas but when the Internet came around, we were able to keep in touch on a more regular basis, albeit at a distance. We have visited our friends Heiko and…
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SIEBENGENBIRGSWEG REUNION
It took Padma and me two and a half years to build our new family home on a beach south of Perth. But it only took two weeks after we received the keys before we welcomed our first overseas visitors. For three years, we lived next door to Markus, Claudia and Carla in a little German village overlooking the Rhine. Within a week after we moved in, they became part of our extended family. They helped us wade through German bureaucracy, taught us about Rhineland gardening, shared gossip about the neighbours…
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BRAVING THE WEATHER FOR THE PINNACLES
Anyone looking at today’s weather forecast for Western Australia would have thought the sensible thing to do would be to rug up and stay home. My weather app screamed of severe weather alerts … heavy winds and lots of rain. But Annie, our friend from our time in Cali, Colombia, came all the way from North Carolina to visit, and Padma and I wanted to show her around our State. We took our chances and pointed the car to the north for a day trip. The rain stopped just as we…
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TWO DAYS IN MARGARET RIVER
Padma and I are hoping that many of our friends and family will visit us in our new home in Western Australia. We’re still discovering the State and trying to figure out where to take our guests. Our friend, Annie Tomalin, is helping us get some practice as tour guides. Annie and Padma were colleagues at the Colegio Colombo Britanico in Cali, Colombia a few decades ago … so we’ve also had a chance to catch up and reminisce about living in Colombia during a tumultuous era. Margaret River is a…
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THE LEGEND OF THE ULM SPARROW
My friend, Karl-Heinz Linke, has a reputation for exaggerating the truth when he tells stories. He’s the kind of guy who is always pulling your leg, so to speak. So, when he told Padma and me about the legend of the Ulm Sparrow, we assumed it was another one of his yarns. Karl-Heinz insisted it was true and to prove it he and his wife, Hiltrud, took us to Ulm to learn of the legend ourselves. We were told that 80% of the city had been destroyed during World War II,…
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