Tag Archives: travel

“Cruising has two pleasures. One is to go out in wider waters from a sheltered place. The other is to go into a sheltered place from wider waters.” – Howard Bloomfield I’m not sure which I enjoy more: whipping across windy waters with our 38-foot Graystone on a comfortable low-heel, or being safely anchored or […]

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Riding the rails is magic! I love travelling on trains – all trains. There is something special about the rhythmic rattling as you hurtle through a landscape, being both part of the countryside and cocooned from it. How much more special is the rail experience when you are on a first-class scenic express train, travelling […]

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“Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.” – Joseph Conrad I’m not a great sailor: my favourite part of sailing is making a safe landfall. This is especially true when the landfall is somewhere new and different, and when the sailing has been a bit fraught! […]

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(Double click for: Elkesh Herself by Kugyershin Family’s Songs) It is said that if you want to see traditional Kazakh culture, you should go to Bayan-Ölgii province in Mongolia, rather than to Kazakhstan. In the 1800s, the expanding Russian Empire pushed the semi-nomadic Kazakh tribes into neighboring countries, including Mongolia – where members of the Middle Jüz Kazakhs […]

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“Yuorait?” “Yu stap gut?”  The calls of “How are you?” in Papua New Guinea’s Tok-Pisin were all around us when we stopped at a simple roadside stall just outside Maprik in East Sepik Province. The local people who were gathered in the canopied shade – selling their produce, gossiping and chewing betel –  seemed happy to see […]

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