Category Archives: Nature

ANZAC Day is the official “Remembrance Day” for Australians and New Zealanders. First observed in 1916, it started as a tribute to the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (the ANZACs) on the anniversary of their landing on the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25th, 1915 during World War I.  It is said that as many as 650 ANZACs died […]

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Back in October of 2008, my husband and I embarked on a self-guided five-day walk in the Pyrenees. He had meetings in Paris and we took the opportunity to get into the countryside before they started. My intention at the time was to write a short article about the trip. Supported walking trips are becoming […]

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Clermont-Ferrand, in case you don’t know it, is a charming city with a two thousand year history right in the middle of France “at the crossroads of the main highways of Europe”. It is also at the heart of the Michelin company, so we are here while my husband attends meetings at his head office. As […]

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Luxurious resort accommodation in developing countries offers up some interesting dilemmas.  On the one hand, development for tourism brings money and job opportunities into otherwise under-developed communities.  On the other hand, it highlights the contrasts between the have-very-littles and the have-a-lots. The Bintan Resorts complex, on the north coast of Bintan (Negeri Segantang Lada), the largest of Indonesia’s […]

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Some people are larger than life.  James Harrison Wilson Thompson, more commonly know as Jim, or even ‘Lord Jim’, is one such person.  He is, amongst other things, credited with single-handedly revitalizing the commercial Thai silk trade.  An Office of Strategic Services (OSS; precursor to the CIA) operative during the second World War, he resettled in […]

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