Category Archives: Travel

The end of another year is fast approaching. In preparation, I’m packing a bag for my escape to Australia’s Snowy Mountains. For while many regard New Year’s Eve as a time for noise-makers, fireworks, and drunken revelry, I prefer to use the time to take stock of the year past and to sketch out tentative […]

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It’s pretty hard to beat nature. And Yellowstone National Park, that amazing natural space covering 8,987 square kilometres (3,472 square miles) of water, grasslands and forest in Western USA, serves up some of nature’s best. From the iconic spout of Old Faithful to the less visited but equally intriguing Artist’s Paint Pots, Yellowstone’s geothermic features are second […]

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Can you get more Irish than Dún Chaoin (Dunquin) and An Daingean (Dingle), on the Corca Dhuibhne (“Seed or tribe of Duibhne”; the Dingle Peninsula) on the southwestern-most reaches of Ireland’s County Kerry? I very much doubt it! After staggering into Dingle from Annascaul, wet and windblown, we were pleased to have two nights in one […]

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The humpback whales of the Australian east coast are currently making their annual migration south. Starting from the Great Barrier Reef, where they mate and give birth in warmer waters, they begin moving towards their summer feeding grounds off Antarctica in late July. By October and November, humpbacks are commonly sighted in the sheltered waters off Eden, on NSW’s […]

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How many parks can claim UNESCO World Heritage status? Yellowstone National Park, the world’s oldest “National Park”, established in 1872 by an act of American congress, has been a designated World Heritage site since 1978. Home to more geothermic activity than anywhere else on earth, Yellowstone is also one of the last, nearly intact, temperate-zone ecosystems, providing a […]

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