Sorrento is at the far end of the Mornington Peninsula, one of the two arms that almost enclose Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay.
They were having one of their street markets and, though the weather looked ominous, I decided to risk it and go down for a look.
My travel memoir, Is This the Road to Stratford?, has now been published with Amazon for three months. Time to celebrate! For 5 days, from Thursday 15th June till Monday 19th June, I am offering the Ebook for nothing – zilch – FREE.
In 2011, I landed in Manchester. In a malevolent rental car, baffled by indecipherable road signs and huge roundabouts, I journeyed from Yorkshire through Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, to London.
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Having spent months earlier in the year editing and publishing my travel memoir, Is this the Road to Stratford?, I needed a serious dose of nature to get me back in balance. My computer and I don’t get on well if we spend to much time together in our little room. Continue reading “Healesville Sanctuary, Yarra Valley, Victoria”
The Gippsland Lakes are a network of lakes, marshes and lagoons, covering an area of around 350 square kilometres. From Bairnsdale, I followed the Princes Highway, as it snaked its way down and around a point known as Jemmy’s Point.
In 1889, a wall was built to fix the position of a naturally occurring channel between the lakes and Bass Strait, to stabilise the water level, create a harbour for fishing boats and to open the lakes up to shipping. Hence the name, Lakes Entrance.
I decided last week I needed some R&R and some nature, so I headed down to Victoria’s lakes district on the south-east coast. I’d been promising myself I would explore the area for years but somehow hadn’t got round to it. I stopped the first night in Bairnsdale, before taking the last 38kms down to Lakes Entrance the next day.
This week, I’m launching the third book in my Planning to the ‘Nth series. Is This the Road to Stratford? describes my trip to England in 2011. Arriving in Manchester, I crossed by train to York, where I picked up a particularly malevolent rental car and, bewildered by indecipherable road signs and massive, terrifying roundabouts, wound my way down to Oxford. From there, having with great relief disposed of the car, I caught the train to London.
The book is now available as an ebook from Amazon. To check it out, click here.
Continue reading “‘Is This the Road to Stratford?’ Book Launch”
Recently my artist daughter exhibited some of her paintings in an art exhibition at Coolart Homestead at Somers, on the Mornington Peninsula, 80 kilometres south of Melbourne. I went down for a look.
On my second day in Oxford, I was wandering alongside the old city wall when I came upon a set of heavy wooden doors, a smaller door cut out and open, the same as mine at Balliol College. It seemed an odd place for them, surrounded by nothing but high stone walls, and I had to investigate where they could lead. Peering through, I saw a pointed arch, framing an emerald green lawn, turretted buildings rising behind. A sign said Welcome to New College.
While preparing for my upcoming trip to England, my mind wandered back to my first trip in 2011.
I’d always wanted to slip, ‘when I was at Oxford’, into the conversation, and so I booked myself into Balliol College, the oldest university in the city.
In the next couple of weeks, my book, Hangi, Haka and Hobbits: Notes from New Zealand, will have been with Amazon for three months. To celebrate this milestone, I’m having a free offer.
Continue reading “Hangi, Haka and Hobbits: Notes from New Zealand Free Offer”
Planning to the Nth 