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Travels Travelling has always been a bit of an obsession with me. Though there are probably worse things to be obsessed with. From as early as I can remember, even before I ever went anywhere, I have had the travel bug. When I was 8, my favourite book was a road atlas of Britain which my parents owned. I used to trace journeys along roads from page to page to see how far from home I could get. We didn't have a car, but sometimes we would borrow or hire one and sometimes we would use public transport to go places. My main interest was usually where we were on the map and, most importantly, how far from home we were. Once I was able to go places by myself, I took every opportunity, and doing so became what has been one of the major features of my life. Two of my journeys, to East Africa and West Africa, were, I believe, quite adventurous, involving a level of uncertainty, risk and discomfort that few Western travellers would accept nowadays. Another, to Siberia, though more comfortable was to an area quite off the tourist track. These three journeys are described in some detail under the following links. East Africa West Africa Siberia I've never worked out where this urge to travel came from. But I don't think it was because home was such a bad place that I wanted to be as far away from it as possible. This item contains first names and pictures (taken when I knew them) of people who I have travelled with. If you happen to read this and find your name or picture here but would prefer it wasn't, please let me know via the Contact button on the home page and I will remove it. It would actually be great to hear from you.
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France At the age of 12, I went on an exchange with a family in the north of France. My primary motivation was to go to a different country, though I did thoroughly enjoy the experience and my French improved dramatically as a result. Britain Later in high school, when I was in the RAF cadets, I went on every camp that I could - arduous training in Snowdonia, North Wales, and camps at various RAF bases in England and Scotland. I also did a couple of residential field study courses on meteorology in Yorkshire and North Wales. Arduous training, Snowdonia Europe, Asia, India In my final term at school, a trekking company in London was invited to the school to advertise treks to India (the hippie trail). The school had a bit of a fund for such things and they offered to help with the expenses of anyone who chose to do one. Of course, I chose to do one. I chose the longest trek - nearly five months. I left in Februay and arrived back in July. We travelled, 12 of us in a landrover, across Europe and Turkey in the snow, then through Iran, Afghanistan and and Pakistan into India. By the time we reached Delhi it was 32 degrees, something I found energy-sappingly hot. From there we headed south to Agra and the Taj Mahal and on to Bombay (Mumbai). Taj Mahal In Bombay, I separated from the others and took a boat to Goa, meeting up again there. After Goa, we continued south, getting as far as Ootacumund, then headed back north. I separated again to do a side trip by train into Calcutta (Kolkata). I planned to sleep on the streets like many of the locals. In retrospect, that would have been a bad idea as I was carrying my passport, but fortunately, the timing of the train to Darjeeling meant that I had to leave Calcutta on the day I arrived. I joined the group again in Darjeeling, whence we did a trek into the mountains. After that, we went on to Bonares (Varanasi) to see the dead bodies floating down the Ganges, then Kathmandu (where I bought a fur coat for 6 pounds) and another trek that gave us a glimpse of Everest. Back in Delhi, I remember walking into a shop and complaining that they had the air conditioning so cold. It was 28 degrees in there. It was actually 44 outside and I felt more comfortable at that temperature. I had truely acclimatised. After Delhi, we had a few days on a house boat in Srinagar, Kashmir, before setting out on the long trip back home. The journey was an eye-opening experience for me, though I was sick much of the time from eating the local food and drinking the water. I had constant diarrhoea for the last 6 weeks of the trip and for 14 weeks after I got home, and went from 65 kg to 50 kg while gaining a rather prominent pot belly. But I did eventually get back to good health. North America Between first and second years at uni, I worked for 8 weeks on a YMCA kids' summer camp in upstate New York, then spent 4 weeks travelling around the US, Canada and Mexico by bus and thumb. I managed to get myself mugged in New York - twice, but survived the experiences. Europe and East Africa Between second and third years, all geology students had to do a 6-week mapping project. My friend, Gill suggested we go and do ours in Greenland. This seemed like a great idea, but the logistics turned out to be too difficult. One of our lecturers, however, realising that we seemed to be happy to go a long way away, suggested that we might like to go and do our mapping in the Rift Valley in Kenya with some archeologists who were digging up dead people and wanted a better picture of the geology of the surrounding area. After a quick trip around Western Europe, Scandinavia and Morocco by Eurail, I set off towards Kenya. I had arranged to meet Gill in Cairo after she did some diving in the Red Sea. However, we couldn't find each other and so headed south separately. By talking to other travellers like me, I finally tracked her down in Aswan, and we did the rest of the trip to Kenya together. Train from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum We did our six weeks, then Gill flew home and I headed south, aiming for South Africa. The immigration officials at the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwean) border, however, considered me vagrant with insufficient means of support, and so that was as far south as I got. There is a longer account of this trip under the link below. East Africa Europe and West Africa The next summer, four of us, my girlfriend Sandy, me, my brother John and his girlfriend J, decided to hitchhike to Israel. However, due to circumstanced beyond our control, Sandy and I ended up in Lagos, before making our way to Dakar and being flown home in a medical emergency. More details of this trip can be found under the link below. West Africa Sandy and me on our way across the Sahara Greece and Australia The summer after that, my girlfriend Ally and I hitchhiked to Greece and back, then I emigrated to Australia, not to return for 7 years, and even then only for 3 weeks. After that brief visit, it was 19 years before I next set foot on British soil. I missed a lot in that time, but then I did get married and played a part in raising a family in Aus. Around Australia During those 26 years, circumstances didn't lend themselves much to getting away. There were just short trips to New Guinea to visit my friend, Jiff, to Fiji for a honeymoon and to New Zealand for a skiiing holiday with Leanne, and also a bus trip around Australia with my mum on one of her visits. Europe In 2000, my father died and left us some money. This gave us the chance in 2001 to take the family to England to meet their British relatives. We hired a people mover, spent three weeks driving around Western Europe and the UK and two weeks with my mother and my sister and brother and their families in Berkshire. US and Canada The following year I got a job as a classroom coach in the Bronx, NY. I went over in August. Melissa wanted to finish primary school, so the family came out in December. We were treated to a white Christmas. We lived in Port Washington on Long Island. The kids went to school and all had a great time. We did a couple of road trips, one to Washington DC and south to Dismal Swamp, North Carolina, the other north to Canada, getting as far as Chissassibi on Hudson Bay. The temperature got to -26 degrees on the night furthest north. South America, Britain, Ireland, Egypt, Japan, Philippines We bought round-the-world tickets for the trip. I spent a couple of weeks in Chile and Bolivia and Leanne and the kids stopped for a few days in LA on the way to New York. We all left New York in June and stopped on the way home in the UK, Ireland, Egypt, Japan and the Philippines. China, Russia, Korea, UK, Rio, US, Barbados The next year, I went back for three shorter stints and took advantage of the tos and fros to visit China, do the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow and St Petersburg, and to visit Korea, the UK, Rio, Barbados, Las Vegas, Alaska and Hawaii. I just happened to be in Rio for Carnivale. I had wondered why it had been so hard to book accommodation. On the train after the Carnivale parade SE Asia, UK Our next trip was in 2007. We took the family to SE Asia and then on to the UK. By that time the kids were all old enough to be good travelling companions who pretty much looked after themselves. That was our last trip as a family, though we did all get together once more in 2019 in Sweden. China, SE Asia Leanne and I travelled to China in 2009 and Bali in 2010. In 2011, we had a week in Phuket courtesy of a time-share company that had accosted us in Hong Kong in 2009. South America, Antarctica In 2011-2012 we did a cruise to Antarctica preceded by a couple of weeks backpacking and bussing from Lima to Buenos Aires. That was our first ever cruise, done not because we wanted to cruise, but because we wanted to see some of Antarctica. However, before we got out of the harbour in Buenos Aires, we ran into another ship. A crane on the other ship swept along the deck Leanne and I were standing on, flattening the steel railings as it went and pinging the wooden top-rails into the air. It then gouged out part of the glass-clad crow's nest. We had to spend the night sitting offshore waiting for the coast guard to inspect the ship in the morning to see if it was still seaworthy. It turned out it was; we continued on our journey missing one port in Argentina, and the crew made makeshift repairs to the damage as we sailed. We had 150 km/h winds and monstrous seas crossing the Drake Passage, but the weather in Antarctica was clear and calm and the sea mirror-like. The views were superb and, being light 24 hours a day, we had to tear ourselves away to get some food and sleep. Antarctica We actually decided that cruising wasn't so bad after all and we've done another 11 since then. We had 5 cyclones/hurricanes on those 11 cruises - a better-than-average tally I think. And that doesn't include the Antarctica trip, which was just the furious fifties and shrieking sixties. Asia, Europe, Greenland, North America We went to Dubai and the UK in 2013, from Darwin to Perth by campervan in 2014, then, also in 2014, we did a 4-month trip including China, Kazakhstan, the UK (though Leanne flew straight to London to avoid China), Central Europe, Iceland, Greenland and North America, finishing with a week in Hawaii. Asia, North America, South America In 2015 we spent a few days in Japan followed by a cruise to Alaska and Vancouver. 2016 saw a trip through Miami, the Carribean, Guyana, Brazil, the UK and Vietnam. Russia and Sweden In 2017 we did a trip through Siberia, European Russia and Sweden. The Siberian part is described in more detil under the link below. Siberia SW Pacific In 2018 we took a short cruise to Vanuatu and back. We passed through two cyclones during the cruise, one on the way there and a different one on the way back. Europe In 2019, we did another fairly big tour, starting in Scandinavia and travelling through the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine was lovely; it's such a pity to see what has happened to it. And actually, Belarus was a nicer place that I expected. Then on to Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Greece, where we spent a very pleasant and relaxing four days on Paros. Paros Feeling relaxed after Paros and less on my guard than usual, I got pick-pocketed on the underground in Athens. From Athens we cruised to Barcelona, bussed and trained around Spain and Portugal, then visited Kara and Ben in Switzerland before heading to the UK and back home. Australia We had trips to Botswana, Morocco and Israel booked for 2020, but Covid put a stop to them. Instead we hitched up the Caravan in 2021 and travelled around Australia, visiting Jake and family in Perth. Europe, Singapore, US, Fiji, Iceland, New Guinea We went to the Canaries and UK in 2022 to celebrate 40 years of wedded bliss. We did two cruises in 2023 - Singapore to Brisbane and Seattle to Fiji. We visited Iceland in 2024 along with a cruise from there to Spitzbergen and Norway, followed by some time in the UK. And in 2025 we did a short cruise to New Guinea. Travel Map I've always kept track of my travels. The surface travels are shown on the map below. Future We still want to do a river cruise in Europe, and we'll still visit England fairly regularly, but our manic travelling days are now mostly done. We are thinking of spending a year or so in the UK soon and then maybe settling in Perth. Photos There are photos from most of the trips on the Travel Photos page. Click the picture below or follow the link from the home page.
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Travels

Travelling has always been a bit of an obsession with me. Though there are probably worse things to be obsessed with.

From as early as I can remember, even before I ever went anywhere, I have had the travel bug. When I was 8, my favourite book was a road atlas of Britain which my parents owned. I used to trace journeys along roads from page to page to see how far from home I could get. We didn't have a car, but sometimes we would borrow or hire one and sometimes we would use public transport to go places. My main interest was usually where we were on the map and, most importantly, how far from home we were.

Once I was able to go places by myself, I took every opportunity, and doing so became what has been one of the major features of my life.

Two of my journeys, to East Africa and West Africa, were, I believe, quite adventurous, involving a level of uncertainty, risk and discomfort that few Western travellers would accept nowadays. Another, to Siberia, though more comfortable was to an area quite off the tourist track. These three journeys are described in some detail under the following links.

East Africa West Africa Siberia

I've never worked out where this urge to travel came from. But I don't think it was because home was such a bad place that I wanted to be as far away from it as possible.

This item contains first names and pictures (taken when I knew them) of people who I have travelled with. If you happen to read this and find your name or picture here but would prefer it wasn't, please let me know via the Contact button on the home page and I will remove it. It would actually be great to hear from you.

Back to 'Life' Home Page

France

At the age of 12, I went on an exchange with a family in the north of France. My primary motivation was to go to a different country, though I did thoroughly enjoy the experience and my French improved dramatically as a result.

Britain

Later in high school, when I was in the RAF cadets, I went on every camp that I could - arduous training in Snowdonia, North Wales, and camps at various RAF bases in England and Scotland. I also did a couple of residential field study courses on meteorology in Yorkshire and North Wales.

Arduous training, Snowdonia

Europe, Asia, India

In my final term at school, a trekking company in London was invited to the school to advertise treks to India (the hippie trail). The school had a bit of a fund for such things and they offered to help with the expenses of anyone who chose to do one. Of course, I chose to do one. I chose the longest trek - nearly five months. I left in Februay and arrived back in July.

We travelled, 12 of us in a landrover, across Europe and Turkey in the snow, then through Iran, Afghanistan and and Pakistan into India. By the time we reached Delhi it was 32 degrees, something I found energy-sappingly hot. From there we headed south to Agra and the Taj Mahal and on to Bombay (Mumbai).

Taj Mahal

In Bombay, I separated from the others and took a boat to Goa, meeting up again there. After Goa, we continued south, getting as far as Ootacumund, then headed back north. I separated again to do a side trip by train into Calcutta (Kolkata). I planned to sleep on the streets like many of the locals. In retrospect, that would have been a bad idea as I was carrying my passport, but fortunately, the timing of the train to Darjeeling meant that I had to leave Calcutta on the day I arrived.

I joined the group again in Darjeeling, whence we did a trek into the mountains. After that, we went on to Bonares (Varanasi) to see the dead bodies floating down the Ganges, then Kathmandu (where I bought a fur coat for 6 pounds) and another trek that gave us a glimpse of Everest.

Back in Delhi, I remember walking into a shop and complaining that they had the air conditioning so cold. It was 28 degrees in there. It was actually 44 outside and I felt more comfortable at that temperature. I had truely acclimatised. After Delhi, we had a few days on a house boat in Srinagar, Kashmir, before setting out on the long trip back home.

The journey was an eye-opening experience for me, though I was sick much of the time from eating the local food and drinking the water. I had constant diarrhoea for the last 6 weeks of the trip and for 14 weeks after I got home, and went from 65 kg to 50 kg while gaining a rather prominent pot belly. But I did eventually get back to good health.

North America

Between first and second years at uni, I worked for 8 weeks on a YMCA kids' summer camp in upstate New York, then spent 4 weeks travelling around the US, Canada and Mexico by bus and thumb. I managed to get myself mugged in New York - twice, but survived the experiences.

Europe and East Africa

Between second and third years, all geology students had to do a 6-week mapping project. My friend, Gill suggested we go and do ours in Greenland. This seemed like a great idea, but the logistics turned out to be too difficult. One of our lecturers, however, realising that we seemed to be happy to go a long way away, suggested that we might like to go and do our mapping in the Rift Valley in Kenya with some archeologists who were digging up dead people and wanted a better picture of the geology of the surrounding area.

After a quick trip around Western Europe, Scandinavia and Morocco by Eurail, I set off towards Kenya. I had arranged to meet Gill in Cairo after she did some diving in the Red Sea. However, we couldn't find each other and so headed south separately. By talking to other travellers like me, I finally tracked her down in Aswan, and we did the rest of the trip to Kenya together.

Train from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum

We did our six weeks, then Gill flew home and I headed south, aiming for South Africa. The immigration officials at the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwean) border, however, considered me vagrant with insufficient means of support, and so that was as far south as I got. There is a longer account of this trip under the link below.

East Africa

Europe and West Africa

The next summer, four of us, my girlfriend Sandy, me, my brother John and his girlfriend J, decided to hitchhike to Israel. However, due to circumstanced beyond our control, Sandy and I ended up in Lagos, before making our way to Dakar and being flown home in a medical emergency. More details of this trip can be found under the link below.

West Africa

Desert

Sandy and me on our way across the Sahara

Greece and Australia

The summer after that, my girlfriend Ally and I hitchhiked to Greece and back, then I emigrated to Australia, not to return for 7 years, and even then only for 3 weeks. After that brief visit, it was 19 years before I next set foot on British soil. I missed a lot in that time, but then I did get married and played a part in raising a family in Aus.

Around Australia

During those 26 years, circumstances didn't lend themselves much to getting away. There were just short trips to New Guinea to visit my friend, Jiff, to Fiji for a honeymoon and to New Zealand for a skiiing holiday with Leanne, and also a bus trip around Australia with my mum on one of her visits.

Europe

In 2000, my father died and left us some money. This gave us the chance in 2001 to take the family to England to meet their British relatives. We hired a people mover, spent three weeks driving around Western Europe and the UK and two weeks with my mother and my sister and brother and their families in Berkshire.

US and Canada

The following year I got a job as a classroom coach in the Bronx, NY. I went over in August. Melissa wanted to finish primary school, so the family came out in December. We were treated to a white Christmas. We lived in Port Washington on Long Island. The kids went to school and all had a great time. We did a couple of road trips, one to Washington DC and south to Dismal Swamp, North Carolina, the other north to Canada, getting as far as Chissassibi on Hudson Bay. The temperature got to -26 degrees on the night furthest north.

South America, Britain, Ireland, Egypt, Japan, Philippines

We bought round-the-world tickets for the trip. I spent a couple of weeks in Chile and Bolivia and Leanne and the kids stopped for a few days in LA on the way to New York. We all left New York in June and stopped on the way home in the UK, Ireland, Egypt, Japan and the Philippines.

China, Russia, Korea, UK, Rio, US, Barbados

The next year, I went back for three shorter stints and took advantage of the tos and fros to visit China, do the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow and St Petersburg, and to visit Korea, the UK, Rio, Barbados, Las Vegas, Alaska and Hawaii. I just happened to be in Rio for Carnivale. I had wondered why it had been so hard to book accommodation.

Carnivale

On the train after the Carnivale parade

SE Asia, UK

Our next trip was in 2007. We took the family to SE Asia and then on to the UK. By that time the kids were all old enough to be good travelling companions who pretty much looked after themselves. That was our last trip as a family, though we did all get together once more in 2019 in Sweden.

China, SE Asia

Leanne and I travelled to China in 2009 and Bali in 2010. In 2011, we had a week in Phuket courtesy of a time-share company that had accosted us in Hong Kong in 2009.

South America, Antarctica

In 2011-2012 we did a cruise to Antarctica preceded by a couple of weeks backpacking and bussing from Lima to Buenos Aires. That was our first ever cruise, done not because we wanted to cruise, but because we wanted to see some of Antarctica.

However, before we got out of the harbour in Buenos Aires, we ran into another ship. A crane on the other ship swept along the deck Leanne and I were standing on, flattening the steel railings as it went and pinging the wooden top-rails into the air. It then gouged out part of the glass-clad crow's nest. We had to spend the night sitting offshore waiting for the coast guard to inspect the ship in the morning to see if it was still seaworthy. It turned out it was; we continued on our journey missing one port in Argentina, and the crew made makeshift repairs to the damage as we sailed.

We had 150 km/h winds and monstrous seas crossing the Drake Passage, but the weather in Antarctica was clear and calm and the sea mirror-like. The views were superb and, being light 24 hours a day, we had to tear ourselves away to get some food and sleep.

Antarctica

We actually decided that cruising wasn't so bad after all and we've done another 11 since then. We had 5 cyclones/hurricanes on those 11 cruises - a better-than-average tally I think. And that doesn't include the Antarctica trip, which was just the furious fifties and shrieking sixties.

Asia, Europe, Greenland, North America

We went to Dubai and the UK in 2013, from Darwin to Perth by campervan in 2014, then, also in 2014, we did a 4-month trip including China, Kazakhstan, the UK (though Leanne flew straight to London to avoid China), Central Europe, Iceland, Greenland and North America, finishing with a week in Hawaii.

Asia, North America, South America

In 2015 we spent a few days in Japan followed by a cruise to Alaska and Vancouver. 2016 saw a trip through Miami, the Carribean, Guyana, Brazil, the UK and Vietnam.

Russia and Sweden

In 2017 we did a trip through Siberia, European Russia and Sweden. The Siberian part is described in more detil under the link below.

Siberia

SW Pacific In 2018 we took a short cruise to Vanuatu and back. We passed through two cyclones during the cruise, one on the way there and a different one on the way back.

Europe

In 2019, we did another fairly big tour, starting in Scandinavia and travelling through the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine was lovely; it's such a pity to see what has happened to it. And actually, Belarus was a nicer place that I expected. Then on to Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Greece, where we spent a very pleasant and relaxing four days on Paros.

Paros

Feeling relaxed after Paros and less on my guard than usual, I got pick-pocketed on the underground in Athens. From Athens we cruised to Barcelona, bussed and trained around Spain and Portugal, then visited Kara and Ben in Switzerland before heading to the UK and back home.

Australia

We had trips to Botswana, Morocco and Israel booked for 2020, but Covid put a stop to them. Instead we hitched up the Caravan in 2021 and travelled around Australia, visiting Jake and family in Perth.

Europe, Singapore, US, Fiji, Iceland, New Guinea

We went to the Canaries and UK in 2022 to celebrate 40 years of wedded bliss. We did two cruises in 2023 - Singapore to Brisbane and Seattle to Fiji. We visited Iceland in 2024 along with a cruise from there to Spitzbergen and Norway, followed by some time in the UK. And in 2025 we did a short cruise to New Guinea.

Travel Map

I've always kept track of my travels. The surface travels are shown on the map below.

Travel map

Future

We still want to do a river cruise in Europe, and we'll still visit England fairly regularly, but our manic travelling days are now mostly done. We are thinking of spending a year or so in the UK soon and then maybe settling in Perth.

Photos

There are photos from most of the trips on the Travel Photos page. Click the picture below or follow the link from the home page.

Top of this page Back to 'Life' Home Page

Image Acknowledgments

Map background: Wikimedia Commons