Arrows Across America

I read recently about these huge concrete arrows that were laid out every 10 miles from coast to coast across the USA in 1924. Their purpose: to help guide the postal planes on their long journey. A beacon was also attached to a tower to ensure the arrow's visibility from high altitudes.
Read more at http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/11/15/the-forgotten-giant-arrows-that-guide-you-across-america/ - with thanks to DeAnna for this one!

A Summer in Ireland

Ahhh… That summer was the deep breath of my life at the time. I had just gotten away from Germany and all the oppression associated with my years there – I needed something really amazing to put me in a new frame of mind. And it did. I looked online to find a room to rent, and connected with Alison in Balbriggan, who promised me a sea view from my room and a beach just a few steps away across the field.

When I arrived in that fresh lushness, it was a balm to my ragged spirit, and I continued to write my current novel, Legendary Space Pilgrims, with new inspiration. Some readers say they can tell when my mindset changed along with my location.

But writing wasn’t all I did. At a tiny local church I met a new friend and we proceeded to go on lots of outings together – mostly day trips in the area around Dublin, but also a couple of weekends away in the West and North. Andrea has since become a good friend and we’ve visited back and forth a few times too.

Looking at the pictures I took back then, I’m amazed at the huge variety of places I got to see, the stunning vistas, the rocky shores (I was showing the album to someone recently and she asked me, why so many pictures of rocks? I suppose that’s what the coast is mainly made of…), the castles and ruins, the green land in its mantle of fecund humidity.

I love Ireland, and I can’t wait to get back there someday.

Show me your USA Road Trips

This link has been going around Facebook especially in the past couple of weeks. Though I don't live in the country, I think this is a great way to record where I've been and for approximately how long.

My key to the colouring:

Red: passed through (on a bus or train or airport layover)
Orange: short stay (a few days)
Blue: long stay (a week or more)
Green: Several weeks.

I realised after making it that Colorado should be blue, as I have spent more than a week there in total. But I'm not going back to start over and recolour all the other states too, so there we have it.

Make your own at http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/generate.html.

Amazing Places: Tulips from above

Photographer Anna Paulowna took a scenic flight over some Dutch tulip fields. The results are pure eye candy. Check out the whole collection at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruxelles5/sets/72157626454113099/...

Photo Story: Golden Gate Bridge

This picture is from my trip in 2008. I was staying at the hostel near Fisherman’s Wharf, and walked all the way around the coast to this ocean beach. On the way I ventured a little distance onto the bridge, but the sheer height was freaking me out rather a lot so I turned back and continued on terra firma. The coastal pathway begins right by the bridge if I remember rightly, and it’s littered with old wartime defence installations on the cliffs. Farther along there are steps down to the sea. Nice to have places like this so close to the city – San Francisco reminds me of Auckland in a lot of ways.

Amazing Places: Ireland Instagram

I recently came across a lovely Instagram feed from Abarta Audioguides in Ireland. They've got an awesome collection of shots of those old ruins and landscapes that give Ireland its ancient mystique. Check it out at http://instagram.com/abartaaudioguides.

Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way

This gorgeous video introduces a new coastal road in Ireland's wild west. I have seen only a little of it, and it is truly stunning. Notwithstanding the slightly corny advertising spiel, I got just a little bit teary at the thought of the auld land where my grandfather and great-grandmother were born. I have to get back there someday.

European Journeys

When I lived in Germany, I got to make several brief trips to other places around Europe. These included:

France (Paris, staying in a quaint old family-run hotel at the foot of Montmartre)
Spain (Guardamar del Segura, Costa Blanca, with friends)
Austria (Salzburg, to see the castle, also once Innsbruck and once not sure of exact location; remote mountain)
Switzerland (Zurich, Geneva, Winterthur and another remote mountain location)
Czech Republic (only just over the border, for work - I think we ate lunch in Rozvadov)
Tunisia (Hammam Sousse, with a friend for a week in February to escape the northern winter)
England (London, visiting dear friends in Wembley and getting to play the tourist)
Scotland (With my mother, Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow, Isle of Bute, and a glimpse of Strathraer as we left it)
Ireland (Bangor/Belfast, Dublin, Balbriggan, Doolin, Antrim, Downpatrick, Newtownards and Strangford Lough - Ahem. There'll be a whole other post for this lot!)

Here's a couple of my favourite photos from those trips. Bear with me - for much of this time I was using a first-generation cellphone camera!

On the outskirts of Geneva, looking across the border into France - yes, that's a giant cliff. Geneva is on a bit of Switzerland that sticks into France, so it's possible to use city transport to cross from one French border to the other in about an hour. Which we did. Fun! There was a cable car to go up the cliff, but it happened to be closed that day, so instead we found a nice French restaurant out here in the middle of nowhere and had a meal of several courses for a very good price.

The terrace at Hotel El Menchia in Hammam-Sousse, Tunisia. We breakfasted here each day, then set off to explore the local area - markets and bakeries, and nearby towns by bus or open trolley. Sousse itself has a marvellous souk that pours itself, walled, down a hillside above the modern city, and in the other direction we found a yacht marina with everything a tourist might want.

Walking about the Isle of Bute, we got alternately rained on and dried by the sun. Just look at that blue sky and black cloud! This is a view from the Rothesay golf course above the town, looking east at the mainland and the Firth of Clyde.

So many places, so much to see! Perhaps all of these will need their own posts eventually...

That time I got stuck in Timbuktu

Okay, this is where things get crazy. Or maybe things were already crazy a long time before that, who knows?

I flew from Germany to meet several Kiwi friends in Ghana. We proceeded to trek through Burkina Faso and then Mali, which last is where these pictures are from. In Mali we visited several World Vision project villages and were duly presented with a chicken by the elders of each. The above picture is from a school visit; we had brought puppets to show the children, and these caused huge excitement everywhere we went.

Then came an opportunity to visit Timbuktu in the northern reaches of Mali. So we did. Except we got stuck there, because the return flight we'd been sold didn't exist. Our friends drove up from the capital to help get us back to our next flight on time.

The lower picture is a street in Timbuktu. At the edge of the Sahara, this ancient city is constantly under threat of being inundated by sand. The buildings are mostly mud brick, with patterns scratched on them to stop the surface from cracking. We slept in the open on one of the roofs.

Travelling Light?

This new bag from Minaal claims to be the perfect carry-on. The exact size to fit within those dimensions, with a special laptop pouch plus additional pockets. I admit, I've been drooling a bit over this one. And I could get one if I back their Kickstarter project, which is certainly worth a look. But then I think, that sure is a lot of moolah for what is essentially just a backpack.

I've been very happy with my secondhand purple duffle. The only thing it lacks is wheels for when I'm tired of lugging it on a shoulder. The Minaal bag also lacks wheels, so I'm not sure the advantage would be very great over what I have now.

Maybe I should just figure out a way to attach wheels to my duffle...

The Pudding Air Miles Man

David Phillips is an engineer from California. He figured out how to convert puddings into air miles, and hasn't paid for any of his family's many flights for years.

The method is mind-boggling. Yes, there was an offer of air miles on the pudding cups, he bought up thousands of them, and got so many miles that he landed himself a ton of other perks as well.

Click through for an inspiring read at Today I Found Out!

Seven Years In Bavaria

I had visited Regensburg once a couple of years earlier and found myself enchanted with its old-worldiness. One of the only German cities to survive WWII, it still boasts a largely intact medieval core. Now, granted, the earlier visit had been my first experience of a foreign country and maybe it was that that left me starstruck. In any case, I ended up deciding that I had to live there, so I took off with only a couple of weeks' planning, not knowing where I'd live or what I'd work at. That may not have been very smart.

Youthful spontaneity notwithstanding, things did turn out all right. I got a job with the Bavarian Police, shared apartments with three wonderful friends, lived in an 800 year old building while working in one that was 300-ish, kept four pet rats (not all at once!) then two cats, and got to travel around Europe a little bit.

Germany has a deep sense of permanence and establishment that can often out itself in lives that don't ever change. Low wages and high rents - never mind the idea of buying a house! - can trap people in the same places for ever and ever, amen. It was like a fog over the land.

Eventually, I just missed the sea too much. So I came home again.

With a heaping helping of improved German language and a kind of haunting from living amongst all the antiquity. <

Dreaming of Travel

I've had a spring in my step this week, and it's not just because spring has sprung - though it definitely has. It's only been a few weeks since I returned from my last trip. It was a hard return in many ways - I had been sick, and had some travel tangles along the way. But in these past days I have realised I operate best when I have something to look forward to. Therefore, I hopped over to Pinterest and started collecting beautiful photos of places I would like to revisit. The above is a screenshot of part of my feed. It's exciting, I tell you! I love to feast my eyes on images like these, to remember being there - yes, that's what it was like, and it will be again.

Experiencing a range of places is also essential in my writing journey. No location has quite the same feel as another - there are the little things you notice, the smells, the ambience, the colours of the sky, the mannerisms and language of the local people. I have written about many of these places before, and hope to do so again with all the force I can muster, to drag readers inside the experience as if they were there themselves.

Of course, writing science fiction often means the settings have to be tweaked - say, a little for a futuristic Ireland, or a lot for an alien planet.

Even if the travel itself is still a faraway dream, looking at the pictures is a darn good substitute for now.