travelling allrite

For all the visits to Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia there is one journey I take more often than any other. Most days of the week see me in a car, train or on my legs between my home in Sydney's south to Epping in the north, via childcare in North Ryde, a journey that takes up to 2 1/2 hours one way. It's actually a pretty scenic ride. From dramatic morning sunrises as we cross the Woronora River to the sunsets over the incomparable Sydney Harbour Bridge, walks past bamboo stands and native bushland near my workplace and the futuristic stations of the Epping to Chatswood railway line, Sydney's newest. This is a short experimental video I made using my phone, camera and Sony's Movie Story software. Unfortunately, Alex used up all our 25 GBs of monthly bandwidth watching children's shows on ABC iView so I couldn't upload a high res copy. Maybe once I sort out some missing software issues...

The cherry trees were in blossom, but it wasn't Japan. I need to relearn how to visit destinations outside of Asia. At night as I sat in the apartment  I had to remember that I couldn't just duck out into the corridor to grab something from a vending machine or pick up some dessert from a convenience store outside. Canberra isn't Asia and especially isn't Japan. I rather like Canberra. There's a freshness of air, a melding of urban and rural landscapes, a sense of life but also of solitude. There have been many changes since I lived there for three years, back in the early nineties. So many shops empty in Garema Place, so many of my familiar haunts moved or gone altogether: Impact Records, Kingsley's Chicken under Canberra Place, Woodstock Steak & Pizza House , Dymocks, and others. I suspect that some have just moved a little, across to the shinier and newer shopping mall that rings the centre of Civic or continue on elsewhere. Others have gone for good...

I used to think that business people who stayed in bland chain hotels and ate room service dinners without exploring the city outside were plain silly. Now I understand. It's funny, I was looking for accommodation in Prague for the upcoming family holiday there. I found one apartment hotel where the interiors looked like they were decked out with cheap items from Fantastic Furniture, but it was supposed to be convenient and kid friendly, so I was happy. Yet, when it came to booking accommodation for a work trip to Canberra I found myself mentally rejecting such places and instead wishing for a standard modern business hotel. Unfortunately, they are rather thin on the ground and tend to be expensive (at least if you are forced to book via our corporate system). And all I could imagine myself doing (apart from meeting up with a friend) was returning to the hotel at the end of the day, having a quick dinner, then retreating to my room to relax. Don't get me wrong, I love Can...

Thanks to this thread on airliners.net I found some interesting model railway related "sights" in Prague. One suggested accommodation was the Ibis Hotel Mala Strana . Close by is Railroad Kingdom . My Googling also found the Vytopna Restaurant in Prague where the drinks are served by model trains.

I hereby wish to apologise for causing the London riots. If you want a riot or natural disaster for your country please feel free to invite my family in for a holiday.

The woes of the Australian tourist industry are loudly proclaimed. Not only are foreign tourists staying away, but many Australians choose to holiday overseas in preference to local holidays. The high Australian dollar is partly to blame, but the issues run deeper than that. Australia is a large, sparsely populated continent and its human history is mostly Stone Age or relatively recent. Many tourist attractions are widely separated and travel between them is difficult or expensive. You can't just hop in a fast train and catch public transport to most places and driving to the more remote sights can be fraught with danger. One reason that I suspect Victoria is a relatively popular tourist destination within Australia is because of its compactness and density, along with it's European-like emphasis on cultural attractions. There are no sites of epic battles, of fortifications and not much grand old architecture. No ruined cities (although Sydney might be included in that cat...

So, will it be riots in Malaysia or an Icelandic volcano that messes up our European travel plans in November? Got to start the disaster watch before we get too far into the planning. Don't want to get too disappointed this time!