Global Travel Writers: Articles

Echoes of elegance

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:03:00 -0500

Opened briefly during August 2009 to for the annual yachting delirium that is Audi Hamilton Race Week, the Hamilton Island Yacht Club opens its stylish, hand crafted doors to members and guests on 25 November. Cleverly designed and inspired by azure Coral Sea colours, this is one seriously well appointed club, creating an element of sophistication rarely seen in the Whitsunday Islands.

Fiona Harper checks out the uber stylish Hamilton Island Yacht Club and Hamilton Island Golf Club

Contact Fiona Harper www.fionaharper.com.au to commission this article. Images are available www.pbase.com/fionaharper/hiyc

Laucala Langour

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:39:00 -0400

There is something decidedly exotic about hopping onboard a private jet and being whisked away to a far-flung South Pacific Island. Particularly so when your destination has been declared one of the 100 most beautiful hotels and resorts of the world.

Laucala Island, east of far-flung Taveuni in Fiji, opened in 2008 for just 50 discerning guests who don't mind shelling out upwards of 3800USD per night for a beachfront Plantation Residence. Set amidst a working coconut plantation, at this level of opulence, privacy, exclusivity and exquisite service is de riguer. With astounding attention to detail, assisted by a guest to staff ratio hovering around 7:1, Laucala Island has perfected the art of fine hospitality infused with an element of Fijian warmth.

Fiona Harper is one of few journalists invited to visit Laucala Island. Contact Fiona Harper to commission your exclusively crafted feature or puchase the article for immediate download.

Images are available.

My island home

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:56:00 -0400

Christine Anu comes from the saltwater people and sings about her island home, growing up in a small beachfront community in the Torres Strait. But it�s not necessary for you to venture that far to escape the ever-increasing crowds at popular island destinations. Perhaps you�re looking for a simple little piece of paradise in a world becoming ever more technical and complicated? Perhaps you�d like to slow down and actually smell those roses? Or sniff the salty scent of the sea at dawn. To awake beneath a forest canopy and listen as the wildlife erupts into its own operatic chorus. Perhaps then you�re tempted to enjoy the carefree life of a castaway on an island?

Daniel Defoe wrote a fictional autobiography based on an English castaway named Robinson Crusoe, who spent 28 years on a remote tropical island. So, while you probably don�t have 28 years to spare, possibly you do have a week or so to meld into an island existence. Where days revolve around the setting of the sun and the rising of the tide. Where evenings are spent beneath the stars watching clouds skitter across the moon. Where shoes are discarded and the only footprints on the beach are likely to be your own.

Contact Fiona Harper if you'd like to commission this article. Images are available.

www.fionaharper.com.au

Divine Docklands

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:46:00 -0400

There is an old proverb that decrees it is better to travel than to arrive. Robert Louis Stevenson was a great adventurer who said �I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel�s sake�. As a career gypsy who earns a living out of travelling the oceans and lands of the world, who am I to dispute such wisdom? However, I wonder if I�ve found my match at the end of a coastal voyage that terminates at the swanky Melbourne waterfront precinct of Docklands.

Passing beneath the skyward reaching pylons of the Bolte Bridge and into Victoria Harbour with its waterfront promenade chock full of restaurants, bars and entertainment, as twilight falls upon the city backdrop, I quietly start swallowing my words. "Perhaps, after all, it is better to arrive", I ponder as we dock at Waterfront City Marina. Amid the tinkling of wine glasses and the heady restaurant aromas wafting across the dock, Docklands throws open its arms in an exuberant welcome.

Contact Fiona Harper to commission this article. Images are available.

www.fionaharper.com.au

Vanuatu cruising

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:45:00 -0400

Cruising into Port Vila Harbour I�m reminded of those romantic South Pacific voyages I dreamt of as a teenager, having secured by chance a berth on a yacht through the Kimberleys. This tantalizing coastal passage introduced me to sailing, whetting my appetite for further adventures at sea. Reluctantly disembarking in Darwin, I left the yacht with my head filled with dreams to travel to far-flung exotic ports. The idyllic islands of the Pacific Ocean were then, as now, high on my �must see� list. I wasn�t alone as it turned out. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist James Michener long before was also seduced by similar dreams, crafting his epic novel Tales of the South Pacific based on his experiences in Samoa and Vanuatu......

Contact Fiona Harper to commission this article, or others along a similar theme from this yachting enthusiast.

Tales from a Tall Ship

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:35:00 -0400

Admiring the graceful elegance of this grand old lady of the sea, guests onboard Star Clipper watch languidly from their sunlounges as the crew scrabble up the rigging, unfurling yards and yards of billowing sail cloth. As the sheets that control the sails tighten, it feels as though Star Clipper lifts slightly higher in the water, picking up her skirts as she scoots across the deep blue Indian Ocean.

Star Clipper is a 115m Tall Ship, carrying just 170 guests in pampered comfort. She cruises out of Phuket during the southern summer, relocating to the Med in March to cruise the Med during the northern summer.

Onboard for an Indian Ocean crossing, Fiona Harper will join Star Clipper in March 2010 on her repositioning cruise. Contact Fiona (fiona@fionaharper.com.au) to confirm in principle support in commissioning an article based on this voyage.

Images will be available from Fiona Harper and Star Clipper.

Royal Treatment

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:38:00 -0400

�More coffee?� A waiter hovers at my elbow, ready to whisk my empty cup away.

It�s tempting, but my Arbroath smokies (locally smoked haddock) are coming. I have already done justice to a big bowl of oatmeal laced with the chef�s secret ingredient. What is it? I ask. The same waiter bends towards me, �Highland whisky liqueur,� he whispers back with a grin.

This would not be remarkable � just another top hotel brekkie, really � except we are travelling on an Orient Express train, the Royal Scotsman, rattling past one of the best breakfast views on earth.

Beside us lies Loch Carron with the white houses of the tiny village of Plockton (setting for the TV series Hamish Macbeth) just blotching into the distance. Metres away the water is silky in the early morning light. Feathers of mist still cling to the nearest pine-covered hilltops. This is the land of Scotland�s bard � Robbie Burns' country.

Robert Burns was born in the far south of Scotland, yet his ghost seems to stride the highlands. As the Royal Scotsman clicketty-clacks over the countryside he knew so well, it's hard not to hum Auld Lang Syne. Determined that 'old acquaintance should not be forgotten' Scottish Tourism has designated this year, 2009, the 250th anniversary of his birth, Homecoming Scotland.

Even boarding the train had been exciting. After meeting in the First Class Lounge at Edinburgh�s Waverley station we were led to the platform by our host, an urbane ex-army officer, on-hand specifically to be our guide and group companion.

On the red carpet stood a busby-topped bagpiper, clad in full tartan, his cheeks bursting. Scotland�s unique soundtrack filled the cavernous station as he piped us aboard.

That�s just the beginning of this story. Castles, lochs, distilleries, a knees-up ceilidh, and more food and wine (and whisky!) than you could shake a bagpipe at.

A trip on the Royal Scotsman is a perfect blend of past and present as you and your select group of fellow-passengers clicketty-clack along the rails.

Five-star amenities, attentive staff. That�s what wins people. Royal treatment, all the way.

�Sally Hammond 2009
Story runs to around 1000 words, but can be adapted to length required. Factfile updated when story is commissioned.
Pictures available.

The Charm of Chartering

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:05:00 -0500

The noise was deafening. The roar of blood pumping through my head as we charged forward, hell bent on hitting the start line milliseconds after the gun went. The commands of the helmsman as he bawled his constantly changing manoeuvres. The subtly controlled hysteria of the tacticians tongue dominating the mayhem as he called the countdown. The aluminium hull bashing and crashing through the pre-start chop, the whir of winches grinding, Kevlar crackling and sheets slapping as we jockeyed for position. A cacophony of pandemonium, multiplied a hundred times over, as each yacht manically converged, seemingly, on the same point.

It was my first Hamilton Island Race Week in 1994 and it was exhilarating mayhem. Bobsled, a Kell Steinman pocket maxi, had been chartered by a group of keen yachtsmen intent on getting around the course as fast as possible. Having just conservatively sailed this downwind flyer gently through many thousands of miles on the return of the Brisbane � Osaka race, it was a shock to see my temporary home (affectionately known by the delivery crew as the Bobsled Hilton after four months at sea through the western Pacific) sailed so aggressively. Not that she wasn�t up to it: Bobsled had recently slashed the 308nm Brisbane � Gladstone race in just under 22 hours, averaging 14 knots. Race Week was just another opportunity to let her loose amongst a fleet of like-minded speed freaks who had chartered Bobsled for the week. But she was only one of many yachts on charter for that week.

Contact Fiona Harper to commission this article or others on a similar theme. Images are available from this yachting enthusiast.

Scenic Rim serenity

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:56:00 -0500

Grazing cattle need pampering and lush pastures to produce their best. People, too, respond well to such bucolic calm; all the more so, in today�s tough times. Two premium properties in the sub-tropical hill country of southeastern Queensland�s Scenic Rim produce premium-grade beef and dairy milk, whilst hosting sublime retreats for Homo sapiens. City-dwellers can recharge their batteries � and graze on nature�s finest � within a scant hour or two of metropolitan Brisbane.

In the rugged, lushly fertile region where the Great Dividing Range meets the Darling Downs in southeastern Queensland, Hidden Vale and Spicers Peak are two associated - but quite different � boutique resorts, each based on a working cattle property. Gourmet cuisine is a feature of each property.

The history of Old Hidden Vale Station extends back to the early nineteenth century, and the property continues to produce high-grade Wagyu beef for the Japanese market. Reached by a steep, winding road, Spicers Peak is a private mountaintop lodge, surrounded on all sides by forested slopes and cloud-brushed peaks. More images

Sugar City

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:48:00 -0400

by Sally Hammond

The showerhead is enormous � as big as a dinner plate, delivering a storm cloud of big fat droplets, pretty much like standing under a tropical waterfall. The hotel guidelines in the room rabbit on about it too, calling it a 'serious shower', and then � and this you have to like � gives guests full permission to nick off with their toiletries. 'Do take them,' it demands. Who would refuse such an invitation?
It's not at all how you would expect an English hotel bathroom to behave.
More than 200 years ago Samuel Johnson described Bristol as so bad he wished he was in Scotland, his companion declaring himself 'by no means pleased with his inn' there. A couple of centuries later, I am very happy indeed to be in Bristol - and I like my inn as well.
In Boswell's time, when he penned that critical review, Bristol was quite a different place though: dirty, dangerous and working class, if you believe contemporary writers. At that time 'my inn' was working hard too as a sugar house, converting grimy sugar-beet tubers into glassy crystals suitable for the gentry's afternoon cuppas.

(finishes�)
Yet Bristol is more than just a city-port destination. It's the ideal hub for exploration into so many diverse areas: Wales, Cornwall, Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds are on the doorstep. Leave the city, and suddenly you are back to narrow hedged lanes, views across rumpled green velvet meadows, dark woods, or seaside villages tempting you with ice cream made from the milk of local dairy herds.
So why not stay locally in a hotel with sugar connections? Chances are you'll have sweeter memories of Bristol because of it.
(900 words)

�Sally Hammond 2008

Picture Credits: Gordon Hammond