King Island. As poet Robert Frost said, we have found a “road less travelled” again for a wonderful vacation. A short aeroplane flight on a small Piper Chieftain, one hour from Melbourne, took us three hundred kilometres south to King Island, Tasmania. King Island is a beautiful parallel universe a short distance from Australia’s second biggest city that might as well be a million miles away in time and space. We spent a restful six days there: meeting the locals; driving; bushwalking and sampling the wonderful local produce. There was plenty to do and no hustle and bustl [View Full Entry]

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Kangaroo Island South Australia, 2008. It is a while since I’ve “blogged”, as we’ve not been travelling much! Work unfortunately gets in the way of travel! But we’re just back from Kangaroo Island, South Australia. It is a stunning place. “KI” (as the locals call it), is Australia’s third biggest island after Tasmania and Melville NT. Although it has over 500 kilometres of coastline and is approximately the area of Bali, Indonesia, its permanent population is only about four thousand souls. Quite a contrast. To quote the South Australian To [View Full Entry]

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..and so to Mexico! [View Full Entry]

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Travelling to Xanadu! A Year in the USA.. In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round. … It was a miracle of rare device. A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice. …And ‘mid this tumult Kublai heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1816 Like the fabled Xanadu, the United States is a mythological construct inhabiting the minds of men. The fable of this Great Exp [View Full Entry]

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Poulsen and Merrill and Jessica Smead to Saint Anthony’s Falls, Como Park and to a Jazz Performance. After that to dinner in the Mexican quarter of St Paul. The weekend after this, there were again several things on, and we had to pick! We visited the Cinco De Maya (5 of May) Festival in South Saint Paul. This was amazing. It is the big Mexican national celebration second only to their Independence Day in September. Parades; Maruichi bands, fun and frivolity. After this we went on to the Festival of the Nations. The following Thursday we scored two very expensive free [View Full Entry]

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What I most liked was the strong connection maintained with the sea in Salem. We went aboard the dinky little sailing ship the “Friendship”, maintained by the National Parks. We didn’t go into the old Customs House (once run by Nathanial Hawthorne) as it cost! There was a craft fair on the waterfront where old-timers and new enthusiasts demonstrated maritime model making, knot tying, scrimshaw etc. Just great! Capstan shanties were being sung by a folk group which included “Bound for South Australia!”. The whaling fleets from these areas established some of the earliest connections with Austra [View Full Entry]

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11. Split seconds increased momentum to (the police estimated) fifty-plus miles an hour. 12. Steering eventually became uncontrollable and the steering wheel slapped back with such force that it sent Daggi’s arm into the air. Like a stock whip breaking her wrist. There was no direct impact of her wrist on any object, and it snapped in midair! It is all a salutary lesson how such things can happen. All I know is that life is fleeting and we have to learn lessons from all this if possible. Or maybe we should have stayed home in Bloomington and hidden under the [View Full Entry]

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Confusing test results with real education is perpetuated and institutionalised through compulsory state and national testing. The testing industry is a four billion-dollar vested interest that produces dubious data purportedly objectifying student progress. These results bear little relation to any sound international educational standard. The US eschews looking at successful overseas examples in this and in so many other ways. I think the closest equivalent to this in Australia may be found in some of the more second-rate Private Schools. These schools have good facilities but are run by [View Full Entry]

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