Kiribati - a drop in the Pacific

Going west on South Tarawa - ocean side to the left, lagoon side to the right

In November 2022, I dropped into South Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands group within the nation of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) for a six to 12 months stay.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1350215

So where in the world is that? 

The Bibbulmun Track - in 50 images

In the early part of 2021, I was living at my Dad's place in Albany, WA. I told him that I thought I'd like to go and see Mum who lives in Perth. He said he thought that was a great idea. However, when I asked if I could borrow the car, he said "No, you can walk." And so I did.

I walked the Bibbulmun Track, a 1000km (600 mile) bushwalk that winds its way from Albany to Perth. (The route is about 400km as the crow flies, but no crows were willing to give me a ride - they were about as helpful as my dad.)

The journey took me just over 50 days to complete. 

Here are 50 images (or videos or sound files) to give you a sense of the trek: that is, one per 20kms or one per day. 

Enjoy the spectacular beauty of the south-west of Western Australia - without the heat, the flies, the camping, or the walking!

South Pacific tour

One of my jobs this year was to evaluate the impact of sports programs (and especially table tennis) being delivered in the south Pacific. The sports program is specifically designed to engage people with disabilities. Table tennis is ideal as it tends to encourage and support play between persons with disabilities and able-bodied people.

The research took me to Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati.

A walk on the wilderness side (Hong Kong)

Hong Kong wilderness? Sounds like an oxymoron, but it really isn't. 

When an offer came up to visit Hong Kong to teach a two-weekend course in the psychology of consumers and consumption ("Consumer Behavior"), I said "Yes".

This affirms one of the key principles of "manipulating" consumer behavior: just give customers want they want. It's a lot easier than trying to push them towards that which they don't want.

The course was then cancelled, but they agreed to pay for my non-refundable airline tickets, and so I went anyway.

Hong Kong is of course a major city (population 7m), and nearby mainland China features a set of massive megatropolises including Guangzhou (population 13m) and Shenzhen (population 11m).

Despite that, Hong Kong features some fascinating wilderness spots. Here's the ones I explored and highly recommend.

Thai sailas exploring the Andaman sea

Some years ago, Zach passed on an opportunity to go sailing in Turkey with me. I took my Dad with me instead.

I figured that one day, Zach might be interested and as it turned out, it was in 2016 that Zach said to me "Papa, can we go sailing this year?"

So in July, we chartered a 40' catamaran in Thailand. This is a big boat relative to equivalent sized monohulls. It had 4x double cabins, 2x single cabins and a large saloon between the hulls. Luxury.

We rounded up a crew of eight people and here are a few of our adventures. (I won't bore you with all the fun that we had but feel free to ask me for more details).

Indian-Pacific train experience

Are we there yet?

Trains seem to have always been somehow magical: steam trains (how does a gigantic metallic beast like that get driven by steam?), the joining of east and west in the US, the Orient Express in Europe, Hogwarts Express, the marvellous but oftentimes sordid mystery of trains running underground in many of the world's major cities, etc.

In an age of plane travel, the idea of travelling on a train can hold even more appeal than in the past. And given Zach's youthful love of trains, we decided to do the Indian-Pacific train journey, one of the world's great train journeys (as rated by no less than the Society of International Railway Travellers).

It is called the Indian-Pacific which implies travel from west to east, but you can choose to go the other way, Sydney to Perth. That route is a little more expensive, presumably due to greater demand. Who knows why. Perhaps because it is going to be a couple of hours longer due to the time difference. Or maybe because there is something exotic about riding the Indian-Pacific in the wrong direction.

Riding the train is an Experience with a capital E. The key Elements of that most Excellent Experience were as follows:

Tour de France '14(3): Snow & Andorra

Some days, the snow-tipped Pyrenées which mark the border between France and Spain feel so close, its like we might be able to touch them. But Zach who had never experienced snow wanted to touch it for real.

So, we headed out to Andorra, a little principality (like Monaco) of about 40 x 25km between France and Spain. Its claims to fame are skiing, tax-free haven, and third longest-lived inhabitants in the world (average of 84 years).

We were accompanied by two brothers: Jean and Blaise. Jean is a year and a half less than Zach, and Blaise is transitioning to young adult. Blaise probably only came in order to buy cheap cigarettes in Andorra, but it was fun to have him along.

The drive along the Ariège river towards the mountains was amazing. Lots of signs explained that there were caves and museums of human pre-history along this way. We didn’t stop, but it is nonetheless rather moving to think we were passing near to human homes over 15,000 years old with their artworks still hanging on the wall !

To enter the mountainous country of Andorra, we drove up a very picturesque valley through Ax-les-Thermes, a famous thermal spa resort town. The route then climbed by making very long zig-zags across the mountain up to the crossing into Andorra.

Despite the drive up being like something out of James Bond or the Italian Job (as Zach noted), the crossing into Andorra was uneventful. They didn’t even stop us. Not even to stamp our passport to show we had entered Andorra. How can we log all the countries we have visited if not by passport? Maybe a self-stamping point at the border would be good.

There were at least a few policeman/customs men standing around, but being a tax haven, I daresay the contraband is travelling the other way. This perhaps explains why our nonchalant, James Bond wave seemed to count for little.

Entering from the east (see map), we quickly came upon Pas de la Casa: big apartment buildings, lots of parking (for the tax free shoppers), and access to ski-lifts and slopes.

Didn’t work for me, and I was the driver so we kept going on up. We passed up over the town (more zigzags) and finally came to the Porte de l'Envalira (2408m) at which there were two service stations and a café. We kept going and started going down the other side.

Zach was being very quiet, but I became ‘inquiet’ (French for feeling uncomfortable) because we were going away from the snow - and I knew the snow was where he wanted to be! 

We passed another ski-station called Grau Roig, and came into another little village, Bony d'Envalira. Lots of chalets for skiing in and out of during the season, but not enough snow right now.

We decided to stop at a supermarket to collect the fixings for a 'picque-nicque' and practice our Catalan - the language spoken here. Our Catalan sucked, but we managed to get all that we wanted including Blaise who bought his cheap cigarettes. I presume that the cheap prices aren't that attractive to Andorriens, otherwise they surely wouldn't be living as long as they do.

We headed back up to the top and Zach got to see and touch snow.

Remember the first time you touched snow? It's kind of weird to explain, isn't it? 

It is said that the Inuit (Eskimo) have 20-50 words for snow (although it is disputed!). Australians, not surprisingly perhaps, do not have much of a vocabulary for snow: powder, packed, ice – or more simply, skiable or not!

It appeared to have snowed in the last couple of days because there were a couple of centimetres of light, fluffy, powdery snow over packed, icy snow. Within seconds Zach was making up and throwing a snowball. Then we pulled the toboggans out of the car and started sliding around on the snow. As we ran around, our legs plunged into deep, long-standing snow, our clothes got wet - and of course, none of this mattered. 

Zach wanted to eat some snow – which allowed me to advise him that Australian snow vocabulary does extend to include ‘yellow snow’ which one should not eat. Zach always trying to prove me wrong pointed out that he had poured some lemon Fanta into the snow and it was great! Sigh.

After our picque-nicque from the back of the car, I took advantage of the sunshine to walk up a slope to a lift station to get a 360 degree view of Andorra (see below).

None of the lifts were working anywhere which surprised me as the snow was good for skiing and the sun was shining! Ski season ends in March apparently. I guess it is like back on the Gold Coast – when you live on the beach, you’re spoiled for good waves, and only tourists would go out on a crap day. Anyway, nice walk, and nice view.

So, now we can look at the view of the snow-tipped mountains from the front door, and Zach can say, ‘been there, done that.’

Tour de France '14(2): Fire !

180 degree view from the front door (straight ahead are the Pyrenees)

We’re in Europe – so of course, we have to talk about the weather. It’s changing all the time, so it is the thing to talk about. But Thursday 24 April really gave us something to talk about.

There was a thunderstorm that afternoon. Not such a big one by Gold Coast standards. Just to take a moment out to boast, if you want to see a lightning show, it doesn’t get much better than we have in Coolangatta looking out over the ocean from our balcony. We can watch lightning flashing about for hours. And if that is not sufficiently entertaining, you can spend some time trying to console Zoey the dog, her shivering and shaking and tremors continue as aftershocks for some time after the storm has passed!

However, what France gave us was an up-close and personal experience. 

A loud sizzling sound sounded while we were in the kitchen preparing dinner along with a simultaneous flash of light outside was accompanied by an electricity outage. We mussed around, found the switchboard and turned the electricity back on. In the kitchen, someone commented on the smell of the cooking and closed one of the connecting doors to elsewhere. 

One of the other people in the house, upstairs, came down complaining of the smell of smoke – we told her we had closed the kitchen doors. She returned upstairs and then we heard her say, no there was really smoke. We all raced upstairs and could see through the skylight, smoke rising from the roof. 

We went outside to see that the roof was on fire (see Zach’s photo – the only one of the roof on fire!). A cast of us went running around looking for ladders, fire-extinguishers, hoses, etc. and proceeded to try and extinguish the fire while we waited for the fire-engines (pompiers). The house is some 10 kms from the nearest town, so it was going to take some time. Meanwhile the hose that Papa was using to put out the fire was leaking almost much as it was spraying so his clothes and he himself became soaked through as he did his bit to use water to douse the flames.

Fire engines arrived – four in total eventually – and took over. The roof over one of the bathrooms was completely destroyed and was removed, and two bedrooms on each side of the bathroom were rendered unusuable due to smoke, water-damage, etc.

Dinner that night was by candlelight. Our guests were four firemen who had stayed on after the initial fire was put out, removed hot tiles from the roof and generally making sure the fire was really really out. They also came back at 5am the next morning to check again.

Since then, we have had intermittent electricity which cuts out from time to time – e.g., when someone plugs a mobile phone into a plug to recharge and many of the appliances like the dishwasher are no longer working properly!

And above all, no internet! This has been a bit of an eye-opener. I have realised that the apocalypse in modern times will not heralded by four horseman, not even by the arrival of a tsunami wave, an earthquake, a volcano or even a fire. Rather it will be heralded by the eerie silence that comes by cutting the umbilical that we call the internet! 

Tour de France '14(1): Korea (en route to France!)

The view from our front door in France !

On our way to France, we had a one night stop-over in Korea, a country that neither of us have visited before. But there wasn’t much to see!
There was a heavy fog all around airport – we couldn’t even see the terminal when we landed, and the planes coming and going kind of appeared and disappeared in the mist. Very disturbing sitting in a plane taxiing around among massive planes coming and going!

The bus to the hotel took about 5 minutes and was apparently right next to the airport, but you wouldn’t know for all the fog!

Looking out of our hotel room window, we were able to see into the courtyard of the hotel and there were a couple of cherry-blossom trees blooming which were very pretty. I reflected on whether there might be cheries when Zach dismissively explained to me that cherry-blossom trees are not cherry trees. I never knew – I thought the cherry-blossom season in Japan was from cherry trees. Apparently not according to Prof Holden (Jr).

A pilot on stopover explained there was a nice walk along the street near the hotel and so we went out exploring. Still weird in the fog, but we found an Australian fish and chip shop which the pilot had told us about. Strange kind of blend of Korean shop and Aussie bar.

The thing that delighted us both about are short overnight stay in Incheon in Korea (aside from the dessert bar pictured!) was the friendliness of the people. The waitresses kindly taught us how to say ‘thank you’ in Korean: kum-sam-yi-a-da (no idea how to write it). We’re looking forward to our stopover on the way home when we might venture into Seoul and find a hotel there to stay.

A turquoise holiday: dreaming beyond blue

Unnamed Bay near Ekincik

There is something very special about the colour blue. It is so very calming and yet extraordinarily exotic - think lapis lazuli.

A sailing trip is the idyllic dream vacation because there is nothing more serene than navigating the blue hues created in the spaces between the sky and the sea.

However, I recently joined a yacht rally in Turkey, and it simply ‘blue’ me away.

The Turkish yacht rally was a gem, like the green-blue, aquamarine turquoise which is named after the French word meaning ‘Turkish’.

Turkey, despite its distinctive red flag, features a lot of blue. There is the fabled Blue Mosque in Istanbul and the ubiquitous nazar, the brilliant blue eye-design pendant to ward off the evil-eye.

Karaloz

The turquoise yacht rally I joined travelled along the coast between Marmaris and Anatalya, a route sometimes known as a ‘blue cruise’ from the Turkish phrase mavi yolculuk and a book of the same name.

The fleet comprised just six boats ranging from 40’ through to 53’ with crews of all types: old and young (blue-rinse to blue fingernails), old salts and young Turks.

Now normally, planning for a sailing cruise can be quite onerous exercise: finding charter companies, finding spaces, negotiating contracts, providing sailing experience, peopling the boat, provisioning, etc. Then there is planning the cruise itinerary which will generally require knowledge of the physical geography and weather, tides, wind and so forth.

By contrast, yacht rallies I discovered to my delight, are a breeze! Exactly as sailing should be. Someone else has done the hard work and there is someone there to help when need arises.

Once you have signed up, the only planning you have to do is dream. And no matter how hard you dream, it is but a watered-down and washed-out version of the reality.

The 15-day itinerary provided a wide variety of too-fantastic-to be-true spots from pretty ports like Gocek through to tiny anchorages in unnamed bays.

My favourites were the numerous little bays featuring a single isolated restaurant dedicated to serving the ‘boaties’ moored at their rickety docks or anchored in their bay.

Karacoeren

Yacht rallies also offer a more social aspect. While one boat makes for a cruise, two or more make for more social opportunities.

More importantly perhaps, two or more yachts make for a race! Every other day, a race was scheduled. Nothing too serious, rather more like a twilight series. Just with more sunshine, warmer weather, and predictably, more smiles!

Post-mortems to races were conducted in a strictly social manner over G&Ts (Bombay Sapphire of course). Just my style of racing!

On the other days, rallyers could take tours or go exploring on their own. Turkey is famed for being the country that bridges the east and the west. Ruins of Greek, Roman and Byzatine empires lie in literal layers everywhere, both above ground and underwater.

Other extraordinary features of the region include Lycian tombs carved into cliffs, loggerhead turtles and their nests, mudbaths, and hikes up mountains and into gorges like the “hidden city” of Saklikent.

Blue Grotto, Kastellorizo

One particularly spectacular feature of this tour was the 'blue grotto' on the Greek island of Kastellorizo (just two miles from Turkey). Inside the cave, the boat hovers in an iridescent blue ether lit from below. Swimming in the blue Gatorade water is a fitting way to complete this out-of-world experience.

For those craving more urban environments, all the towns and cities offered authentic Turkish baths (hamams), markets and shopping.

If all the choice is overwhelming, there is the opportunity to stay on board to swim and snorkel in the warm, sparkling sapphire water just off the stern of the boat. When is the last time you could say with a smile that you did five swims in just one day!

If Turkey is not your cup of coffee or doesn’t float your boat, Mariner Holidays offer yacht rallies in various places around the world (Caribbean, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Scandinavia, Tahiti).

Unnamed Bay near Ekincik

Of particular interest for the more serious racers is a one-design series in Croatia.

You could simply turn green with envy at reading all of this – or you could start planning and dreaming for yourself. 

Recent research shows that even planning a holiday can help you escape the blues.

Start dreaming in blue. Better yet, make it turquoise. 

words: SH

His favourite colour? Is blue! Like almost 50% of everyone else in the western world as it happens!

photos: PK & SH

yacht rallies: Mariner Boating Holidays

-        http://www.marinerboating.com/

-        1300 131 724

-        info@marinerboating.com