Category: Travels for Fun
-
THE LARGEST TEMPERATE FOREST ON EARTH
On the last hour of the last day of our double crossing of the Nullarbor Plain, Padma and I drove real slowly. We had no hurry to reach the dumpy motel room in Norseman that awaited us. The sun was getting low in the sky when we encountered a significant change in landscape. The scrubby, […]
-
FROM STREAKY TO BORDER VILLAGE
Padma and I slowed down our pace once we reached the Far West Coast of South Australia. We drove a mere 590 kms from Streaky Bay to Border Village on the SA/WA border as we didn’t want to miss the sights. From sheep grazing in sparse paddocks, to wide-open rangeland with no start or end, […]
-
THE STREAKS OF STREAKY BAY
In 1802 Captain Matthew Flinders sailed into a bay on the current day South Australian coastline and noticed how the light reflecting off the seaweed created streaks in the water. He named the place Streaky Bay. After driving all day from Adelaide, Padma and I arrived at Streaky Bay as the sun was setting. We […]
-
NORTH OF GOYDER’S LINE
Back in 1865 a surveyor known as George Goyder got on his horse and traversed 3200 kms across South Australia. When he got home he drew a line across the state. He figured to the south of his line farmers could get enough rainfall to allow them to grow crops. To the north, he felt […]
-
THE NULLARBOR CROSSING
While living in Europe, Padma and I missed one aspect of Australia: the emptiness. There is no emptiness in Western Europe, certainly not on the highways. So with the arrival of the cooler Autumn weather, Padma and I decided to experience some good old Aussie emptiness. And there’s no better place for that than the […]
-
ALL BY OURSELVES.
I finally got that long-awaited gin and tonic. Or rather three gin and tonics. The Qatar Airways flight attendant keep bringing them to me. Maybe he sensed the cloud of stress above me, the mild stench of anxiety surrounding me or the furrows of worry on my face. With each G&T all of those emotions […]
-
THE BAVONA VALLEY
Nothing beats having a local guide and during our visit to Ticino, Switzerland’s southern Italian-speaking canton, Padma and I were spoiled by having our friend, Hans, show us around. Hans took us up north from his home near Locarno to the Bavona Valley and brought us to the base of the 100-metre Foroglio Waterfall. Padma […]
-
ON THE TRAIL OF MARTIN LUTHER
Padma and I look at a different kind of map these days when planning our travel destinations. Instead of maps with tourist attractions we look at the map showing the incidence of COVID. And after studying the map we could tell that the former East German states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt had very low rates […]
-
FORTY YEARS OF SPANISH DREAMS
While in university, I took a travel literature course. I loved getting homework … I could do it while lying in bed and drifting off to foreign and exotic lands. My favourite assignment was to read Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. The author sets out on foot armed with a violin […]
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.