Author Archives: Ursula Do you find you tend to ignore your own backyard? I often do. I’ll go to great lengths and distances to visit places afar, while making little time for sights closer to home. But, away from the more-populated coast, country New South Wales (like country Queensland) has some attractive old towns, with interesting histories, and […]  Like other Indian cities, Madurai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu offers up some magnificent palace and temple architecture. But, it was the life in the streets that I loved best. I was travelling around South India with a small group. We had driven to Madurai from Thanjavur the day before, stopping to visit […]  From the First People of Comox Valley, Canada, to the landlocked central African nation of Chad; from acoustic guitar folk harmonies to cross-cultural genre-bending musical layers; from unaccompanied voices and percussions to complex and layered instrumental blends – the Vancouver Island Musicfest in July had no apparent boundaries. Even if I’d had an idea what […]  They had me at “walk”. Then they told me I’d visit ancient Orthodox monasteries and be treated to Coffee & Greek Delight. What a joy! I was travelling around Greece with a small group: we had wound our way east from Olympia on the Peloponnese Peninsula (see: In the Footsteps of the Gods), and driven […]  The air pulsates with dry heat. The sky and earth vibrate with impossible colours. You are surrounded by rusted equipment, reclaimed tyres, and expensive solar panels; it is impossible to discern what is in use and what has been abandoned. Houses are fashioned from old campers and railway carriages, or lovingly created out of mud […] |
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