Global Travel Writers: Articles

Walhalla's Golden Glories

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:41:00 -0400

The story of Walhalla today is largely the story of Michael Leaney, a deceptively boyish dynamo who has revitalised the tiny Victorian-era gold rush township, almost lost in the Great Dividing Range.

Twenty years ago Leaney bought a miner�s cottage as a weekend retreat in a ghost town bereft of visitor facilities. Since then he has completely rebuilt and reopened the historic Star Hotel, destroyed by fire in 1951. Leaney�s enthusiasm also helps drive the continuing restoration of the railway which once ran from Moe to Walhalla, and this year celebrates its centenary.

Two and a half hours from Melbourne, Walhalla became the last town in Victoria to hook up to mains power, in 1998. Mobile phone and TV reception are still severely limited in this deep, forested valley, and just ask Leaney about the high farce which can result when overseas tourists try to find their way in or out of here by relying on satellite navigation.

What is it about this remote community, whose population is still measured only in double digits? Perhaps Walhalla satisfies that deep-seated childhood ideal of a pretty toy-town of neat, square houses set alongside a stream which runs through a deep valley.

Adventurer Profile: Jessica Watson

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:39:00 -0500

At just eight years old, Jessica Watson's Mother, Julie, read her a book called Lionheart, the story of 18 year old Jesse Martin's record breaking solo voyage around the world. It was enough to set this young girl on the type of adventure most of us don't have the courage to even contemplate. After years of planning, 16 year old Jessica departed Sydney Harbour in October 2009, with the aim of sailing solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world. And hopefully, smashing Jesse Martin's record.

More than 8000 miles into a journey that is estimated to be around 27,000 nautical miles, and after more than 60 days at sea alone, Jessica is confidently on track to round Cape Horn, the sailor's Everest.

With access to both Jessica Watson onboard her 34 foot yacht Ella's Pink Lady, as well her support team at home in Australia, Fiona Harper follows Jessica's progress.

This Personality Profile piece can run to around 1000 words. Images are available.

AN ELEPHANT SANCTUARY

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:57:00 -0400

This peaceful sanctuary for rescued elephants allows people to get up close with these majestic creatures. The Elephant Nature Park in the Mae Taeng Valley, 60 kms out of Chiang Mai, is home to 34 Asian elephants, many of them rescued from dire circumstances by park founder, Sangduen Chaillert. Known as �Lek� (Tiny), this diminuitive Thai woman from a remote Northern hill tribe, has done more to help the predicament of elephants, than almost anyone, earning her Time Magazine�s Asia Hero of the Year in 2005 for her work with elephants.

Further north in the hills of Thailand�s Golden Triangle, Briton John Clarke runs an Elephant Camp project at the Anantara and Four Season Tented Camp resorts. Under his charge a number of elephants have been rescued from logging and from use in street begging and brought here to the forests of Chiang Rai.

The program and the Asian Elephant Foundation are supported by resort guests who pay around US$285 a night for a deluxe suite at this luxury resort overlooking the Golden Triangle. These days many are paying an additional fee, on top of their hotel accommodation, to undergo �mahout� training, a one day to one week intensive program where they learn how to bond with, look after and wash the elephants, a project that enables the resort to keep them off the streets.

There are no chains or saddles at either elephant sanctuary � the elephants roam free at night in the nearby jungle and the only time they�re ridden is down to the river for their daily bath�.. continues

�Karen Halabi August 2009

For a story and images on The Elephant Nature Park or The Elephant Camp project or both in one story contact the author. OR you may prefer a story on all attempts/projects to save the Asian elephant. Story can run from 1,000 to 2,000 wds.

Making a difference

Mon, 04 May 2009 07:09:00 -0400

The town of Cunnamulla, in SW Queensland (outback Australia) is one of the most disadvantaged communities in the country. But the efforts of one remarkable teacher - Neil Spencer, who has been art teacher at Cunnamulla State School for the last 17 years - have led his talented young students to produce some quite extraordinary artworks. Spencer manages to get equally good results from both his Aboriginal and other pupils, and as a result he has succeeded as few others have in bringing the different communities of Cunnamulla together.

Finding Dylan Thomas in Old South Wales

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:22:00 -0400

You don't have to go searching for Dylan Thomas in Old South Wales. Quite the contrary - Dylan Thomas will come looking for YOU. Through exhibitions, museums, festivals, statues, cafes, pubs, street names, paintings, posters and snatches of words still hanging in the salty air.

Good Celts them all, the Welsh share the Irish bent for tale telling and, around Swansea, so many of the best ones concern the man Hollywood legend Shelley Winters dubbed "The Horny Welshman'. In 1950 she took him home for dinner where he drank pitchers of gin martinis served up in milk bottles by flatmate Marilyn Monroe while singing Welsh songs; the sort of ditties he'd learned at The Mermaid and The Antelope, his Swansea pubs of choice when "this sea town was my world."

I came late to the Welsh bard. Before Under Milkwood and Do Not Go Gentle, at least for me, it was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Thomas is there on the front cover of the 1967 Beatles album, in Peter Blake's esoteric collage above Marlon Brando, beside Aldous Huxley, nearly clipped by cowboy Tom Mix' hat. Blake has confirmed that John Lennon - who is said to have sometimes carried a battered volume of Thomas on his person during his Hamburg and Liverpool leather years - was insistent on the inclusion.

As I leave Swansea and wind around its bay to Mumbles and the Gower Peninsula, on the pilgrimage trail to the Dylan Thomas boathouse and writing shack at Loughnarne, there's a copy of his Selected Poems on the car seat beside me. The back cover blurb is the right length for a traffic light stop. "Most notable for his verbal inventiveness, image-making power and almost pagan metaphysics, Dylan Thomas celebrated the glorious particulars of inner and outer landscapes in the face of weakness, mortality and decay." Not hard to see why Lennon liked him.

The Chieftain of Skull Island

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:17:00 -0400

When the tsunami that struck the Solomon Islands with devastating force in 2007 hit Kundu Hite (Skull Island), Chief Eddie was forced to flee for his life to the mainland. There he remains to this day, scared that another big tsunami might strike. But for hundreds of years it was the Roviana warriors of Kunda Hite who struck, rowing their tomoko (war canoes) as far as Ghizo, Choiseul and Guadalcanal on headhunting raids. Today, the captured skulls are buried underground on Skull Island, with the skulls of Roviana chiefs and warriors forming a surface memorial. But will Chief Eddie be the last chieftain of Skull Island?

New views from Koh Samui

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:04:00 -0400

As tourism to Thailand grows in leaps and bounds, do tourists need to take lessons in the art of being good guests?

Noel Kelly, head of the Koh Samui Tourist Police Volunteers' Group on Thailand�s Koh Samui Island, has a unique view into the current state of tourism on the island. �Petty theft is a major problem�, he says. �We work with the Tourist Police to provide assistance in these and other cases. The role of the Tourist Police is not to police the tourists, but to act as a cultural bridge.�

On Basque Time

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:44:00 -0500

We sample rare porc Basque ham, delicious local smoked trout and farmhouse cheese, visit a duck farm, sip regional wines, and browse around the old fortified village of St Jean Pied de Port on market day during a leisurely but comprehensive nine-day �slow food� tour that lifts the lid off the gourmet pie that is the wonderful Basque region of France.

We are in the hands of Australian-based couple Robbie and Patrick Arrieula, who have been leading food and walking tours of the area for the past 12 years. Patrick is a wealth of knowledge and knows the region well since he grew up in the area. His parents live in Abos where his father is deputy mayor. He makes twice-yearly forays back to home turf, to share his passion with like minded travellers.

Melbourne - from the Bizarre to the Surreal

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:18:00 -0500

Melbourne�s mind-bending urban sculptures and street art sometimes leave you wondering whether it�s you or the city that is going crazy. �Melbourne's City of Yarra has the densest concentration of galleries and public art collectives of any place on earth," says Phil Hall, artistic director and curator of the Contempora sculpture and public art festival. "Whereas cities such as London have a zero-tolerance to public art, here in Melbourne it is actively encoraged." See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=7751

Don�t worry, be happy in Havana, Cuba

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:15:00 -0500

The country that gave us the best cigars, top-shelf rum and rhythmic salsa music is located ideally in the middle of the Caribbean. Yet for the past 50 years it�s been considered a no-go zone � certainly for Americans - and hence is one of the most difficult countries to visit. With ex-President Fidel Castro's health failing and President Raul Castro now turned 78, there is a sense of urgency that now is the time to visit -- and soon!