Vietnam Past and Present – In the footsteps of the war

The Vietnam War reached its bloody crescendo 50 years ago and its veterans have marched into history’s pages. Yet an observant traveller to this lovely shape-shifting country cannot escape that war. It permeates the national personality as profoundly as Honda motorbikes permeate Hanoi streets.

The peace forged from pain has, poignantly, created a thriving travel destination whose complexity owes much to conflict. Our journey takes us from the Vung Tau peninsula and Saigon in the south to Hanoi in the north. We have come for history, specifically Australia’s involvement in the war. But every country’s past informs its present, none more so than Vietnam.

Here is my cover story, published in the March 9, 2020 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald Traveller and The Age Traveller.

Or you can read the story online at Traveller.com.au:

https://www.traveller.com.au/vietnam-travelling-in-the-footsteps-of-the-vietnam-war-h1m46u

 

 

https://www.traveller.com.au/vietnam-travelling-in-the-footsteps-of-the-vietnam-war-h1m46u

Vietnam Airlines business class flight test

Or read the link on Traveller.com.au:

https://www.traveller.com.au/flight-test-ho-chi-minh-city-to-sydney-vietnam-airlines-787-business-class-h1lxek

 

The Petrified Waterfalls of Mexico’s Hierve el Agua

What boils and is cold enough to touch? What flows and is motionless? What is ancient but constantly renewing? What freezes in blazing heat? Solve the riddle and you will arrive at a sacred place – the petrified waterfalls of Mexico’s Hierve el Agua.

Here’s my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller on February 10, 2020. You can read it online here: https://www.traveller.com.au/hierve-el-agua-mexico-oaxaca-a-rare-natural-phenomenon-h1l78b

Plokstine, Lithuania – Europe’s brush with the Apocalypse

These days, the woodlands, meadows and lakes of Lithuania’s Zemaitija National park are a natural paradise. But deep in the forest, one of the Soviet Union’s first Cold War missile sites is a chilling reminder of Europe’s brush with the apocalypse.

From the surface the site, now a fascinating museum, looks like a UFO landing pad with the white domes of the silo lids gleaming in a clearing in the Plokstine Forest. What lies beneath is a sprawling underground bunker system whose business was killing.

Here’s my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller on February 10, 2020. You can also read it online at: https://www.traveller.com.au/lithuania-plokstine-beneath-paradise-a-chilling-reminder-of-europes-brush-with-the-apocalypse-h1levn

Six of the Best St Petersburg Wonders

Peter the Great’s visionary city is a masterpiece. In 1702, seeking a Baltic outlet and disliking Moscow’s unplanned chaos, he fashioned a grandly elegant capital.

Here’s my story on the six must-see wonders of St Petersburg published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Traveller on February 10, 2020. You can also read it online at: https://www.traveller.com.au/six-of-the-best-st-petersburg-wonders-h1lf1r

The Mighty Kiel Canal

Petite canals enliven cities like Amsterdam, St Petersburg, Bruges and Venice but there’s nothing quite like a big canal. These giant shipping channels sculpt the landscape, connecting oceans, separating continents and joining rivers.

Here’s my story on the Kiel Canal that connects the Baltic Sea with the Atlantic. It was published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Traveller on January 24, 2020. You can also read it online here: https://www.traveller.com.au/lock-and-load-for-germanys-kiel-canal-h1kxge

Cape Town’s Kirstenbosch – the world’s best botanical garden?

The world boasts many exquisite botanical gardens – Canada’s Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, London’s Kew Gardens, Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay, Rio’s Jardim Botanico, our own Sydney or Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens, to name a few. Picking the best is subjective.

All good gardens at the very least must inspire joy, stir the spirit and soothe the mind. Exceptional gardens often include a significant setting, diverse biomes, historic links and conservation/preservation initiatives.

The visceral allure of a botanic garden might have something to do with its relationship to our life journey. In a plant’s growth cycle, we observe vigour, beauty, productivity, decline, and then rebirth.

In the words of English author Rumer Godden, “a garden isn’t meant to be useful. It’s for joy,” and the most joyful in my opinion, is Kirstenbosch. True, there’s bias. I grew up nearby, its flora, topography and aspect constant in my young world. My parents’ ashes are scattered there.

Kirstenbosch, however, speaks for itself. It’s not merely the judiciously sited flowerbeds, the trees, ponds and lawns.

Here’s my story published in January 2020 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online here: https://www.traveller.com.au/cape-towns-kirstenbosch-this-could-be-the-worlds-best-botanical-garden-h1kgkd

My travel story ‘Snails in the Mist’ wins Lane Cove Literary Award 2019

My travel story Snails in the Mist about a group of friends walking New Zealand’s Milford Track, has won the Lane Cove Literary Awards’ Burns Bay Bookery Prize for 2019. The Lane Cove Literary Awards are open to writers around Australia.

It was also shortlisted and highly commended in the Travel story prize (won by Marian McGuinness for her piece, On First Seeing Antarctica) and was shortlisted in two other categories.

You can read it here: http://ecouncil.lanecove.nsw.gov.au/TRIM/documents_TE/66148069/TRIM_Winner%20Lane%20Cove%20Literary%20Awards%202019%20The%20Burns%20Bay%20Bookery%20Resident%20Prize%20Snails%20in%20the%20Mist%20by%20Alison%20Stewart_1387238.PDF

Winners were announced at an Awards Ceremony held on Thursday 14 November 2019 at Lane Cove Library.

Lane Cove Library will publish an anthology of shortlisted and winning entries, which will be available in mid-2020.

Here is a list of the winners:

• Short Story Prize – Death by Prawning by Marian McGuinness
• Travel Story Prize – On First Seeing Antarctica by Marian McGuinness
• Poetry Prize – (Mer)man-made Tide by Dave Drayton
• The Burns Bay Bookery Resident Prize – Snails in the Mist by Alison Stewart
• Len Wallis Audio Youth Prize  (16 – 24 years) – Feeling with Fingertips by Jessie Pearson
• The Baytree by Ardency Senior Prize (65+ years) – Moss Poem by Janice Dean

Boulders Beach – Cape Town’s cutest critters

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that South Africa offers astonishing wildlife. Generally, you enter game reserves to view it. Cape Town’s Boulders Beach offers something more – the chance to live among a colony of tiny African Penguins.

These little black-and-white critters – the only penguin species to breed in Africa –  are everywhere within the small residential enclave and generally untroubled by the presence of humans. We leave our house for dinner and four comical creatures waddle along the footpath in front of us. We stroll from our garden to the beach and a loving pair, which we initially thought were statues, gaze out from beneath a shrub. Signs in the carpark warn people to check under their cars for penguins.

Here’s my story published in November 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online here at Traveller.com.au: https://www.traveller.com.au/boulders-beach-cape-town-the-best-place-to-see-african-penguins-h1jhr2

The Baltic States Rise Again

Lovely old Europe, once vibrant, feels dog-tired, swamped by tourists and in need of a good lie down. But not the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that embrace the east coast of the Baltic Sea.

Like the Baltic white storks that return in spring from their African sojourn believed to bring good fortune and happiness, so these little republics, a scant 25 years after independence from the Soviet Union, are experiencing a miraculous renewal. It’s like Western Europe 40 years ago – upbeat societies, still tackling problems but awash with exuberance, optimism and a deep appreciation of the freedom that has cost them so much. The result – a convivial traveller experience.

Here’s my cover story published in November 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online at Traveller.com.au here: https://www.traveller.com.au/the-baltic-states-of-estonia-latvia-and-lithuania-just-like-western-europe-40-years-ago-h1jgrb