travelling allrite

Late last year Alex turned twelve. Why is that important? Well, for starters, this year he starts high school. In terms of travel? He's now considered an adult when it comes to many airlines and not a few hotels. Alex was still in the womb for his first overseas journey and was only four months old when he first set foot in an aircraft and headed off on his maiden international voyage. It should surprise no one that the destination was Japan. Five months later it was Singapore and Malaysia. Before he was even one year old he'd added Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Queensland, with repeat trips to Japan and Singapore to the list. Later on came Taiwan, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, along with Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania domestically. A few destinations were visited more than once, at least yearly in the case of Japan. Of course, this last year it all came to a halt due to the pandemic...

There is a place I often dream about. Not exactly a place, because it has many forms, but I know its the same dream. It is away from the capital city, sometimes far, sometimes close. There is always a train, and that's how I know it. The train goes through a quiet landscape. It's grassy plains or around the river of a bushy national park. It follows the coast or a river or neither. The train itself is never new, never shiny and modern, usually just a rail car of a couple of carriages. It may even be a tram in origin, if not in fact. It's the end of a branch line. The location is Australia. It's Rockhampton in the mid-eighties, Newcastle when the train ran to the city centre, it's Yeppoon with its old train line or tiny Keppel Sands which never had one. It's Kurnell which never was. Or it's a hidden suburb down a non-existent turnoff a bit further along our road. Wherever it is, the city has a few characteristics. It's old, a bit run down and it is quiet....

By and large I'm mostly enjoying the isolation of the COVID-19 lock down. I love the family time and have plenty of work to keep me busy. But now and then something triggers me and I feel a sense of frustrated wanderlust. The television shows a rural scene and I miss the wind and the scent of the land, a place devoid of others for many kilometres around. A photo of a tram or a rattling train and I am back in rural Japan, seeking an onsen to sooth my cracked skin and tired bones. Towering clouds in blue skies, empty of the aircraft I can dream I am on. We pass the airport and I am sad that I cannot go in and lose myself in the activity, catch a meal while watching the aircraft and passengers come and go. I imagine staying in a transit hotel, relaxing to ambient music as I rest before my next flight. Wanting an activity pack like those handed out for children, only aimed at adults. I see the Osmos game, so long on my phone, and recall ...

The aspect of the coronavirus pandemic lock down that frustrates me the most isn't the isolation from other people. Neither is it the inability to leave the house. It's the silence of the skies. As the border restrictions bite and the Qantas Group and Virgin Australia prepare to stop regular flights overseas and cut domestic frequency, other airlines have also culled their flights into and out of Australia. The near constant music of aircraft across the sky has fallen to an occasional distant hum. The rainbow parade of liveries has disappeared to white and red, the odd orange and silver. The variety of shapes and types shrinking, the queens of the sky stuck on land. Sadness as old favourites may never fly again. Fear for what the future holds. And all those people left without jobs. I cannot even go there. I have a love-hate relationship with flying. At its worst there overwhelming anxiety of turbulence and the tedium of being trapped in a small tube with no hope...

I calculated that I flew around 33,000 kilometres in 2018. That sounds like a lot, but it's not even the circumference of the Earth. We began the year with flights down to Launceston in Tasmania, our first visit to that airport. It was also our first time along the West Coast, losing ourselves in mazes, hiking beneath Cradle Mountain and catching the West Coast Railway, before heading to Hobart and back to Launceston. Each visit to Tasmania finds the countryside even prettier and the food a revelation for our tastebuds, if a little slow to appear. Less than two weeks later we were in the air again, flying to Singapore, with flights beyond to Penang in Malaysia. Sadly I lost my appetite during the trip. My highlight was the very long railway journey alone from Butterworth back to Singapore, four trains, a taxi and a bus ride. That felt like real travel. Our travel is mostly constrained by school holidays now and the next break wasn't until April, when we took the...

What will cure a travel addiction? Is it possible to get tired of travel? Can other activities take its place? 2016 is almost over and I haven't posted anything in months. The truth is that I've been struggling a bit. I've had flights booked, then postponed them to next year, unwilling or unable to leave home and work life. Instead of dreaming of flights I've been practising my karate strikes. Casting a dark pall over my dreams of travel has been a fear of turbulence. In January I found myself in Singapore curled up and physically ill at the thought of another flight. I survived and even enjoyed the next few flights in that trip, but then in May hit heavy turbulence between Australia and Japan. The excitement at the thought of another adventure was replaced by a sense of dread. That isn't good. Limiting myself to ground transport just isn't an option. And it's silly. The aircraft isn't going to fall out of the sky due to turbulence. I saw o...

Twenty years have passed today since the first time I stepped out of this country . In that time I've visited as many countries. I've posted a celebration of Twenty Years of International Travel at my other website at Whereis Allrite .

When I was a young boy of maybe six or seven years old I rode in a sleeper on The Overland night train between Melbourne and Adelaide. I didn't sleep. Instead I peered out of the window the entire night watching the world go past. I still do. Be it plane, train, boat or just walking I look out. I always try to get the window seat. People who shut the window shades piss me off. The world outside is too interesting to ignore. If there is something to see then what's the point of sleeping through it? Besides which, I can't sleep in planes night or day. The best I can do is doze off for a short while and I doze best in bright sunlight. You want darkness? Use eyeshades. Is my window interfering with your screen? Do you watch television in complete darkness at home? Why are you wasting your life watching the same things you could watch at home anyway and probably on a much bigger and nicer screen? Sure I might watch a bit in the middle of the night, across the oce...

My 1000th Instagram photo! Thanks to those who have followed, liked and commented over the past few years. It's appropriate that row K at Sydney Airport's Terminal 1 houses Singapore Airlines who carried me on my first international flight, 20 years ago in December. #1000 #1K #instagood #sydney #sydneyairport #airport #travelinspiration #sia #singaporeairlines A photo posted by allrite (@allrite) on Sep 14, 2015 at 12:17am PDT I've got over a thousand photos on my Instagram account , a pretty good selection from many of the places I've visited. Enjoy!

A couple of times, when I was a young boy of around six or seven, we caught the red and silver overnight Overland train from Melbourne to Adelaide to visit my grandparents. The family would have a compartment to ourselves, a couple of bunk beds, a tiny shower and toilet. Once I brought my first train set, a Märklin HO tank engine and two green tin carriages, and plugged the controller into the shaver power socket, running a train within a running train, delighting in the recursion. On each of the trips I recall staying awake the entire night, peering out of the window through cracks in the Venetian shutters, watching the silhouetted landscape pass, taking special delight in the reds and greens of signals and the lights of the towns. When we stopped at a station, trying to maintain the privacy of the cabin while still watching passengers board at a time of night when they would usually be fast asleep in bed. That joy of the night stayed with me a decade later when I caught the no...

From the window of my office I can watch the aircraft on final descent southwards into Sydney Airport. Our building lies directly under the flight path and I am in the box seat. How many times have I been on one of those flights looking down upon my office? I have lost count. My home lies on the opposite side of Sydney, but on some days and some nights the flight path changes. The planes now make their way down the Georges River valley, taking the East-West runway or curving northwards along the cliffs of the Royal National Park. Both happened yesterday. During the day I watched shadowy apparitions of aircraft suddenly emerge from the grey cloud overheard, only for them to once more disappear into another. I took a late night swim alone in our pool, cool, but soothing against the humid air. The pool and garden lights were on, a citronella tea light danced in its glass enclosure, orange against purple. From the west a bright light would illuminate the clouds. Then...

After last year's frenetic journeys around Asia 2014 felt more sedate. There were few new places, mostly consolidation and the completion of railway lines. Alex started school, so our travel had to work around school holidays. Flights were marred by a returned fear of turbulence as I encountered more bumps in the air. But there were still many highlights, so lets go through them by month. January The year began in South Coast Line, Mogo Zoo, Luna Park South Coast train from Sutherland Station The year began with Alex and I taking the train down to Kiama and Bomaderry on the scenic South Coast Line.  Tiger at Mogo Zoo Less than a fortnight later we returned to the South Coast as a family, driving down to Mogo Zoo  to see a variety of animals up close. Entrance to Sydney's Luna Park We marked the end of the Alex's "freedom" with a trip to Chinese New Year and Sydney's Luna Park , so beautiful in the night. February Ben Fo...