Posts made during August, 2008
I’m not as good as Michael Palin.
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Today I attended a session of the Melbourne Writers Festival at Federation Square. I was a ’speaker’ at the past two Melbourne Writers Festivals, but this was the first time I’ve actually been in the audience. I saw Don Watson talk about his book American Journeys. With 300 authors and almost as many events, this was the only session in the festival that was about ‘travel writing’. [Excuse me while I put my gripe hat on for a second, but travel narrative is very popular so you'd think there would be more than one session devoted to the genre.] Anyway, the session was good.. (read more)
DANGER: Dumb passengers on-board.
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Although it was over 12 years ago that I worked as a tour leader for Top Deck in Europe, I’m still in the game. For the past 11 years I’ve been ‘leading’ day trips and weekend trips up to the Victorian snowfields. Yesterday I took a day trip up to Mt Buller. Some things never change, though. Passengers still ask you silly questions. Back in my Top Deck days I had questions such as: ’If I ring Australia now, will my mum be home?’ (No, I think she’s out shopping with my mum.); ‘Will my brother like this shirt?’ (No, I think he’d prefer it in beige”) and, at the money exchange at the Swiss border, ‘How much Swedish money do I need?’ Yesterday, just as… (read more)
The Couch Surfing wave keeps getting bigger.
Monday, August 25th, 2008
When I did the trip for my upcoming book ‘Sleeping Around (a couch surfing tour of the globe)’ there were 150,000 members from 20,000 cities on CouchSurfing.com with around 1000 new members joining a week. This week the ‘Couch Surfing Project’ hit 700,000 members who hail from 47,000 cities with over 10,000 new members joining every week. By the end of the year the overall membership will be close to hitting the million mark.
For those of you not familiar with couchsurfing, the concept came about in 2004 when 22-year-old Casey Fenton, a software programmer in New Hampshire, decided he wanted a weekend away. (read more)
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
I found the Hans Christian Anderson quote that I used on my blog masthead in one of the many long list of travel quotes that you can find on the net. I like a good travel quote (and maybe one day I might have a quote good enough to make a list!). There were a hundred quotes on the list I found, but for your viewing pleasure I’ve culled the list down to my top 15…
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home… (read more)
Big Blog Brother.
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
I’ve had my blog up for a month now and the site has had 1,673 views. I know that because I have a ‘blog stats’ page and it tells me everything. I know what ’search engine terms’ you use to get to my site (two people were obviously misled when they found me after typing in ‘good travel author’). I know where you go in my site (The biggest snowman ever in this world’ has had the most hits so far!). I know which sites you clicked from to get to mine (thanks George Dunford – 34 people have come my way via you). It even tells me what you had for dinner last night (you had pasta!) and, best of all, it gives me full access to your banking details. (read more)
Perfect Powder, Broken Bones and Suicidal Snowboarders.
Monday, August 18th, 2008
It was our last day in New Zealand yesterday and what a magic eight days of skiing we’ve had. In that time we got five good dumps of snow and three of them happened overnight with clear blue skies the next day. I spent my last day at Treble Cone skiing knee-deep powder. Not everyone had such a great day, however. While I was skiing slowly down a cat track between runs a completely-out-of-control snowboarder flew past… (read more)
Puck up your skis from the mital reck.
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
It snowed last night in Wanaka. This is the view from our house (well, it’s not actually our house – my book sales aren’t that big). It’s the first time this year that it snowed in town so it’s ’sweet as’. Had an ‘epic’ powder day today, but I am worried that I’m going to get beaten up by a local. When ever I hear a Kiwi speak I repeat what they say. I can’t help myself. Anyway, gotta go, I have to hid down to the dairy to puck up some epples, mulk and a chulli bun (read more)
Choice bro, eh?
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
Just arrived in Wanaka, New Zealand for a ski holiday and the snow is choice. This is my seventh ski holiday to NZ and I love it here. It’s like going to a foreign country. They have funny money, they drink strange but tasty beer and they speak funny. I’ve been teaching my daughter Jasmine how to speak Kiwi-ese and if we decide to get some takeaway food she’ll be able to order the ‘Fush end Chups. I’ve compiled my own little list of Kiw-ese, which goes something like this… (read more)
Brian on a shoestring.
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
I’m currently in the middle of planning my next big trip for my next big book. Well, when I say planning I really haven’t got much idea what’s going to happen or if I can even find a hotel. I’m travelling through South East Asia and I’ll be using the original 1975 Lonely Planet ‘South East Asia on a shoestring’ as my only guidebook. The current edition of SAE on a shoestring has 988 pages. The first edition had all of 148 pages. The first stop on my trip will be East Timor – back then it was Portuguese Timor which was ‘a beautiful unspoilt country with a rare opportunity to see an old fashioned colony’. In Indonesia I will attempt to follow a 5-day motorcycle ‘jaunt’ around Bali, which Tony and Maureen Wheeler did back in 1974 (looking something like this… (read more)
We gotta great big convoy…
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
The good thing about only recently starting a blog is that when I haven’t got much to say I can just re-hash old stories that happened months ago. Earlier this year I travelled 14,000 kms in 22 days around Australia in a 60-tonne… (read more)
