Tag Archives: Ursula Wall “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.” ― Alfred Wainwright After living in the tropics for many years, I should be used to rain. But, this past week I’ve been trapped indoors as my portion of East Coast Australia has been battened down against heavy rainfall, gale-force winds, and the threat of […]  There are always dilemmas around preserving age-old cultural traditions. One of the difficulties in safeguarding the unique practices and languages of the many tribal groups in Papua News Guinea is that their ritual dress relies heavily on indigenous birds, plants, and animals. In times past, the people living in small, relatively isolated clusters in the Papua […]  “Funiculì, Funiculà!” I find it impossible not to sing the popular Neapolitan tune – at least in my head – whenever I ride a funicular railway. The song was composed in 1880 to commemorate the then-new funicular track up Mount Vesuvius. Cable railway systems, designed for steep slopes, have been in use since the 1820s […]  Time lost all meaning for me in Egypt. The 63 tombs in the Valley of the Kings might indeed be over a thousand years younger than the magnificent Pyramids of the Old Kingdoms at Giza (see: Stories in Ancient Stone), but even the graffiti defacing them is older than the buildings I grew up around! […]  Once upon a time, our waters were sapphire blue, emerald green, and foaming diamond white. Once upon a time, our sands were pristine shades of white and yellow. Once upon a time, we could walk among the she-oaks, the wattle, the Banksia, and the eucalypts. Once upon a time … before our spectacular conflagrations razed communities, […] |
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