I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to travel broadly in my time. It is well known that travel broadens your outlook and widens your view of life and lands. You learn to value what you have and it gives you the insight to see things, which others see as normal in their lives, and yet you can see, in them, something extraordinary. This is our Outback, our Country and the broad land of Australia. Continue reading
Exploring Seattle has been a lot of fun, from the dusty dank recesses of the Underground to the history of the Burke Museum on Washington campus. Basically it is an old Sea Port, not so old that it is steeped in history, after all it was only developed in the gold rushes of the 1860’s… but old enough to have an interesting history.
My forefather made it here, he was a 15yr old stowaway on a trade vessel that plied the waves between Sydney Australia, and Seattle Washington back in the 1880’s & 90’s so my interest is nautical and dockside.
When you first see the consequence of the 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount Snt Helens spread out before you it is one of the most power things you can observe. It leaves you simply awe struck. Such force, such power unleashed is a deathly combination and this becomes obvious.
Everywhere we have travelled these last weeks we have seen tall trees, all kinds of tall mountain pine trees. They have become what are some of our most indelible of memories from this trip. Here in southern mountains of Oregon this is very much the view everywhere you look, it is like what the gum tree is to Australia. Continue reading
reblogging 🙂 wordpress stuffed up the publication somehow … thanks guys
Climbed out of bed this morning at some hideous hour… if I was back in Aus I could have said I slept in but here on the other side of the world 6am is a hideous hour. I think it has something to do with the sun not setting until 10pm and taking so damn long to sink. Nothing seems to stir beyond 8:30am here so our hour of rising is considered hideous.
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Yellowstone is an experience like none other, but for a diversion The Man and I took a run outside its limits. We had been told of the incredibly beautiful drive that is the road up over Bear Tooth Pass and the return run back into Yellowstone along the Chief Joseph Trail. God bless those who told us of these excursions.
Yellowstone is something unique. It is the combination of many things, the wildlife, the thermal activity, the wild rivers and canyons, the patches of grass left fallow for the animals that you find alongside the road. Then there is the snow that sits seemingly idle in the high places, even in summer. It is all these things and more.
Involving yourself in the wilds of Mountain Life here in the Rocky Mountains of Canada is to step into the indulgent. While surrounded by some of the most magnificent of landscapes, man in part attempts to convince him and herself that they are in control. They think that they have managed to tame what is wild.
I ticked off a few things on my bucket list for the Rockies today and it was a great day. We are camped up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the Yoho National Park at Monarch campsite. The name comes from an old zinc and lead mine, which also produced paying gold and silver. Where the miners once lived and worked is now the campsite, as with Kicking Horse camp a few steps from Monarch. Continue reading
Today we head out of Vancouver headed into the wilds of the Columbia Mountains and onto the Canadian Rockies, crossing the high wilderness of the mountains from West to East. We hope to be into Banff on the other side in three days, following the gold trail through the mountain valleys of British Columbia and then crossing the valleys and rivers otherwise known as part of The Rocky Mountain Trench. It is some 1550klm long and it parallels the western slopes of the Rockies for its entire length.
Jan Hawkins Author 