Matai River at Nelson, New Zealand
Taken on a beautiful sunny Easter Sunday in Nelson. The Matai River runs through the town of Nelson and there is an attractive and easy walking/cycling track that runs along most of its length. There are some pretty nice houses to have a look at along the route as well and we passed by the appropriately named…
Read MoreDIY Travel: Short Break in Canberra, Australia
I’ve been my own travel agent for years, and often help friends out too. If you have a particular question about travel get in contact or a ask a question in the comments Yeah I know – who goes to Canberra for a short-break? Well I do on a fairly regular basis because I go and…
Read MoreChaweng Beach Hotels and Accommodation
I written before about Chaweng Beach – Koh Samui’s most famous beach before. And yes its a beautiful beach. Which is why the picture below may shock you. Its one of the main beach access points for Chaweng – and yes the Beach Road area, is an ugly mess. Power lines are strung everywhere, footpaths…
Read MoreParisian Restaurant, near the Gare du Nord
Arriving in Paris in a snow storm, without reservations we walked out of the Gare du Nord where the Eurostar and dropped us, turned left and found a 1-star hotel for €40/night. However there wasn’t much for breakfast. We ended up in this little cafe opposite the train station, whose name I forgot to write down.…
Read MoreWorld Health Day: Health and Ageing and Travel
It’s World Health Day today and their theme is ageing and health. My theme is ageing and travel! Maybe because I’ve just turned 50 the topic is something I’ve been thinking about recently! In fact more than that – I’ve actually been making quite a big effort to lose some weight. Why? Because I do…
Read MoreCunard’s Queen Elizabeth Leaving Wellington Harbour
Wellington, New Zealand was founded for its fine port, and to this day is a busy one. Its not often that you see quite such a large cruise ship as the new Queen Elizabeth though! In fact the previous week we’d seen her sister ship the Queen Mary come through I took this shot from…
Read MoreBooking Cheap Australian And New Zealand Flights – Avoid the Consolidators
OK this may not win me much love from the advertisers – but here it goes. I have never yet got a cheaper flight from a consolidator than I have achieved just by booking directly with the airlines involved. It might be that I live in New Zealand – but generally I can do better…
Read MoreFitting Travel Into Real Life
Yesterday I talked about how very, very few of us can travel for ever – even those of us who have the ultimate job flexibility of working for ourselves. Maybe its just me – but I picked my first career because it would take me to interesting places (geology) and my second one so that…
Read MoreKoh Samui’s Chaweng Beach Guide
Driving into Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui’s most famous beach, for the first time, I wasn’t, to be honest, that impressed. I’d been told over and over that Koh Samui was so much nicer than Phuket, which we’d just left, but to be honest I wasn’t that sure. Koh Samui is basically a fairly circular island…
Read MoreChristmas Market, Berlin, Germany
I never got to Germany before the wall fell while I was in Europe in 1989. In 2010 I finally made it all the way to Berlin – for somewhere that seems so far and so difficult to get to for much of my life – its only a 6 hour €50 train ride from the…
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