Life on Earth
In the late 1970s David Attenborough bravely attempted to cram the entire history of life on this planet into just under 12 hours of television. Most would agree he did a pretty good job, all things considered, but inevitably more than a few bits were left on the cutting room floor. Almost 30 years later Andy and Debbie set out from their home in Cairns, Australia, to chronicle a few of the finer points David may have missed, with particular emphasis on the remarkable decline over the intervening period of that fine specimen, the Mullet. We hope you will enjoy these 'Missing Episodes' as much as we enjoyed making them.Andy and Debbie
*Please note, the views and opinions expressed in this blog are not endorsed by the publisher, it's affiliates, or even the author himself. Should you find any of the material offensive, you probably need to get out more.
Travel Blog Posts
January 3rd 2012
First up, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. Truth is, God and I have never been all that tight. I suppose if relationships are built on trust, the fact that neither of us appears to believe in the other probably doesn’t help. I’m not sure I can be entirely blamed for my lack of conviction, though. Fact is, out of all the pre-school imaginary characters, God did the least to prove he was the real-deal. Both Santa and the Tooth Fairy actually entered my room while I slept and tried to buy my faith with gifts, which you have to admit is a pretty neat trick for the non-existent. Some have since hinted that it was my parents all along, a more likely scenario I have to admit, but what I’m thinking is, ... read more
August 3rd 2011
Every once in a while something comes along so good it just completely blows your socks off. As a youngster, full of the joys of spring, this sort of thing happens all the time: Sparklers, Scalextrix, Star-Wars, and Special Brew spring to mind, hopefully roughly in that order. As time slides by, though the spacing of these superlatives starts to stretch, and it becomes significantly harder to find the next Best Thing since Sliced Bread, new attractions plowing a steady downward path from the perfect to the paltry to the downright pathetic: Pop Tarts, Pay TV, Paris Hilton and Pension Plans, until ultimately your biggest thrill is a poke up the posterior at your annual prostate check. So it was with a certain sense of skepticism that I booked a trip to the paradise of Palau. ... read more
February 15th 2011
Some journeys are longer than others... This one’s taken over three decades already and is still only just at the beginning - So perhaps it’s best if we start at the beginning of the end... Sixty is the new forty, or so they tell me. I guess that means that 43 is the new 23, which goes precisely no way at all to explaining why for the last six months I’ve taken to behaving like a sixteen year old, something of a stretch for a supposedly respectable middle-aged dentist. Mid-life crisis anyone? It all began with an unexpected phone-call a wee while back: mid-afternoon at work I was busily completing the umpteenth filling of the day when the word came through that the Oral Surgeon was on the line. As a dentist, this is the guy ... read more
Comes With The Territory
Published: September 8th 2010Oceania » Australia » Northern Territory » Kakadu National Park
August 28th 2010
If you really want to get away from it all, it’s hard to go past the Northern Territory. Or at least so you’d have to think. An area ten times the size of England whose entire population could be comfortably housed within the confines of Reading and still have plenty room left for visitors come festival time. And as they nearly all choose to live in just two small towns nigh on two days drive apart, if it’s wide open spaces you’re after, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. Thing is, though, most people aren’t really all that interested in wide open spaces unless there’s actually something in them. And therein lies the rub. While the Northern Territory really does have a good handful of the most drop-dead gorgeous hotpots you’ve ever laid eyes on, you can ... read more
January 25th 2010
The New Year here in Far North Queensland is not much like that back home in Blighty. We upped-sticks to Australia back in 1997, but there are still some things round here you never really seem to get used to. After a steamy Christmas Day barbeque round the pool, January heralds the start of The Wet. There is precisely zero danger of having to scrape the ice off your windscreen of a morning, but we still suffer under leaden skies, more rain falling in Cairns last January than for the entire year in London. There’s no time to let this dampen your spirits, though, as it also marks the start of an entirely more exciting meteorological phenomenon: Cyclone Season. The name itself is enough to grab most people’s attention. Officially Cyclone Season runs right through from ... read more
January 1st 2010
Captain’s Log, Star-date January First, Twenty Ten. These have been the voyages of Andy and Debbie, their year-long mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has dared drag his wife before... As you may have gathered by now, we’ve finally re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down safely in the backyard pond, suddenly surrounded once more by the luxurious trappings of the western world. Debbie returned with a bang, heading straight back to her old job within a week. Frankly I’d rather have been knifed in the belly like a stuck pig and had my entrails re-arranged than suffer such a fate, which is just as well, as that’s exactly what happened, finding myself whisked off into hospital (yeah, I know, again!) for a ... read more
You Go First, There Might Be Spiders.
Published: December 22nd 2009Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Noosa
November 30th 2009
There are those who say you can have too much of a good thing. But, let’s face it, they’re mostly boring old bastards who don’t get out that much. Nine months of third-world travel, though, had definitely taken their toll, and on returning to Australia in October, we were glad to be back home at last. Arriving only served to remind us how lucky we are to have moved to one of the best spots on earth, let alone have had the chance to travel for a year and safely return. Even so, after only a few days recuperation I found myself left with a sense of unfinished business. The year was not yet over. The few pennies we had left could easily have lasted us till Christmas had we chosen to stay in cheap foreign ... read more
October 12th 2009
Punk’s Not Dead. At least not according to the little old lady stood in front of me in the queue. The charms of South-East Asian travel still involve the occasional encounter with folk dressed head to toe in traditional attire. Sadly, this seems to get rarer with every passing year, globalisation seeping its way ever deeper into the region’s psyche. A West is Best outlook prevails, and sadly the days of conical hats and hand-woven fabrics are well and truly numbered. In the cities, let alone at the airport where we were now, oriental robes are as rare as Pavarotti on Pop Idol, and everyone is dressed just like round your way, which I always find a tad depressing. Well, maybe not quite the same. The fact is most aren’t entirely au-fait with the nuances of ... read more
October 8th 2009
The fifth best thing about going to Laos is being able to say that you’ve been. On returning home from your year away, everybody you know will ask just two identical questions of your entire trip, all the detail they can squeeze in before returning to the unrelenting pressures of their busy modern lives: ‘Did you have a good time?’ (Oooh, no. Terrible. I’d much rather have been stuck in the old 9 to 5 like you guys.) And secondly, ‘Where was the best place?’ Frankly by now they’ve lost interest already and aren’t terribly bothered by your reply, their eyes glazing over as they mentally move on to the next matter of absolute urgency in their bulging In-Tray. And that’s when you hit them with it, right between the eyes. ‘Actually, we both really enjoyed ... read more
A Bucket and Spade and a Hand-Grenade
Published: November 8th 2009Asia » Cambodia » North » Siem Reap
September 26th 2009
As we began our descent from 30000ft I was entirely oblivious to the air-crew’s requests to stow our tray-tables, return our seats to the upright position and fasten our seatbelts as I was entirely rapt by the stunning views laid out for before me from my window-seat. A vast glistening blue lake was encircled by endless emerald green fields, themselves sparkling with the waters sustaining the rice-paddies below. It was hard to believe that such a glittering marvel, a scene straight out of a fairy-tale, had just thirty years earlier gained notoriety worldwide as The Killing Fields. Back in the 70s these lands weren’t such a great place to be. In those days, only Punks would tout a Holiday in Cambodia. It certainly wasn’t on offer down your local Flight Centre or Lunn Poly. Madness had ... read more
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