-
April 15, 2021
Comments (0)
Backyard, Experiences
For New Years, Anna organised a 100km hike through Alpine National Park, starting with Mt Feathertop and finishing with Mt Bogong. She’d originally suggested tackling this in four days, as she’d done previous hikes of the same length in that time. When I tried explaining that topography matters (specifically:
Read More »
-
October 18, 2020
Comments (8)
Backyard, Experiences
Airline tickets booked. Kayaking and canoeing trips confirmed. Engagement parties conceptualised. Family dinners planned. Then the world was rocked by a creature so small, it takes 400 of them to stretch across a single hair. Qantas surprised neither of us when they snuffed out our last glowing ember of hope by
Read More »
-
January 5, 2020
Comments (4)
ONE Proj blog, Practical and How-To, Travel Philosophies
Take a second and think about this: What’s your favourite memory from travelling? Many people tell me a story about something totally unplanned and unexpected. Surprises, twists of fate, well-made plans that went hopelessly awry. In short, what lies at the heart of most amazing travel experiences is serendipity.
Read More »
-
October 15, 2019
Comments (4)
Europe, Experiences
In my final story from Russia I want to show you some stuff we found while in Moscow and Saint Petersburg that’s really ‘underground’. The first area is one just discovered by my Russian photographer friend Sasha (whom I met in Burma a decade ago, but has since become a recurring character in my travel
Read More »
-
September 15, 2019
Comments (12)
Asia, Europe, Experiences
All those years ago, when I was telling Sasha why I didn’t think I ever needed to visit Russia, I summarised my argument thusly: “Isn’t Russia just like Canada, but with meaner people?” Well now that I’ve been, I thought I’d report back to you all on the accuracy of that hypothesis.
Read More »
-
August 18, 2019
Comments (4)
Asia, Experiences, Photo Essays
Our first stop in Russia was a village in Buryatia province, Eastern Siberia. Buryatia is special because (Intriguing Fact #1) it’s the centre of Russian Buddhism. This is something most Russians don’t even realise. This region was once a part of Mongolia, but transferred to Russia in 1689 and 1727. It’s home to
Read More »
-
August 8, 2019
Comments (0)
Asia
“Russia! But why?” A question I’ve been asked many times in the months preceding this trip – and one I sometimes asked myself during it. One reason is that I promised my nomadic Russian photographer friend Sasha I would. In 2010 we travelled together in Burma after meeting on the streets of
Read More »
-
July 30, 2019
Comments (2)
ONE Proj blog
This is not my typical post. But the internet desperately needs an update on how to cross the China-Russia border overland from Manzhouli (满洲里市) to Zabaykalsk (Забайкальск). What we read before our trip (from ThornTree, Wikitravel, and TripAdvisor) was badly outdated. Basically, 100% of it was
Read More »
-
July 28, 2019
Comments (8)
Asia
I’m not sure if you’ve ever been dropped into a foreign land where basically no one speaks your language. It’s a strange brew: A cup of fascination, a tablespoon of excitement, a teaspoon of frustration, and a pinch of fear. China is definitely one such place. And it’s made even more alienating by the many
Read More »
-
September 21, 2017
Comments (0)
Americas, Experiences, Photo Essays
The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. The Empire City. New Amsterdam. Gotham. The Five Boroughs. The City So Nice They Named It Twice. New. York. City. After the west coast climbing adventure and on either side of family Christmas events, I spent a month holed up in a Toronto basement, racing to finish …
Read More »
-
June 28, 2017
Comments (4)
Americas, Experiences, Photo Essays
Meet Tim, one of my oldest mates from Perth, a British-born Aussie reliably liable to quip quotably. After completing my tour of Central Asia (which you’ve surely read all about) and some family-recovery time in Canada, it was time for me to realise one of my greatest life ambitions: To become a climbing bum,
Read More »
-
January 29, 2017
Comments (0)
Americas, Experiences, Photo Essays
At the end of 2014, Obama and Castro announced that US-Cuba relations would begin to ‘normalise’. It’s no coincidence that 2015 was Cuba’s biggest year in tourism history. Until 2016 that is, when it over-topped its own record. At the end of 2015, I was in Canada suffering from screen-overload
Read More »
