Posts

2022 Mid Year Semester Break - Yirrkala

 Deciding to remain in Yirrkala due to my recovery from a fall despite the world opening up around me and family and friends visiting many of my favourite places has given me time to sort through the images of travel that are filed away under various platforms such as facebook, external hard drives and Google photos.  Looking at these collections it could seem that nothing existed prior to facebook, or before I got my first smart phone. Somewhere along the digital path some crumbs of travel have gone missing somewhere.  Similar to the trip I took to India in 1988 when none of the films I shot developed properly.  As I began to go through the files, the back ups and the duplicates I thought it might be useful, to me to create a list of my travels to be able to better arrange the storage. That then begs the question why, why file and formalise the memories and contain them in photos?  Will they help me remember, I don't think so, will they make me nostalgic, maybe and is that product
Post a Comment
Read more

Tripping Out in Paris and London June/July 2014

I headed out at the end of June to visit family and friends in Europe for a ridiculously short trip of ten days - it involved a stop over in Bangkok on the way to catch up with friends, two days in Paris, four in my 'home' town of Caversham and three in London...and then back to Bangkok. I flew Gulf Air and while not a fancy as Emirates it got me there, and back to Bangkok without problems. My only advice would be not to book the gluten free meals, they are far too weird.
Post a Comment
Read more

2015 a year of Tripping Out

January New Year 2015 was spent in Bangkok with a complicated departure to Australia early in the year when Air Asia, while confirming their flights up until the last minute had to cancel flights to Melbourne. It meant a swift change of plans and a last minute ticket on Virgin to meet the girls in Melbourne before flying up to the Gold Coast and then on to Byron. A beautiful few days with family and friends, time in the rainforest and a great day at the beach complete with dolphins set us up for the week and then it was back to Melbourne for three days before returning to Bali. February A trip to Vietnam with the Year 12's to promote the GINBali 2015 conference saw me in Hanoi just before the TET Festivities, freezing cold and lots of activities to do as well as negotiating a return in the summer with music venues and bars. I left the school group to go to Saigon while I went to Hoi An to meet Green Shoots school and Laureen, who would be part of the summer trip. I flew b
Post a Comment
Read more

December 2011

Christmas in Bali Wet season is on the island, the tree in the garden is dropping red flowers everywhere and the ground floor is awash in what looks like hibiscus tea. It's the ending of the year and my bags are unpacked until January 1st when I head of for Australia and Byron Shire, life in the forest for a week with Severen. Closing down the year of travel and going over the remarkable journeys I have taken with a combination of cheap flights, advance planning, hospitable friends and generous hosts, I am, again, in awe of how wonderful my life is. I live with a sense that at each turn of fate I have some how had a lucky escape, and while each person has their own interpretation of happiness and freedom mine exists in my ability to see, engage and experience many different aspects of global living. Even though I am not the explorer or the gung ho writer of youthful ambition I still manage to satisfy my instinct for curiosity and adventure. 2011 brought me to Singapore twice, th
Post a Comment
Read more

Catching up - July 2022

 It's July 2022, and hard to figure out what happened to my Tripping Out Alone Blog..  I think I just stopped blogging because I stopped tripping out alone, then I stopped tripping out.  Since January 2020 I have not left Australia... however before that... The last post was post my trips to Aceh, Africa and China.. "I went to five countries in Africa and China - China twice and about to go again.. I have discovered more, more or less on my doorstep and I keep going."  I did go to Shanghai, then Beijing, then made a fantastic adventure trip with Joe, Robi and Nee to Yunnan Province, that  was in June /July of 2017 and I returned for my last year of teaching in Bali.  In 2018 I went back to the UK for Easter and in the summer  I went to visit friends in Myanmar and Bangkok and I went on a three or four day tour of Java with the band Navicula who were doing a 31 day tour, and by August I was flying to Darwin and taking up a position in Tennant Creek Primary School on the pr
Post a Comment
Read more

Keep on Tripping

Image
This blogspot! It's been in limbo too long and it is time to rev up and revise it as the next adventure looms fast and furious and so much has happened in between.. I went to five countries in Africa and China - China twice and about to go again.. I have discovered more, more or less on my doorstep and I keep going.  With some free time anticipated in July I will commit to the catch up and meanwhile a photo.
Post a Comment
Read more

Update - Fear of Flying

And nothing to do with the novel, but the more I fly the more I am surprised how I can be calm on one flight, fearful on another, The only progress I have made is to make taking anti motion sickness tablets a choice of last resort as opposed to a prerequisite of every boarding. That is progress. I have to catch up - I am off to China soon and since last posting have been to many more places, what became a love, became a passion, what became a passion became a lifestyle. I can't see an end to the sense of adventure that calls to me whenever I hear an evocative destination mentioned or see an image, or for that matter just gaze from the window 40,000 feet in the air and feel compelled to visit Baku and Lake Baikal.
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
June 2016 Cheating a bit.  I wrote this trip up for Gaia Discovery and have copied the piece here with some additions that are more personal: After an arduous and extended journey of delays, technical problems and missed connections I stumbled into a smoky Medan bar in the middle of Ramadan to be greeted with beer. What a relief!  Here in the esteemed company of some true leaders in worldwide environmental protection, people with victories under their belts and lifetime’s of experience, I sat to gather myself and enjoy the beer but before a moment has passed a challenge was issued: “Why are you going to take a bunch of kids into the forest, why not just leave the animals alone and watch a program about it on tv?”  No names obviously, but these were real experts in their field, worn out and feeling cynical at the end of a hard week's negotiations, of battling to save what may not be salvageable, grinding against the deal that we have made to bring kids in to raise the
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
Sunday January 17th Back in Bali and it is so so hot, the rains have not come and the phrase "When it get's a bit cooler.." is redundant, I have had to get up at four am to get anything reasonable achieved. Looking back over the last month  I have had many interesting encounters, some of which are playing out now in the work that lies ahead in organising the October Youth Conference. Travelling alone, but still connected, allows for these seemingly random but not entirely coincidental meetings to happen as friends of friends and small circles of like minded people are bound to collide at some point. It was so wonderful to come back to Bali and hang out in Ubud with friends and family. Bangkok - reboot Saturday to Thursday Literally reboot ! I got to the park and worked out, I ate my favourite foods and I went to the gym. On Monday I went twice, I do not know why, it meant I did 200 sit ups and two hours of kicking and punching, it made me feel very good. I went
Post a Comment
Read more

Walking to Cambodia

Post a Comment
Read more