Braemar Bed & Breakfast, Auckland, NZ. For my girlfriend’s recent birthday I wanted to surprise her with a night somewhere special. Though with “somewhere special” being such a terrific / terrible hospitality cliche, I opted instead for calling my chosen location the much more creative “the secret place”. In the couple of weeks before her…
Category: Travel
Dodging Kangaroos: NZ Herald Queensland Outback Road Trip + My Top 60 Photos, Incl 19th Century Mansions, Farm Stays, Rainforests, Mud Baths & Statues Of The Bee Gees
The view from Bunya Mountains National Park. My longest ever published travel article was in Tuesday’s New Zealand Herald – a 3000-word epic about a Queensland road trip I did in May. Given I drove more than 2000ks, it seemed appropriate to go whoppingly large for this piece – I hope you like it! The…
Skiing In A City Where It Never Snows – How Auckland’s Snowplanet Got Me To Oregon
A huge thanks to the team at Snowplanet in Auckland for not only getting me ready for the ski slopes of Oregon, USA, but for probably going some distance in making sure I made it home in one piece. When I got a call from my editor at Let’s Travel magazine asking if I could…
Why Waitomo’s About So Much More Than Glow Worms – Let’s Travel Article + My Top 50 Waitomo Photos
The ravine near the Mangapohue land-bridge. In the April-May issue of Let’s Travel (New Zealand’s #1 travel magazine) is my feature on Waitomo in the central North Island. Visit letstravelmag.com to subscribe and find out about all the things to do here beyond the seeing the glow worms that first established Waitomo as a tourist…
My NZ Herald Room Check Article: Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld, Rural Victoria
Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld, Victoria* Almost a year ago I stayed in a town in rural Victoria so small that the hotel is essentially the entire town. With only 461 people calling Dunkeld home, a substantial chunk of that number have some connection to the historic Royal Mail Hotel. If you click here you can…
Malaysia’s Tioman Island – My Herald On Sunday Article + My Top 50 Tioman Photos
A couple of weeks ago the Herald On Sunday published my feature article on Tioman Island in Malaysia. In case you missed it, here’s the link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=11639305 In the article you’ll hopefully get a sense of why I love this island so much and keep finding myself going back. There’s also an incident involving monkeys,…
Dog-Sled Riding & Other Adventures – My Top 40 Central Oregon Photos
Dog-sled riding on the snowy slopes of a volcano, hiking through a rock-climbers Mecca, driving a brand new Chevy Impala through a snow storm, visiting the American city sometimes referred to as “Beer Disneyland” – all these adventures plus a few more are in my trio of Oregon articles in next month’s Let’s Travel…
Bee Gees Way Favourite Photos – Redcliffe, Queensland 2016
Here are my favourite photos from Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe, about 30-minutes drive north of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. I was there on Saturday night as part of travel writing trip for the New Zealand Herald, promoting tourism to southern Queensland and in particular, “Queensland Big Sky Country” self-drive adventures. You can see more…
Oregon Top 50 Photos: Exploring America’s Hippest City + 1 Of Its Greatest Ski Resorts
Skiing at Timberline, Mt Hood, Oregon. Driving in falling snow, dog-sled riding, skiing the mountain with longest season in all of North America, staying in the hotel made famous by the film The Shining and hiking a valley almost as breathtaking as the Grand Canyon, last month’s Oregon road trip for Let’s Travel magazine was…
1 Year On From The Execution Of The Bali 9 Ringleaders – Amazing Grace & Their Final Redemptive Song
The pastor and the painter, Bali Nine ringleaders Chan and Sukumaran. Written April 29th, 2015 – Reprinted again today for the first anniversary. Several times over the past few days I had listeners challenge me as to why I don’t believe in the death penalty. I fumbled my way more than I wished through explaining…
First Time In Hawaii! My Top 50 Oahu Photos
Waikiki Beach. A couple of weeks ago I jetted into Hawaii for a quick trip enroute to Oregon. Having never been to Hawaii and with three nights on the island of Oahu, I tried to pack in as much as I could. Keep an eye out for an upcoming issue of New Zealand’s #1 travel…
Mangarara Eco Lodge, Hawke’s Bay: My Top 50 Photos From A Very Different Sort Of Farm
Standing with my head dangerously close to the cow’s buttocks, I’d been assigned the task of attaching the suction cup apparatus to the teats. I hadn’t milked a cow since the 80s and it was oddly satisfying how each cup would so neatly swallow their assigned teat. Equipment attached and with a brief surge of…
