Flying Visit to Brisbane, Australia's New World City: featuring The Brisbane River Run and Water Dragons in Roma Street Parklands.

Wednesday 19 February 2014, Brisbane, Queensland.

It's 7.30pm on a Wednesday evening, and I've just arrived in Brisbane ahead of a conference tomorrow. I'm staying at the rather flash Quest River City serviced apartments. It's fully loaded: lounge, terrace, two bedrooms, even a 50" flat screen TV. I only ended up here because the conference hotel, the.charmless.Hilton.com is fully booked out. Amen to that. 

White Night 2014, Melbourne. A Night Like No Other, thank goodness.

22 February, 2014. Melbourne, Victoria. 

I think it was a festival. I know it was called White Night. I know there were thousands of people on the streets. And I know it was in Melbourne. Other than that, I had no idea what the hell was going on. You could say the marketing people got it right for once - 'a night like no other' - but maybe not the way they intended it too. 

DAY TRIP Olinda and the National Rhododendron Gardens, Mount Dandenong.

22 February, 2014. Victoria, Australia. 

Flat and brown. Flat and brown. Flat and brown. Ocean. 

That's a rather crude but very apt description of the Melbourne summer landscape, according to my wife. It's flat, it's hot, it's burnt yellow and brown, and then you reach the sea. It can be quite frankly, a bit dull. Which is why Melbourne's self proclaimed Hills Villages are like a breath of fresh air. And fine, fresh, English country air at that. 

48 Hours on Hamilton Island, QLD. Australia's own Fantasy Island!

December 2013. Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia. 

I half expected a bell to be rung and a midget with a French accent to scream chaotically 'ze plane! ze plane' as we arrived at Hamilton Island airport. I think it was down to my over active imagination when I was doing my research, which made me realise there were more than a few uncanny similarities to the early eighties TV Show Fantasy Island, including its very own sea planes. Thankfully the midget called Tattoo was nowhere to be seen because frankly he freaked me out. Firstly Hamilton Island is paradise, as pretty a tropical Island as you'll find and put plain and simply, gorgeous. Secondly, it's privately owned, just as Fantasy Island was. The island may well be the largest inhabited island in the Whitsundays, but its also quite small at just twenty five square kilometres. That's three boxes ticked already. Then  there's the whole customer-service-cum-hospitality-cum-smiliness-cum-perfection thing it has going on. As you've probably figured out, I can't quite put my finger on it - but I will try to explain if you bear with me....

Grand Palace & Wat Pho, Bangkok

1 February, 2014

Poor Alison has been bed ridden so far for all of our stay in Bangkok, and looks like she'll be there for another day at least. We had our fingers crossed that by tomorrow she might be slowly recovering. So today I planned to visit a couple of sights that she had already seen, the Grand Palace and Wat Pho.

48 Hours in Newcastle, New South Wales - Australia's best kept secret.

Newcastle, New South Wales. December 2013.

A city proudly built on the hustle and bustle of coal exports and steel making, famous for its docklands and glorious shipyards, and united by a feverish, bordering on obsessive passion for its football team. You could just as easily be talking about Newcastle in England or Newcastle in Australia. They may well be cities separated by seventeen thousand kilometres and four continents, but they could have been separated at birth.  Another thing they have in common - they are under appreciated by all.

Bangkok by Night

31 January, 2014

We just about made it in one piece from the flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. The journey was fine, but Alison had come down with stomach flu minutes before we took off. She just about got through the flight, but collapsed in a heap on the sky train platform after an emergency exit at Makkasan. She was in agony and sick - our first taste of Thai hospitality was the grace and sympathy with which the staff there gave her, even helping her with a wheel chair to the taxi stand (the cleaners may not have been so graceful after we left!)

Wat Phnom, Central Market & Riverside, Phnom Penh

30 January, 2014

You can spend an interesting day wandering around on foot in the north of the city and Wat Phnom is as a good a place to start as any. This small yet popular temple is perched on the highest point of the city, which isn't saying much when it weighs in at just twenty seven metres tall, but it is a pretty little spot.