A slow travel journey around the world without flying
Books, Nooks and Crannies (14 Waianuenue, Hilo, HI 96720 ) This charming little bookshop in Hilo opened in 2010 after the closure of the local Borders store (its owner even bought some of the old Borders furniture and book shelves). The booksho p has since…
We were due to meet the AS Carelia at the Port of Brisbane's Container Terminal, which as it turns out is quite a way out from the city centre. We took a train to an almost derelict suburban station (Wynnum North) and then after a…
The waters on the strait between New Zealand and the south coast of Australia are notoriously choppy, and it looks like we managed to arrive at the worst possible time. The boat was originally scheduled to stop at Eden, a popular spot on the south…
Twenty-three days at sea is a fairly long period of time to contend with, even when making the odd stop along the way. Although we tried to introduce some sort of routine, it was often difficult to maintain in the face of creeping nausea. The…
New Caledonia consists of a breathtakingly beautiful group of islands (the largest of which is the main island of Grande Terre ), which somewhat ironically, or perhaps torturously, were used by the French in the mid 19th Century as sites for penal colonies. Some of…
It was raining when we arrived in Suva. The sky may have been overcast and grey but the welcome at the port was warm with many greetings of ' Bula! ', a local word meaning all of 'Hello', 'Cheers' and 'Life'. In the morning, we…
In the morning that we arrived in Samoa, we were supposed to be heading to the local fish market, but secretly not relishing the thought of staring at a lot of dead or slowly suffocating creatures, our attention was drawn elsewhere...by a group of men,…
I drew the curtains on the morning of my birthday to find that the seascape I had become accustomed to had been replaced with lush rainforest greenery and shipping containers. We were docked in the harbour of Pago Pago, on the island of Tutuila in…
Our first stop in the South Pacific was Hawaiʻi which I had been looking forward to visiting, especially since learning about indigenous Hawaiian culture from a Hawaiian man (who was going home to Hilo) on the boat. Not surprisingly, prior to Western contact, Hawaiʻi's native…
The Cruise Line International Association (a body representing the interests of North American cruise companies) reported in September that the cruise industry is one of the fastest growing areas of tourism. The environmental practices that cruise companies choose to either adopt or neglect will therefore…
Our boat was scheduled to leave from the port of Long Beach just outside of LA, which is a strange place, with an atmosphere somewhere in between that of a theme park, a failed beach resort and a film studio. It is dotted with attempts…
On our journey through the South Pacific we were able to sample many of the islands' own delicacies and specific ways of preparing food. The food in Hawaiʻi represents a microcosm of Polynesian food, drawing on recipes that have been passed down for generations and…
San Pedro is a working port town and we struggled to find much accommodation here apart from rather large chain hotels frequented by businessmen, cruise passengers and strangely rather a lot of Mexican wedding parties. It was in a café here that we estimated that…
