Global Travel Writers: Articles

Australia's best beach houses

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:14:00 -0500

Around this time of year, something akin to an internal alarm clock sounds within almost every Australian who grew up within cooee of the coast. As the temperature slowly nudges north and we tumble head first into the pre-Christmas rush, a voice somewhere inside tells us it�s time for a beach holiday. Any sensible person has booked long before now. But if not, never fear. We�ve scoured the coastline, finding that cute retro shack with the sandy path leading to the beach, through to the new wave beach houses in a class all of their own. If they�re booked out, pencil yourself in for next year, or scour our other options for your place in the sun this summer break, or to escape winter if you happen to be in the southern states.

A taste of Taveuni

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:22:00 -0500

In an attempt to get away from Fiji�s image as simply a place to vegetate, the lush-green northern island of Taveuni, straddling the International Date Line, has been working on a full-scale eco-tourism program. One of the country�s first national parks, Bouma National Heritage Park incorporates both the stunning Lavena Coastal Walk and the Waitabu Marine Reserve. On the eastern side of the island, Rainbow Reef affords some of the world�s most colourful diving.

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

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.

Mahouts' Course

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:50:00 -0400

There is no elegant way to climb up onto an elephant. Tricia Welsh learns this very quickly after many unladylike attempts and several hours of instruction at a mahout�s course in Northern Thailand.

The course is run by the elephant camp at Anantara Resort and Spa in the Golden Triangle near Chiang Rai. It is home to 34 elephants and is set up like a traditional mahouts� village that used to exist in the hills of Northern Thailand when most of Thailand�s elephants were employed in the logging industry. The Thai Government set up the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre (TECC) to ensure the well-being of elephants; the camp at Anantara is the northern extension of the TECC and offers guests a great chance to get to know these massive pachyderms

Malabar Magic

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:10:00 -0400

India dances to a different beat throughout the scenically diverse, historically varied and culturally rich Malabar region of northern Kerala. Maharajas built grand summer palaces at the edge of forested hinterlands while mighty forts of laterite were constructed along the coastline to protect the resource rich area from conquests.

Vast tea plantations stretch for as far as the eye can see while privileged guests staying at unique properties like Pranavam Home Stays can watch skilled dancers attired in colourful costumes perform age-old folk dances.

The region also boasts of the Edakkal Caves which date to the Neolithic Period. Farther afield are wildlife reserves where dark forests may yet reveal more exotic plant species.

An illustrated feature on the diverse Malabar region of northern Kerala can be written on assignment from 1000 to 2000 words, depending upon editorial requirements.

A separate feature or a sidebar can also be written about the unique cultural attractions of southern Kerala including Trivandrum and Cochin as well as houseboat holidays along peaceful backwaters in this lovely state.

Who pays the Piper?

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:27:00 -0400

The streets of Kyneton, less than one hour from Melbourne Airport, are lined with fine old Victorian-era shops and hotels, legacies of the great gold rush of the mid-nineteenth-century. In Kyneton�s Piper Street the vision, the drive and the creativity of a handful of people has created a dining and shopping strip as alluring as any in the metropolis.

Graham Jasper, in an earlier life a successful Melbourne architect, liked the town where he spent his early boyhood so much that he began to buy it up, building by building. His entrepreneurship, together with that of his wife Margaret - who pursues her passion for Persian carpets to the land of the Ayatollahs - has become a driving force on Piper Street.

From pizzeria with pizzazz to fine dining at Annie Smithers Bistrot and Star Anise, Piper Street has enough to keep gourmands, as well as shoppers, strolling up and down its time-worm flagstones all day. The grand old Royal George Hotel, a legacy of the coaching days, offers a sophistication seldom seen outside city limits. Browse the Persian carpets and Venetian glassware at Emporium, a restored cheese factory. Here too is your opportunity to admire the creations of local silversmiths Flynn Silver, whose Bradshaw series evokes the enigmatic rock art of Western Australia�s Kimberleys. Image gallery

Outback nature-feast

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:05:00 -0400

Pelicans, galahs, corellas, black ducks, Major Mitchell cockatoos, topknot pigeons and a dozen other species of birds circle around the grass-rimmed dam. Brolgas step lightly through the tree-rich scrub. Beal Bluff, some seven kilometres long, is a riotously striated series of red-shale rock folds studded with caves, secret passages and sheer cliffs that drop steeply down to the plains below � in short, an explorer�s and rock-climber�s paradise. The scene is Aldville Station, between Quilpie and Cunnamulla in southwest Queensland. Visitors to this part of the Australian outback are invariably stunned by the richness and abundance of nature-treasures to be found here. See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=10204