TravelStream™ news feed for member sjones123 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sjones123 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:58:03 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1181665860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1181665860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1181665860/tpod.html Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:58:03 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Moscow, Russia

Lake Baikal may not appear that impressive on a world map but up close it is. Containing a fifth of the world's freshwater and about 600 miles long, despite being 50 or so miles across the mountains rising from the opposite shore are clearly visible on a fine day. Its not tidal so mostly its surface is as smooth as glass and reflects almost perfectly the sky above, as you will see from the previous photographs.

It usually freezes over each January, vehicles can drive across it and it stays frozen right up until early May. At the home where I was staying in Listyanka, which is a small town on the lake's western side, I met two english people who beguiled by its appearance had decided against their better judgement to plumb its depths. Fortunately, for them, they were issued with both a wet and dry suits and dived to just 18 metres. Prompted by this, a third english guy also from the homestay decided to go for a swim without the benefit of any kind of suit and somehow managed to stay in the water for a full 40 seconds, despite the cold. It was good to meet some other english people and also as they were going east whilst I was going west, we all benefitted as I swapped some mongolian money for a moscow guidebook.

Its also home to some interesting and unique animals including a freshwater seal which lives for 50 to 60 years, almost three times longer apparently than its saltwater counterparts.

On the second day there, took the Circumbaikal train round the lake. Built to speed up travel to the far east following defeat in the 1905 war with Japan, the line was once part of the Trans Siberian route, but now serves the few isolated communities which cling to the shore and transports tourists such as myself who wish to take a long, it travels no faster than 12 km per hour most of the time, look.

The train stopped frequently to allow us to get off & walk around, once for lunch at a lakeside village where I was invited to and participated in the numerous vodka toasts which were raised. Along with the other foreigners, I was asked to introduce myself to all those on the train and earned a round of applause for something (I forget what exactly) which I said.

Arriving in Irktusk, I stayed there for a couple of days in what is a pretty unremarkable town. It does however have a bar called Liverpool which along with Beatles memorabila also holds a map on which the town of Aberystwyth is prominently shown. Although I think that I explained in somewhat faltering Russian to my hosts that this was where I was brought up, I was a bit dissapointed that no discount of any kind on my drink was forthcoming.

From there boarded train # 9, for the 5185 km 77 hour ride to Moscow. After the sociable experiences on the ride up from Beijing, this journey frankly was a dissapointment. The occupants of the other compartments in my carriage choosing to keep their doors closed shut most of the time during the journey. One of the providnista, aka carriage attendant, enlivened the trip a bit as she bore a remarkable resemblance to Myra Hindley; I would have taken a photograph to show this better but decided not to risk her ire by overriding her objections as she had already fined me 80 roubles for taking more bedsheets than I should.

It was good after this to reach Moscow. A city with a distinctly european feel being more settled, less dynamic particularly after the chinese cities recently visited. Its known as an expensive city but despite this I found it an OK kinda place to while away a few days and to visit various of its attractions some of which are shown below:


























The kremlin particularly the armoury where the Tsar's treasures are held, was absorbing. As Lenin's mausoleum, St Basils Cathedral and the State History Musuem lay just outside the kremlin's walls, one could see most of the city's premier sights in just one day if one so chose.

















The metro is fabulous. Dubbed "Palaces for the People" these are more opulent and spacious than their equivalent in London or indeed any other city I have visited.















Having been largely deprived for the last few weeks, I took the opportunity to catch up on recent political happenings before flying back to London. The Moscow Times gave the front page to Putin's proposal that Azerbajan rather than the the americans choice of the Czech republic be the home for the missile shield. A much better location given the americans stated aim of detroying missiles coming from rogue states, Bush appears to have been surprised and had to agree to relay Putin's proposal to his experts for further consideration. Further demonstrating his chutzpah, Putin also used a junior, the deputy defence minister to demean Blair by calling him an almost ex prime minister during the verbal sparring which lead up to the G8 summit in Germany. Whilst this may be midly amusing, I couldn't help observing that Russia is distinct from the other principals at the summit by not being a full working democracy.

That is my last political or indeed any other thought for this travelog. Particular thanks to those who have enlivened it by commenting and finally I hope that you have enjoyed reading it almost as much as I enjoyed the journey..!





]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1180685340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1180685340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1180685340/tpod.html Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:33:27 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Irkutsk, Russia

If only I had followed John Collier's wise words in his comments to my last blog and blogged at a more frequent interval and I might not be kicking myself now at having lost most of my china pictures!!

These were in my camera which somehow got mislaid in my last day in Beijing. I take some consolation from the fact that those parts of china that I visited contained not too much worth photographing (often being obscured by smog where it was) and for the two places that did, Beijing's summer palace and the nearby great wall, you will find a couple of web links added to show what they look like. As I soon found, the term beautiful Chinese city is often a paradoxical term. Hangzhou and Suzhou for example are rated as the most beautiful of China's cities and for all but a small part I found this patently untrue.

Whilst they are not beautiful, most of the Chinese city's visited were interesting for one reason or another. Shanghai for example is advancing rapidly and rivals Hong Kong as the business centre for the People's Republic. Particularly impressive was the world beating Maglev train, which whisked me at an exhiliarting speed of up to 430 km per hour (I did have the photo to prove it..) from downtown to the airport, a distance of over 30km in just eight minutes. Built jointly by the germans and the chinese the train can apparently reach speeds of over 500 km per hour. Just think, if it were introduced in the UK we may be able to travel from say Birmingham to London in just over 30 minutes which would allow greater choice to many of us as to where we lived.

In many parts of China, I haven't come acoss many travellers and consequently I have had quite a bit of time to think. Mostly thats been positive but sometimes simple questions can pre-occupy one's mind for longer than they should. A silly example of this which arose after visiting a musuem is whether the Bronze Age preceded the Iron Age or vica versa.

I have also been able to spend quite a bit of time reading and one book that I am currently reading is Paul Therouux's Riding the Iron Rooster which is about a year spent travelling around China on its trains. Whilst reading it, I thought of the contrast with Bill Bryson who has also written a number of travel books. Brysons's sunny optimistic style was ideally suited to travel around Australia. Theroux it has to be said does not suffer from sunny optimism in fact his generally pessimistic view of human nature grates after a time and I found his book hard going in parts, however his conclusions are well supported and I found myself agreeing with him more often than I did when reading Bryson, who I sometimes felt lazily accepted general stereotypes eg in his conclusions on Canberra and more obviously his book on the UK, Notes From A Small Country.

Another book I have read on China also whilst in China was by Hugo De Burgh. China Friend or Foe..? Its an ok sort of book ....although it doesn't answer the question posed .....in that it covers a large area but I disagree with his simple acquiesence with China's lack of democracy. He suggests that China will soon overtake the US to become the world's leading economic power but in the absence of democracy I cant see that there is an effective mechanism to test whether those leading the country are and continue to be up to the job. Don't wish to appear to be categorical (but I will be on this point) without democracy prosperity is unsustainable.

You will see that I have changed the travelogue's title to Travels and Thoughts which more accurately reflect its contents, moving onto the travel bit, you maybe interested to know that the Madagascar TaekwonDo Team were staying in the same hostel as I was in Beijing. They were taking part in the World Championships which were underway at that time. You will all no doubt have heard that the Olympics are to be held in Beijing next year (and there is a huge amount of building, cleaning and general polishing going on which includes Mao as his mausoleum is now closed until September. Also closed for refurbishment was the People's musuem In Tainnamen Square and a sizeable part of the Forbidden City) but you may not be aware that the FIFA World Women's Championships is also being held in China during September.

Also exchanged views with a couple of welsh women who I met at the hostel and an australian who I met on a tour of the Great Wall. He was intending to set up an IT business in China as well as become an english teacher albeit without any knowledge of Chinese. This is easy to do apparently as he had done it previously in Japan. He had some interesting things to say and we had a good session in the Tree which is the best bar I've been to in Beijing for having a session. .

Left Beijing behind last Saturday and since then have been through Mongolia, stayed for just one night which was far too short a time at a ger hut on the mongolian plain; taken a good look around Ulaan Bhataar and had a couple of days here at Lake Baikal. Will cover this in more detail in the next entry which I write. In the meantime, a link to the travel company website and some photos are attached which I hope you enjoy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1178598180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1178598180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1178598180/tpod.html Fri, 11 May 2007 04:50:24 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Since my last entry a couple of weeks ago, have left Australia from Darwin airport, stopped for a few days in Bali and arrived in Hong Kong.

In my last week before flying out, I took a three day tour of Kakadu and Lichfield National Parks. The former is rare in being a world heritage site for both cultural and environmental reasons. Had arrived in the Top End as the north of the northern territories is known just after the end of the four month wet or monsoon season when it rains every day and it looked particularly green, bit like england in springtime in fact.....travelled up with some Dutch & German people whom I met in Alice Springs, most of whom are on travelling on whats called a shoestring. One is on a budget of US$30 a day and somehow or other manages to spend just $5 a day on food & drink.

With the abundance of green, there was also an abundance of wildlife in the national parks. This included termites and green ants, which you can touch and even eat and crocodiles, which of course you cannot. For reasons best known to themselves but I guess its so that they could cram in more sights than any of their competitors...(competition between tour group companies is particularly fierce in the Northern Territories and in the absence of government regulation, tour group leaders drive ridiculously long distances, for example 900km on the first day of the Uluru tour mentioned previously) on the last day we were instructed to rise at 5.00am, having been up at 5.30 am and 5.45am for the two previous days of the tour.

The tour group was ok, mainly Germans who were fine once there had been a proper and lengthy debate regarding the 1996 European Cup football semi final including of course Andreas Mo/ullers (?) penalty goal celebration. It was also rather useful that there was a woman from HK in the group as she taught me how to pronounce a number of the most common Cantonese phrases, which I hope to put to some use whilst I am here.

As well as wildlife and aboriginal drawings, Kakadu is also home to an uranium mine. Currently, I believe Australia limits the number of such mines to three but this is likely to change as both the government and the ALP have or are changing their policies to allow more such mines to open. Obviously there are a number of arguements for and against such a change. One argument heard against is that it would make OZ a more inviting prospect for invasion from the north. This underlying theme helps explain Australia's foreign policy since federation reflected in its very close attachment to & participation in many of our and since WW2 the US's conflicts.

Having twelve times the population, a GDP per head many times smaller & being just an hour or two away by air, I guess that Indonesia could be seen as one of those countries which could threaten although Bali, which in contrast to the remainder of the predominantly Muslim archipelago is Hindu & has a reputation for welcoming Australians & which I thought was kinda fun. The beach areas, Kuti ,where you may remember there was a terrorist bomb in 2002 which killed over 200 people, and Seminaykin, were pretty grungy but hey as with people being grungy can be interesting and conversely being sterile and polished can be dull.

The beaches on offer weren't terribly interesting so I headed up to the centre, staying at Ubud. Accommodation there as in the rest of Bali is terrific value; I paid about 6 pounds a night for an en suite room and balcony and breakfast. Seems that about half of Bali stayed up for the Liverpool versus Chelsea semi final.

Its not often I mention the flights, however the Cathay Pacific flight to HK was excellent. Food was great as was the in flight entertainment.

Whilst in Bali, I had booked accommodation in Kowloon. Maybe its after the wide open spaces of Australia but I found the first couple of days staying there manic and thinking that perhaps I was staying in the busiest part I went to view another hostel, this time in Causeway Bay on the main Hong Kong island and that area was busier, still. Buildings are commonly thirty stories and higher and there was activity everywhere and at all levels. Went to the HK History musuem. Noted that there was little mention in the musuem of the UK's attempts to introduce democracy in the last few years before leaving rather than in the 150 years of rule preceeding that.

For a break went to Macau for the weekend, which is about an hour away by boat. For centuries, Macau has been a Portuguese colony being handed back a couple of years after Hong Kong to the Chinese, in 1999. I thought the central regenerated parts of Macau city which I visited last weekend were pretty boring, which was a shame as the unregenerated bits generally were interesting although the east and much of the CBD is dominated by the casinos for which Macau is famous.

In the last four months travelling have not suffered illness of any sort yet since I've been in HK, have had travel sickness, a dust allergy ayyack and lastly a common cold. I guess this is what could be called a response to the environment but now ten days after arriving I think I have at least partly acclimatised and am happy to be dormiciled here until I receive my Chinese, Russian & Mongolian visas for the Trans Mongolian express, which I hope to have these by the end of this week. After that I will be heading up the China coast towards Beijing.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1177228980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1177228980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1177228980/tpod.html Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:38:14 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Darwin, Australia

Hi, all

Since my last entry, have done a serious amount of travelling, jounied about 5,000kms taking a generally northward direction going from about 33 to 13 degrees south of the equator to Darwin, which is well within the tropics. Going north has similar connotations to going south in the UK in that generally the climate gets hotter and the seasons less pronounced.

A few insights into those travels:

Perth and indeed most of West Australia is boomtown,...... The West Australian, which is the local paper is seriously thick and carries more job adverts than any I have seen before. Most of these are in mining, gold, uranium, copper etc which is booming as a result of demand from the Chinese.

Despite this or perhaps because of this, Perth is not that interesting, a day or two sufficed stopping there. During my time there went to an aussie rules game at Subiaco stadium between Freemantle Dockers and Port Adelaide. Aussie rules is Australia's most watched sport and I have to admit I found it really exciting certainly more so than a typical AFC Wimbledon match, ....sorry Josh....I guess its because there are very few stoppages, a lot of contact and its very fast. Rules are quite complex, I wont try and explain them, it says little about them on the official website which is attached. I guess its most like rugby although more league than union which it is said to originate from. Top Team at the moment is West Coast, also based in Perth and one of their top players is Daniel Kerr whose handling and tackling should make him a shoo in for a Wales shirt should he ever be persuaded to swop codes/game.

Incidentally, West Australians remind me of Northerners in that they wouldn't live anywhere else, strongly argue that everything you needed is here and also that people weren't as friendly in the rest of Australia.......

Spent a relaxing & healthy week on an organic farm just south of Perth. Started early, before eight...and spent the mornings either digging a very deep hole, painting things and helping with the slaughter of a sheep and some chickens. Temperature during the hole digging episode was mostly over 40C and the signs of dehydration afterwards most obviously showed itself by the colour emitted which was off the chart. (Only those visiting L&Q's Osborn House toilets where these charts and accompanying advice on the importance of drinking plenty of fluids are displayed are expected to be familiar with what this means...).

The chooks formed a layer in the aforementioned hole, apparently they make very good fertiliser for the lemon tree which was then planted there. Afternoons were my own and these were often spent walking in the surrounding woods, sometimes with the farm dog, sometimes not. Whilst walking I took some photos of some western grey kangaroos which are common in the area.



My bedroom there was a revamped train goods van; there was one other volunteer, Hiro, who is Japanese. Had meals with him, and the owners Pat & Bob who are very nice. Photo below shows the aforementioned together with the dog:



Spent a couple of days in Rottnest Island which was Ok. Went there from Freemantle which really is interesting and not to be missed. Similar to Saint Kilda near Melboune and nearer to home, Hastings it has a seedy edge to it and a lot of old buildings. Stayed at the Cheviot Marina which was both being seedy and old and as a consequence very cheap, which is good.

From Perth, went by train back to Adelaide which is undoubtedly the nicest city, I've been to so far. Link attached has a few details of what the city offers.

After a couple of relaxing days there caught the Ghan north to Alice Springs. Took a crammed two day tour to the outback including Kings Canyon and Uluru, previously known as Ayers Rock. It was a good tour group with an excellent tour leader, Trav who drove us over 1500 km. Highlights included sleeping out under the stars and seeing the sunrise over the rock which is much bigger and much redder than I previously imagined.

Here are some photos of that tour:






Last anecdote before I finish. Whilst Alice Springs is an ok sort of place during the day, its seriously dodgy at night....and both the Guidebook and our tour guide advised us not to walk alone in the town after dark. Coming home late from the party which was held at the end of the tour, I saw one of our group ahead approached by a guy who was holding a long object furtively behind his back. Drawing close, he brought the object around and then much to my relief put it to his mouth and played it.....it was a digeridoo.




]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1175526420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1175526420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1175526420/tpod.html Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:53:13 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Perth, Australia

Hi, there

Since my last entry, have finished the conservation volunteer programme and travelled in a generally westward direction ending up here in Perth.

Except for the 5am starts really enjoyed the animal census at Tuggarah national park which we were doing on the last week of the programme. Basically, this involved laying out traps and checking them each morning before the sun got too high and caused any harm to the critters, hence the early starts. During the course of the week came face to face with black rats, swamp rats, antichinum, (sort of marsupial mouse; the male lives just for a year before going on a mating rampage, when it forgets to eat and then ends up dying, sound familiar anyone...?) ringtail possum, occasional but unspecified snake, a couple of microbats and a pair of powerful owls, fairly rare causing some excitement.

None of these fauna were dangerous and I have to say that other than finding a red back spider under a chair in my first week here, I have not seen any of Australia's fatally venemous creatures although in the third week of the programme, we came across what was thought to be a Sydney funnel web spider's nest. The funnel web is the world's most poisonous spider and its venom rots the flesh, nice.

After finishing the programme, travelled down to Sydney and overnighted before catching the train to Canberra. Have booked rail passes for most of my travels. Most of the rail travel will be covered by the six month Great Southern rail pass which is a bargain at $590 thats about 240 pounds with a further $100 discount for YHA members, (membership costs just $37 and with this and all the other discounts received has paid for itself many times over.) Derided by Bill Bryson as boring and similarly by some of the australians met, Canberra was formally established in 1927 as the home of Australia's parliament. In my opinion.....because I like things like this....its worth a visit for a day. Saw and had tours of the old and new parliament, the latter was impressive, and the australian war musuem, the australians seem particularly drawn to conflict & been involved in most wars going. Joined the Canberra Labour Club,have the card to proove it, for just $2.20. Entry was cheap but beer and food unfortunately was not.

Took a day to travel from Canberra to ShaneWarne, Kylie's and my cousin Philip Cornelius's hometown, Melbourne. Caught up with Phil in a boozer in Richmond and enjoyed a good and rather long session. Phil arrived in Australia in 92 in Darwin and spent a few years here in Perth before moving onto Melbourne and had some good insights and advice including specifically the attractions of Kalgoolie where I hope to be going in a week or so time.

During my four days there, saw what the guidebook told me were most of the sights. Following guidebook advice has its downsides however since on the first night stayed at the Greenhouse back packers, heavily recommended by Lonely planets, what they neglected to mention however was that most rooms lack windows...yuck. Did stay the one night before finding a hostel which did have windows, the Melbourne metropolitan YHA.

Travelled onto Tasmania, arrived at Devonport, hired car and travelled along the north west coast to Stanley and then south to Cradle Mountain, a world heritage site. Enjoyed a day in the mountains, walking around I think it was Dove Lake. Second night stayed at Deloraione Hotel, the towns main boozer where I was the only customer despite a very reasonable $30 room charge. From there, went east to Launceston in the Tamar valley, before making my way back to Devonport for the night sailing to Port Melboune.

Cut it rather fine by allowing just half an hour between landing there and catching the Overlander train to Adelaide but caught it I did with a few seconds to spare. Like Adelaide too, although its different from, more preserved, less high rise, less modern than the other cities I've been to. Took a really good tour of the Adelaide Oval cricket ground and continuing the theme the Don Bradman collection at the Institute. After a couple of days there caught the Indian Pacific train to Perth. Roughly 2,600 km, as far as London is from Moscow, this two day and two night safari across mid and west australia took us safely across the sparsely inhabited Nulabor plain, also the longest stretch of straight railway line in the world. Arriving in Perth, I concluded that having spent four of the last seven nights sleeping in a chair I owed myself a proper bed so have spent the last two nights at the comfortable Ibis Hotel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1173768240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1173768240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1173768240/tpod.html Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:13:25 -0400 Travels and Thoughts...

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Newcastle, Australia

Hi, there

Since the least update, have been helping conserve Australia, mainly bt claring it of its weed...!

The first week was spent battling a water based weed, sulvynia. Found in rivers and creeks, it was imported from Brazil initially to decorate aquariums but as in the creek we were working released into the wild apparently by an absent minded old lady pouring the contents of her fish tank into the local brook which resulted in a week's work for me and many mkany years paid work for various conservation and environmental agencies.

Whilst this first week was great camping out in the bush, the next week was more local and last week was camping away again, this time in the Hawkesbury river valley, which is beautiful. Just 40 km north of Sydney it looks a bit like Fowey in Cornwall. For two days, we accessed the site where we were working by speed boat. This the final week of working as a conservation volunteer am undertaking an animal survey which involves trapping, recording and then releasing the fauna surveyed.Whilst I have enjoyed each week of being a volunteer, this last has been the most interesting week of the programme.

Except whilst camping have been staying at the volunteer house which is in a suburb of Newcastle called Cardiff; link attached, which was founded in the 1840's by welsh miners. Beacuse of the coal mining which takes place in the area, welsh and northern place names are common in the locality. Newcastle which is another example of this is currently the largest coal exporting port in the world and there are plans to expand its capacity further..

The house mentioned is rather cosmopolitan, at the moment there are volunteers here from australia, belgium, germany, Hong Kong and Japan, and previously from south korea and the US. Whilst there were some other males,the turnover of volunteers is high with the last departing a few days ago and so currently I am sharing this house with five women...

Previously, I promised a few insights on politics down under, by which I meant New Zealand and Australia. As you would expect, the political system in both takes quite a bit from that in the UK although both for various reaons have departed from that in recent years. The system in NZ has fewer checks and balances than that here or indeed back home. There is no upper house or regional government and as David Lange, the labour prime minister for much of the 80s commented legislation could and was passed in a very short time indeed. Although nominally leading that government, most policy emanated from Roger Douglas, the Finance minister who unhampered surpassed Thatcher in the UK in his speedy removal of government controls and participation in the economy. PR was introduced in 96 partly it is said to increase the level of scrutiny over the executive and prevent such excesses happening in the future.

I thought Lange's autobiography which was published a couple of years ago before he died wax excellent not so much because it was well written, which in most part it is, but more because, and this is my opinion, it showed Lange in contrast to the other politician highlighted below to have a warm empathy and faith in humanity.

You could argue that the level of checks and balances over the executive, ie the prime minister here in Australia is greater than the UK because regional in this case state government has more power, the electoral terms are shorter, three years instead of a possible five together with compulsory voting would should result in greater participation and therefore greater scrutiny of the executive.

I guess these checks have helped restrain the current executive, John Howard, described by Bill Bryson as the most boring man in Australia and by others as the man next door unless you happen to live in a yuppie neighbourhood. My feeling based on limited reading etc is that he is a clever politician and has used his ordanairyness effectively to relate to the common man (and I guess woman,) who he terms "Howards battlers" by appealing to their prejudices and their fears particularly on matters such as immigration and national security as well as their general dislike of the liberal progressive elite. Since coming to power in the 96 he has faced a number of labour leaders; current incumbent of the ALP hot seat is Kevin Rudd, who whilst he appears rather unexciting has shown himself steady under fire when countering various allegations made by Howard & his allies; his deputy, Julia Gillard, who incidentally was born in Wales, is rather more interesting and does a rather good line in acidic delivery, both necessary and effective in the bearpit which is the Australian parliament.

Those keen on music might be interested to know that Peter Garrett, once of Midnight Oil is now the shadow environment minister.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1171702200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1171702200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sjones123/sjones123/1171702200/tpod.html Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:10:18 -0500 Travels and Thoughts...

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Newcastle, Australia

Hi, all

Another week, another country. Since my last entry, one of the recipients David Roberts has written asking me to both spice it up and also suggested mentioning the welsh pub which I visited whilst in NZ.

Dave, I am not too sure whether I can do too much about the spicing up for the moment, but since you were interested, pls find a link & a brief descption of the pub attached for your and for more general perusal. Although it did not serve any welsh beer as far as I could tell and the welsh bar staff seen (proudly mentioned in the link) were in fact one part kiwi with the other part being a north walian, .....which you could argue doesnt really count, the pub did have a distinct welsh feel about it remiscent somewhat of the castle hotel in aberystwyth sometime in the early eighties. Suffice to say, we didnt stay long and I still blame Lachlan for dragging me there in the first place.

Moving swiftly on I spent a very relaxing time in Manly this last week. Described as the jewel of the north shore by the lonely planet guidebook, it is thorougly recommended. A bracing ferry ride away from the centre of Sydney it still manges to have everything an excellent beach resort should have. Whilst there, I took a hike up to the north fort, which is on the headland overlooking the entance to Sydney harbour. Its fair to say that the fort is not a big attraction, its open only three days a week even now in summer, and that entry is permitted only when accompanied by a guide.

When our guide first appeared, I suffered what can only be described as a wish to run away, not many years over 70,it is true our guide opened the tour with a blaze of irrelevant facts, the tour was for example linked with but not part of the services provided by the Sydney Harbour Board etc etc, whats more the tour would take not less than two hours.

However, like a number of things on these travels, my intial fears proved ill founded (could be a lesson there more generally, perhaps .....) and Laurie our guide took us all over the fort which included a maze of underground tunnels interspersing his usual factual, detailed and sometimes laborious description of guns and mortar sizes and their exact range with more personal and it has to be said more interesting insights into the state of australian society today...! Suffice to say, that by the end of the tour we were reluctant to let Laurie go and one of the party even missed the last bus back into town in the hope that Laurie would bestow the group with just one more of his insights, before he left us. If you are ever in Manly, a tour of the Fort is recommended and if your tour guide happens to be called Laurie tell him I sent you.....!
In my next entry, I am hoping to include something on politics down under and also an account of whats it like to be a conservation volunteer in the outback.

Have now added some photos to this and to the previous entries.

Any Feedback appreciated.

Stephen

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Auckland, New Zealand

Hi, all.

After four weeks, todays my last day in NZ, b4 tomorrow flying here from Auckland to OZ. Auckland's most obvious feature is the Sky Tower, which I visited, yesterday. Was impressed by it, the lift up was fast and the view of the city was excellent but couldn't help noticing just one small point which was made in the film shown to visitors which was that the tower will only sway a maximum of a metre either way whatever the wind conditions. Dont know about you but that seemed rather a lot to me.........!

For the last couple of days as for the first couple of days when I arrived, have been staying at Grafton Hall of Residence, which is part of the Auckland University. Only those at Hull University like me will know the vivid images conjured up by the very mention of the word Grafton...... Unlike that street, however where the sun never shone this Grafton is rather more pleasant and is recommended for its good value, free unlimited internet, sky TV, cooked breakfast, all for a rather reasonable $45, (thats about 15 pounds) per night.....
Stephen
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Christchurch, New Zealand

Finally got round to it, sitting in the smartest cyber cafe I have ever experienced on the main cathedral square in Christchurch where just hours earlier acts from the World Buskers festival were seeking the applause and more pertinently the money of those watching.

Christchurch is supposed to be the most english of any of the cities in NZ, a view supported by the one day spent here so far. The city is the home to the oldest anglican cathedral circa 1880 in the southern hemisphere and has a river Avon alongside which runs Oxford and Cambridge terrace, supposedly the river is also punted on. Am staying in a rather reasonable priced if rather sterile backpackers, called oddly Dreamland, am moving tomorrow to a hotel, less reasonable priced but all round nicer which also has the advantage of being very much nearer the bus stop where I will be getting the early morning coach to Queenstown on Tuesday. .


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Honululu, Hawaii, United States

Landed
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