Dear everyone, After our time in Christchurch and Akaroa, we travelled south from Christchurch, turning inland after an hour of so and headed west towards the MacKenzie country and the South Alps beyond that. Not so much traffic on the NZ roads ... The rolling green hills around Geraldine and Fairlie slowly gave way to tussock-clad [...]
Dear friends, This will be the first of several blogs about my road trip around New Zealand. Starting in Christchurch, I will take you with me across through the MacKenzie Country with glimpses of our highest mountain - Aorangi (Mt Cook), along the Otago coastline and Dunedin, into Central Otago and the beauutiful Lakes Wakatipu [...]
Dear friends, One of the distinct pleasures of living in Asia is having the opportunity to celebrate the many colourful festivals which are an important part of life here. Perhaps none is as important across the whole region as the Chinese New Year. This year on 28 January we entered the Year of the Rooster [...]
Greetings everyone, I've been looking back over this year's travel and remembering not only the beautiful places I visited, the many interesting and passionate people I met and learned from, and the variety of entertainment and delicious food and wine we enjoyed, but also thinking about the small details and discoveries, the splendid light and [...]
Dear friends, For a long time I have been wanting to travel the Circular train route around Yangon, and finally, I have done it together with Andy, a friend since many years and newly established Tour Guide and Operator. Will tell you more about his business in a later blog just in case you are [...]
Greetings everyone, This weekend I've been in Yangon, Myanmar again to attend the wedding my dear friends Sandy and Zarni. They were a part of my team when I worked there and we have remained good friends, meeting often and sometimes travelling to different places in Myanmar together. They are both mentioned frequently in my [...]
Greetings friends, For my last blog reporting on my recent trip to Sabah, I want to take you with me on a visit we made to Kalapuan Village in the Semporna Islands Park in the Celebes Sea off the west coast of Borneo, home to many Bajau Laut (Sea Gypsy) families, most of whom live [...]
Greetings everyone, In this third blog from my Sabah trip, I am sharing a few details gleaned from walks in the forest - with a focus on the forest floor and shrub layers. The tropical rainforest has five layers - the emergent layer where trees can grow to heights of 50-60 metres, the main canopy [...]
Greetings everyone, Here are some of the animals and birds we encountered on our recent travels through four National Parks in Sabah. First up, a few birds for which I do not do justice, but managing to catch them at all I consider a bit of an achievement. A Blue-Eared Kingfisher on the Kinabatangan River [...]
Dear friends, ‘Sabah’ - the very name conjures up images of misty rainforest, winding rivers and wetlands, huge caves, tropical islands and coral reefs, orang-utans, monkeys, hornbills, kingfishers, and much much more. I have been lucky enough these past two weeks to visit four National Parks in Sabah: in Sepilok, the Orangutan and Sun Bear [...]