The Fog Watch

Canberra’s Floriade Spring flower festival

I heard the music first, then turned a corner in the park and the explosion of tulips filled my eyes with Spring. It’s Floriade time in Canberra – with more than a million blooms, it is the Southern Hemisphere’s greatest flower festival that runs from 15 Sept to 14 October. …

Tarta de Santiago – a pilgrim’s journey bread?

Anyone who has walked the ancient pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago will have encountered a delicious almond cake with a characteristic cross of the Order of Santiago outlined in icing sugar. This is the Tarta de Santiago originating in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Galicia. I’ve included the …

Bath UK – The Herschel Museum

There was a light drizzle as I turned down a fairly nondescript Georgian side street in Bath when I noticed a plain sign outside a terrace house about halfway down. The sign read: “William Herschel Museum”, accompanied by an old plaque indicated that this was his house back in the …

Camino 2018 – The challenge of returning to daily life

From Sarria onwards to Santiago de Compostela, I found myself reflecting on what I had learned on the Camino, and wondering how I can take what I’ve learned back into my daily life. How do you reintegrate back into the life you left behind? I know this is something countless …

Rome – The Colosseum: To the People Restored

We passed the Colosseum on the way to our hotel, and found it even more impressive than any images could convey.  The following day, with the sun high in the sky, I made my way past the Forum and over to the Colosseum to see it properly in daylight. When …

Camino 2018 – It’s All in the Mind

What about the mind? You reach Logroño, and by now you are getting settled into the Camino’s routine, and you are starting to feel like a pilgrim on a pilgrimage. But what does that even mean, and how might we think about it? What makes this different from, say, a …

The Roman Forum at a Glance

I first saw the ancient Roman Forum (Forum Romanum) from a Segway bike. I looked up from the cobblestones as our tour guide gathered us together, and there it was – the scene so often painted by Grand Tour visitors from the C17th and C18th. Stretching out beneath us, stood …

Camino 2018 – Care of the Self

How do you conceive of walking 800km/500 miles when, like me, you typically take the car to the local shops less than a kilometre away? It’s a scary number, even more so when you look up at the Pyrenees, and see the vultures circling. Does that bell toll for me? …

Camino 2018 – The Ordeal of the Mountain

What is it about starting a pilgrimage with an ordeal by mountain? Is it a test of resolve? Or is it to give us a glimpse of the reward for our efforts in the majesty of the scene laid out before us?