Monthly Archives: January 2015 They say you are a long time dead and buried – Well, unless you are buried in Switzerland, where your plot is reclaimed after 25 years to recycle available land. Or, unless you are in a traditional Chinese cemetery, where your bones should be taken out and washed annually… In India, honouring the dead can take many varied […]  “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” – John Dryden, The Spanish Friar (1681) “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” That is the Dryden quote that opens Gerald Durrell’s first book: My Family and Other Animals. And an apposite quote it is! When I first read the book as a young adult, I remember […]  Just two weeks before my husband and I visited the island of Sumatra in February 2014, Gunung Sinabung erupted, killing at least 14 people. The province of North Sumatra is not that big: Mount Sinabung is in the Karo Plateau, only 40 kilometres away from the Lake Toba Supervolcano, and in the general region where we would be travelling. When we arrived at Bukit […]  It is supposed to be a nice summer walk to Mount Tate from Guthega Dam on the Snowy River in Australia’s High Country. I wouldn’t know. Three times I’ve driven over the bumpy dirt roads to Guthega, on the back side of Blue Cow Mountain, in search of the unmarked circuit through Consett Stephen Pass and across the […] |
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