3 days at Uluru

Hectic times with no time for blogging at the moment, so why don't you head over to Viator and take a look at our piece 3 Days at Uluru, on Australia's star attraction and one of our favorite spots in the country.

Have you been to Uluru? If so, what did you think? I went the first time with my parents in 1980, just a month before baby Azaria Chamberlain was supposedly taken by a dingo from her parents tent. It was a very different place then with a far fewer tourists, just a service station, general store and a simple camping ground close to the base of the Rock near the Aboriginal community. Now, it boasts a handful of brilliant hotels and restaurants, with loads of activities and tours. It was a completely different experience this time, but I loved both. To me, it's a magical place and an unmissable attraction, and should top traveller's lists of things to do in Australia. Is it on your travel list?

What makes an airport cool?

I've been musing about airports and thinking about my experiences at Melbourne and Perth airports last week and what made them so bad, and reflecting upon what makes an airport cool, what kind of things would actually make the experience so much more fun! The factors that make Melbourne so unpleasant are the lack of comfortable seating and places to relax, poor business and communication facilities, dismal retail and dining options, limited opening hours, a dirty environment, and a distinct lack of character. So that means my ideal airport would be exactly the opposite, and possess the following characteristics:
* an abundance of comfortable seating, from reclining chairs to chill-out sofas and ottomans, in various formations and environments to suit different moods and needs;
* state-of-the-art communications and public business facilities (not only in airline lounges), from free easy-to-access WiFi throughout the airport and desk space with powerpoints for those who want to set up their laptop and work to reasonably-priced pay-by-the-hour lounges for those with long layovers who want to get serious about working;
* a wide range of useful and engaging retail outlets, from gourmet delis and a supermarket to excellent bookshops (not only stocking airport novels) and newsagents, to quality gift stores specialising in local products, and travel shops that don't only sell suitcases, but offer up everything from travel gadgets to tech accessories;
* an array of quality drinking and dining options and no franchises for starters: I want to see clean, quality cafes, restaurants and bars, ran by independent owners who care about what they're doing, and have a desire to sell more than muffins and soggy plastic-wrapped sandwiches. I want fresh food, made-to-order, and variety. Why can't airports have stand-up Italian-style cafe bars where you can grab a macchiato from an barista who knows not to ask "Is that a short mac or a long mac?" And why not proper fine-dining restaurants or chic bistros for those of us with long waits between connections? Obviously there's a place for fast food but can we please give the McDonalds and Subways a miss and only allow quality options, like a wood-fire pizza place or a Japanese sushi bar?
* everything should be open as long as flights are operating: there are many 24-hour airports dotted around the world that can manage this, Dubai for one; there should be no reason to close anything if there are still people streaming through the airport;
* the place should be gleaming; everything in the airport should be shiny and clean, and smelling fresh and lovely - from the public seating to the toilets to the floors throughout - there's just no excuse for grubbiness at a developed city airport in this day and age;
* the airport should be well-designed; from the practical stuff (security, check-in, baggage drop, signage, transport, traffic flow) to the aesthetic (departure lounge seating, shop-fronts, dining experiences, etc), the airport should look cool. It should not only be functional - it should work and be comfortable - but it should have form and style. Airports should look chic and inviting. They should make us want to spend time in them instead of wanting to get the hell out of there the first chance we get.
What do you think? What makes an airport cool for you? My favorites include Copenhagen, Amsterdam's Schiphol, Dubai and Hong Kong, but even they're not perfect. Do you have any favorites?

The developed world's worst city airports?

What are the developed world's worst city airports? And what makes an airport bad for you? I'm convinced Melbourne and Perth's airports must be somewhere on a worst airport list. Due to bad plane and bus connections, I spent a fair bit of time at both of these Australian airports this past week, and it was painful. Perth's domestic airport seems to work 9-5 despite flights arriving and departing at midnight. It's small, has few shops, fewer eating options, and needs a good scrub. But because Perth is a city with a small population, I'm going to be a bit more forgiving. Melbourne on the other hand has no excuse. It's Australia's second largest city, a busy business/finance hub, and a major tourist destination. There's no excuse for Melbourne's Tullamarine airport to be so appalling. So what makes it so dreadful?
* Opening hours - nothing was open when my flight arrived at 5.30am, and most cafes and shops didn't open until 8.30-9am despite the airport being busy with commuters; if there are flights coming and going, then the whole airport should be open for business.
* No public lounges and few seating options – apart from the departure gates, there are few places to sit other than the airport's dismal cafes; there's not a single comfortable seat, only wooden benches and hard plastic café chairs, so plan your connections carefully or you'll have a sore bottom before you've even boarded the plane.
* No decent business facilities – can't get comfy and want to work instead? Forget about it. At Milan's Malpensa we can at least pay to work in a business lounge for the day with free internet, lots of desks, soft sofas, and complimentary refreshments. Nothing of the kind in Melbourne. Not only could I not access the expensive wireless internet service (and airport staff members had no clue either), I couldn't find any space to work and nowhere to plug in my laptop, apart from a dirty cafe. As I had a three hour wait I was prepared to pay for it too, but no such luck.
* Few enticing shops - nowhere to relax, no place to work, so you want to browse? Get that idea out of your head too. I found one average bookstore, an okay newsagent, three luggage shops, a music store that was closing down, an overpriced L'Occitane store, and a cheap fashion accessories shop (everything was going for $10). The only decent place worth killing some time was the Gourmet Traveller store.
* No appetizing places to eat or drink – of the four café/bars I found, one didn't have any food (“Saturdays are quiet” the guy said), the other had muffins and soggy white-bread sandwiches that looked like they had been made when I passed through the week before ("You're probably right!" laughed the girl when I told her), and who really wants to hang out at Gloria Jeans or Subway for godsake? And everything was expensive, from $7 sandwiches to $5 coffees.
* It’s dirty, stinky and tatty – Melbourne airport needs a good bath! From the food crumbs, hair and cigarette butts on the floors of the cafés (I thought it was non-smoking?!) to filthy, smelly lavatories with clogged toilets and dirty washbasins, this is one grotty airport. I finally found another bar just before I was about to board my plane - "Yes, this is the airport’s best bar" the bartender assured me - yet the furniture was dirty, scuffed and ripped (no, it wasn't shabby chic), the tables were sticky, drinks that had been spilled on the floor hadn't been mopped up, and there was that lovely all-pervading stench of beer.
I'm not looking forward to returning next week. So, do you have a city airport you hate? And if so, what are the factors that make it so bad in your eyes?

Pictured? Not Melbourne or Perth - that's Koh Samui's airport in Thailand, which is actually pretty darn cute.

The appeal of Perth: endless sunshine, blue skies and a bearable "lightness of being"

I've just returned to our temporary home and office (my uncle and aunt's house at Bendigo, north of Melbourne) after almost a week visiting family in Perth, Western Australia, the country's most isolated capital. And as much as I love it here, returning has been a shock to the system. While we had clear blue skies, daily sunshine and temperatures in the mid-high 20s (Celcius) in Perth for a week, here it's grey and cloudy, it feel like it hit 0 degrees last night (and probably did) and we're well and truly rugged up in the winter woolies, and stoking the fireplaces every night. While I was busy seeing my family and still worked every day, I somehow felt rejuventated and reinvigorated from being there. It's not only the weather, but it's the water everywhere - from the Swan River that meanders through the city, lake-like in parts, to the beautiful beaches of Cottesloe and Scarborough where we stayed a few days. There's a "lightness of being" (thanks, Milan Kundera) to Perth that you don't find in grey old Melbourne or even gorgeous Sydney, no matter how beautiful that city is - and I think it's because they're big, fast, polluted, high-density, traffic-heavy cities. There's a lot to be said for small, slow-paced, clean, low-rise, low-key, and laidback cities like Perth. I've spent a fair bit of time in them on this trip and I'm increasingly finding them more appealling. I think it's a shame that the vast majority of travellers to Australia have a few sights and a couple of cities on their lists to tick off - Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Great Barrier Reef (Qld) and Kakadu National Park (NT) tend to comprise the top three sights, and the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne mark the main entry and exit points. Far fewer foreign travellers make it to Australia's other cities, the highly underrated cities of Darwin, Adelaide and Perth. Yet I'm finding them far more alluring.

P.S. I've just written a story on Perth for Carlson Wagonlit's business travel magazine Connect; I'll let you know when it's out.

From here to there and back again

Do you ever get the sense that you haven't been anywhere after you've travelled somewhere? And yet when you return you feel as if you have been 'away'? I did a whirlwind trip to Perth this week to spend time with my Mum for mother's day (last Sunday in Australia) and her birthday (the day after) and to see my sister, brother-in-law and my niece and nephews before we leave Australia again in less than two weeks. It was one of those trips where I feel as if I've spent more time travelling than I spent 'there'. Which is not the case at all. Although I did spend most of a day getting 'there' and a whole night returning 'here', including a couple of hours on a bus and several hours killing time in the airports at each end. Travel days like these - when you spend a whole day travelling and yet you're still in the same country - remind me of just how vast Australia actually is - more so than all those ten hour days on the road we did in the outback during this neverending research trip. Why is that, I wonder?

Australia's Top End: part 1

Check out our latest piece on Australia's Top End on Viator, which is running a series of posts by Terry and I on destinations we've covered and things we've loved during our road trip Down Under. Here's a bit of a taster, but read the full blog over at Viator, where you can also book tours to these places.

The tourism machine of the tropical Top End (the northern half of Australia's Northern Territory) is just now shifting into top gear as the spectacular storms of Banggerreng (the ‘knock ‘em down storm season’, as the Aboriginals call it), become less frequent, marking the end of the Wet Season (October-April). National Park staff begin to grade recently-impassable roads, clean up previously-flooded camping sites, and remove new residents (saltwater crocodiles!) from the swimming holes and the region teems with life. This is by far the best time to visit the Top End, so where should you go?
1. Kakadu National Park - Australia’s largest National Park (all 20,000 square kilometres of it!) is World-Heritage listed for a reason - for its impressive natural and cultural values. The natural significance comes from its myriad ecosystems and extraordinary diversity of flora and fauna, while the cultural importance comes from evidence of more than 40,000 years of continual inhabitancy by local Aboriginal tribes, including stunning rock paintings.
2. Arnhem Land (pictured) - designated an Aboriginal reserve in 1931, you can only visit Arnhem Land with a permit or with tour operators who have the confidence of the local elders, such as Sab Lord who runs Lord’s Safaris. Sab grew up with the local indigenous people and Aboriginal artists such as Thompson lead some of his tours. The Injalak Arts and Crafts Centre is excellent, and the 91,000 square kilometres of wilderness is staggeringly beautiful.
3. Litchfield National Park - 100km south of Darwin, this popular park boasts numerous waterfalls, natural waterholes, intriguing magnetic termite mounds that resemble a graveyard full of tombstones, and the striking sandstone pillars of the Lost City.
4. Tiwi Islands - Bathurst and Melville islands, just 80km north of Darwin, are home to the Tiwi Aborigines and a tour here (the only way to visit) allows you to experience an Aboriginal community, and learn about their history, culture and ‘bush tucker’.
5. Territory Wildlife Park - this exceptional wildlife park, 50km from Darwin, features a range of Territorian habitats, including wetlands, monsoon vine forest, and woodlands, nocturnal houses, aviaries and walk-through aquariums, as well as presentations such as “Tucker Time at the Billabong” and “Birds of Prey”.

Australia's Top End: part 2

Here's part 2 of our piece just posted on Viator on Australia's Top End. Read part 1 here and the full piece on Viator:
6. Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve - the result of an abandoned experimental rice project, this lush dam is a paradise for bird-spotters, with plenty of jacanas and egrets, and the omnipresent magpie geese.
7. Windows on the Wetlands - the impressive Windows on the Wetlands Visitors Centre, 60km from Darwin, gives a great introduction to the northern coastal wetlands. Situated on one of the highest points on the Adelaide River floodplain, there are outstanding views and the chance to spot wallabies, buffalo and feral pigs, especially early morning or late afternoon.
8. Jumping Crocodile Cruises - one of the most popular aspects of a Top End tour is a jumping crocodile cruise. While crocodiles can and will jump to get food (and we’ve seen them do it in the wild), we’re not sure that encouraging them to jump at these extraordinary heights is such a great idea, but it certainly makes for an incredible spectacle.
9. Termite Mounds - the otherworldly termite mounds (enormous ant hills) are found all over the Top End, but one of the best places to see them is in the Litchfield National Park, just after the town of Batchelor. The massive ‘cathedral’ mounds which can be up to 4m high and the ‘magnetic’ or ‘meridian' mounds that resemble tombstones are quite a sight.
10. Adelaide River - Adelaide River played a significant role in WWII as a supply base and today the tiny hamlet with its handful of historic sites is a peaceful place, particularly the perfectly manicured lawns of the town’s war cemetery where many air raid victims are buried.

Food reviewing, photographing chefs and reflections on ragu

As I'm a tad too busy to blog at the moment and have limited internet access (I've done a quick trip to Perth for my mother's birthday and Mother's Day and to see my sister and her family), why don't you drop over to my husband Terry's blog Wide angles, wine and wanderlust and check out his latest posts on restaurant reviewing (and how we deal with less than satisfactory experiences), the art of photographing chefs, and his various reflections on ragu, the real name for 'bolognese', for starters, in its most authentic form, it's made with tagliatelle, not spaghetti.

Pictured? Not ragu of course, but another divine dish from chef Rebecca Bridges at EVOO at Sky City in Darwin - a restaurant that was a joy to review and a chef who was a delight to interview and photograph.

Top things to do in Kakadu: part 2

And here's part 2 of our Top things to do in Kakadu; visit Viator for more our more detailed story:
6. Jim Jim Falls - this is one set of falls that requires real effort to get to – it’s a bumpy four-wheel-drive, four-hour return trip from the Kakadu Highway, but the rewards when the water is flowing freely are definitely worth it. The falls are at their spectacular best right after they open again after the Wet season ends, around April-May.
7. Twin Falls - you need a high-clearance 4WD (there are deep creek crossings) and a seasoned driver behind the wheel to get to these spectacular falls, but once there, access up Twin Falls gorge is by a boat shuttle service where a boardwalk takes you to the lovely waterhole.
8. Maguk - also known as Barramundi Gorge, this is a fine natural waterhole to visit, even at the driest period of the year – because unlike many others it doesn’t run dry - there is a wonderful walk awaiting visitors through a tropical monsoon forest that thankfully provides some shade, and swimming here is a real treat.
9. Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre - this engaging cultural centre has a circular design based on the shape of a Warradjan (pig-nosed turtle) and the interpretive displays are quite wonderfully immersive, providing excellent details about local aboriginal life in Kakadu, with some fine storytelling.
10. Bowali Visitors Centre - another very worthwhile glimpse of life in Kakadu is at the park’s main visitors centre, which is also the national park headquarters – Kakadu is jointly-managed by the Aboriginal people and the National Parks and Wildlife department. Once again, engaging interpretative displays, entertaining exhibits on flora and fauna, and a recreation of the Kakadu habitat, make this worth a couple of hours of your time.

Top things to do in Kakadu: part 1

Take a look at our latest piece on Viator, Top Things to Do in Kakadu, to find out why World heritage-listed Kakadu National Park is probably Australia’s best-known national park and one of the country's top sights. It's considered a ‘must-do’ on most travellers’ epic around-Australia journeys, but we think it’s a destination in its own right. This colossal park – over 20,000 square kilometres of it! – boasts fascinating flora and fauna (brilliant birdlife!), ancient Aboriginal art, and diverse range of striking landscapes. And now is the best time to visit - the Wet season is ending so the waterfalls are at their most spectacular, and the heat isn’t too debilitating yet. So here's a taster of the top ten things to see and do at Kakadu - visit Viator for more details.
1. Ubirr Rock - most people know Ubirr from its scene-stealing performance in the Crocodile Dundee movie; the rock galleries here reveal that local Aboriginals have known about the place for tens of thousands of years, with renderings of fish and marsupials, and stick-like Mimi spirits, and stunning views to enigmatic Arnhem Land.
2. Yellow Waters - taking a cruise on the calm waters of Yellow Waters lagoon is a real highlight - the wildlife is staggering and the lagoon is a lush ‘birdhouse without borders’ that you float through. There's also the visceral thrill of seeing saltwater crocs - do an early-morning or late afternoon cruise for the best show and most comfortable temperature.
3. Guluyambi Cruise - the laconic humour of the Aboriginal guides makes this boat tour a delight, along with lush scenery, birdlife and plenty more saltwater crocodiles. On our visit at the end of the Dry season we lost count of how many crocs we saw – you need to keep your limbs firmly inside! The insights into Aboriginal mythology, bush survival skills and traditional life are fascinating, and it’s an Aboriginal-owned and operated venture.
4. Nourlangie Rock - the indigenous art on the rock ‘galleries’ make this a real highlight - the protected Anbangbang Shelter paintings show evidence of occupation going back over twenty thousand years; they represent stories that reinforce traditional laws and social beliefs.
5. Gunlom - also known as Waterfall Creek, it's worth the relatively challenging climb (in the heat anyway) to reach the first level waterhole, where the natural ‘infinity pool’ is as photogenic as Kakadu gets and you’re rewarded with a dip to break the mirror-like reflections - after the obligatory photo shoot.

The flourishing of garden tourism - and it's growing!

How often do you amble about a public park or visit a private garden when you travel? Whether you're heading overseas on holidays or doing a staycation at home, are parks and gardens high on your list of things to do? While I spend my fair share of time strolling green spaces when researching guidebooks, I hadn't really considered the popularity of garden tourism until the horticultural tourists visited my aunt and uncle's place last weekend. But garden tourism - whether it's visiting historically significant botanical gardens, famous places in gardening history, or parks and gardens that are simply lovely places to while away some time - is huge. And while it isn't new - wandering the gardens of stately homes and palaces and picnicking in parks was a popular activity of the grand tourists who started traipsing around Europe in the 17th and 18th century; and some of those who stayed on were responsible for some of the Italian Lakes' most impressive gardens (more on those in another post) - and garden tourism is growing.

In the UK, garden tourism takes up the largest patch of turf that makes up Britain's leisure economy - about 10 million people per year stroll Britain's 3,000 or so public gardens, while 40 million visit historic properties such as the National Trust and English Heritage houses with gardens. In France, around two million visitors amble around 1,000 gardens each year. Garden touring is popular in New Zealand too where gardens are one of the top 10 attractions and activities of visitors to NZ from the UK, Australia, Japan, US and Germany. In Canada, there are about 140 gardens open to the public, and in March this year the Canadian tourism bodies decided to put the development of garden tourism, garden festivals and garden trails high on their agenda. Research shows that one-quarter of Canadian and American tourists reported having visited gardens on their travels and expressed an interest in doing so on future vacations. So why the growth in garden tourism I'm wondering? Is it a reflection of our interest in all things green and in sustainable tourism? Are we all dying to get back to nature and parks and gardens provide the most accessible options? Or does the rise in reality television and home and garden shows have something to do with it? What do you think?

Garden tours and the blossoming of thoughts on things green

As the garden tourists strolled my aunt and uncle's grounds last weekend, I began to see the light - well, I'd spent a week reflecting upon dark tourism after all - but I began to see the light reflecting through the trees and shrubs in the garden here in new and different ways. I tried to see them not as a writer or photographer, but simply as someone who appreciates gardens. I started to give some thought to why specific trees might have been planted and why they were located in certain places. I tried to recall how a particular flowering shrub looked when we first arrived a few months ago, how it looked when we were here last year, and how it appeared now. Was it even flowering? Why of course not, because different things flowered at different times of year. So I began to appreciate the arrangement of the garden, and how, while it looked wild and natural, it really was rather cleverly thought-out, the way it directed people here and there, provided places for them to explore, spots for them to sit and reflect. I began to see the flowers themselves. Normally my eyes are mainly drawn to bold colour and unusual textures, but now I began to become intrigued by everything and notice things I hadn't really paid attention to before. I saw perfect flowers which had just freshly opened and were revealing themselves to us in all their youthful beauty for the first time. I spotted sturdy buds about to blossom, and began to wonder when they might make their appearance. I even got a little excited at the prospect. But then I began to think: now the horticultural tourist probably knows exactly what a certain flower will look like when it opens. But surely that would take away the element of surprise? And then it occurred to me: like a film theorist who understands narrative structure and can determine how a movie will end but still enjoys seeing the story unfold, part of the joy of creating a garden and watching everything grow must surely be about seeing how everything comes together and having your satisfactions met? Like travellers who research and plan trips, organizing itineraries, and booking hotels, activities and tours, gardeners must also delight in developing expectations of their garden with the hope of having them met. So then I began to think about the horticultural tourist, and I wondered what their goals were when they set out to visit gardens. What did they hope to gain from moseying around gardens like that of my aunt and uncle's? Was it purely for the aesthetic pleasure or was there something more? What did they think about? And what were their aims when they planned a trip away to see gardens?

Can gardens tell stories?

I know that gardens can contain secrets (I was a little girl once) but can they tell stories? Can gardens reveal narratives to a person who knows how to read them? Or have I simply been reading too much into the cultivation of gardens and horticultural touring? (You need to read my last post first.) I know that the birch trees in the garden here at Tamara and George’s house are a reminder for my uncle George of our family's Russian heritage and the years he spent in St Petersburg as a young man, studying medicine, falling in love, and discovering Tarkovsky. I am imagine as George strolls his garden – “like the lord of the manor”, Tamara says – that those slender silver-branched trees that rustle moodily in the wind act like an aide-memoire prompting Russian recollections. Or perhaps just impressions. Well, that’s what I’d hope. And I’m sure the many trees, plants and flowers Tamara has planted – all of which Tamara calls “she”, as in “See how beautiful she’s looking!” – must provoke memories for her too. But what about for the strangers who visit gardens, like the horticultural tourists who ambled about here last weekend – does the garden tell them stories too, do you think?

The garden of leafy delights: part 1

Have you ever been on a garden tour? Last weekend my aunt Tamara threw open the gate to this lovely big old Australian house she and my uncle George have renovated in Eaglehawk on the outskirts of Bendigo in the goldfields region of Victoria. It's the same house where Terry and I have been lucky to spend our time writing up the two Australian books over recent months (and where we finished writing the Cyprus and Italy books while we planned our Australian road trip last year); the same house with the rustic kitchen where Terry does so much cooking in the evenings to keep us sated and sane (the results of which you can see on his blog Wide angles, wine and wanderlust). So Tamara threw open the doors to a horticultural group - most of them quite elderly, some of them a little frail, many of them horticultural judges, all wearing hand-written name tags - so they could tour this splendid garden. She did the same last month, at the request of the president of the Eaglehawk Dahlia and Arts Festival, and she does the same every year. Two tour groups arrived that Saturday, as they did this last weekend - just to stroll the glorious garden here. They admired specific plants, and discussed whether they were 'native' or 'exotic', they appreciated the arrangement of things, pointing at one plant and then another, and they secretly snipped clippings to take home (of course I noticed) where I guess they hoped to achieve similar wondrous results. Tamara had spent a couple of days beforehand giving the garden a general tidy, pulling weeds, watering, and sweeping paths, and that morning we put the sign up the president had provided on display out front. I didn't see the need for a sign as the group were arriving on a bus organized for them. Perhaps it was simply to formalize the event? It was nothing more than an amble about a garden after all. But to the group it was obviously a special day. Tamara didn't do a lot to prepare the garden, as I said. She said they could accept it the way it was. And they did. They absolutely delighted in strolling the garden. And who wouldn't?

The garden of leafy delights: part 2

And it is an enchanting garden, in the style of those wild, romantic, 18th century, English cottage gardens that inspired the Italians to establish their elaborate, sprawling villa gardens on the Italian Lakes. From the front gate a path meanders up to the porch of the house, a pretty pond on one side that's home to frogs, a fountain and floating waterlilies, and on the other side a shimmery birch forest and beyond that another pond that's home to a handsome white duck called Ferdinand and an ever-expanding school of fish that magically appeared one day (a theory is that birds dropped the fish in on their flight past, but people in these parts always have theories). Another path leads by the side of the house, itself concealed by creeping vines, where there is another small birch forest and everywhere an abundance of greenery. Beyond this a terrace with a big glass table and charming wrought-iron chairs where we occasionally sit together and eat in the sun - generally only when there are guests and not nearly as much as we should. The whole garden is lush and leafy and fragrant, with plenty of places to sit scattered about, a bench here, chairs and tables there, a swinging seat in the corner - all made for sitting back with a glass of something to delight in this gorgeous garden. And of course, we seldom do that either. I remember being a child and playing in my grandparents' gardens, hiding beneath big hollow shrubs I'd turn into cubby houses where I could hold tea parties with my dolls, and I wished then that I'd had a garden like this with its secret spots seemingly created especially for 'hide and seek'. This garden must be heaven for small children. Just as it was to the older garden-lovers last weekend...

2 Days in Tropical Darwin: day 1, a taster

Check out our story on Australia's sultry 'Top End' city of Darwin on Viator. We spent a few weeks in this tropical town just before the Wet season started, using it as a base to explore Kakadu, Arnhem Land and Litchfield and we absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, for many travellers heading Down Under, Darwin isn't much more than a jumping-off point for adventures elsewhere, but we think its superb museums, buzzy markets, and multicultural vibe make it deserving of a few days stay. On Viator, we provide a more detailed itinerary for two days in the steamy city, but here's a taster:

DAY ONE
1. Check into lush lodgings - our picks are SkyCity, home to Darwin's best restaurant EVOO (pictured), and the luxurious tropical-style Moonshadow Villas, and their chic sister apartments in the CBD. Out of the many backpacker places, we liked the look of Melaleuca on Mitchell.
2. Get your bearings with a tour - no trip to Australia is complete without an Aboriginal-led tour, so we recommend experiencing Darwin through the eyes of an indigenous guide with Batji Tours.
3. Get a culture fix - this is a hot and humid city, so it's best to spend the warmest part of the day indoors and hit Darwin’s excellent Museum and Art Gallery of the NT which boasts a stunning Indigenous Art collection and a quirky exhibit on Darwin’s tragic destruction on Christmas Eve 1974 by Cyclone Tracy.
4. Smile at a crocodile (from a safe distance!) - the region is home to some terrifying salt-water crocs, so it's essential to learn as much as you can about them before heading bush. You can get as close as you'll ever want to get at Crocosaurus Cove (in the 'Cage of Death'!) or view croc feedings on guided tours at Crocodylus Park.
5. Hit the markets - for a small city, Darwin has two brilliant markets: Mindil Beach Sunset Markets, where during the Dry season you can enjoy sundowners from the sandy beach with the locals (who bring their fold-up chairs and beer-filled eskies along!) and delicious Asian food from the stalls over the dunes (Darwin is close to Indonesia and has a large Asian population); and the year-round Parap Village Market on Saturday mornings for more spicy Asian food, crafts, hippy clothes, and Aboriginal Art.
6. Tuck into some tasty Australia seafood by the sea - dinner by the water is a must-do in Darwin, whether it’s fish and chips washed down with beer at Stokes Hill Wharf or a moonlit meal from a restaurant table overlooking boats bobbing in the water at Cullen Bay Marina.

If you want to find out what else there is to do in Darwin, see part 2 of our taster, and the more detailed piece on Viator, where you can also book tours.

2 Days in Tropical Darwin: day 2, a taster

Here's a taster of the second day of our 2 Days in Tropical Darwin itinerary (see part 1 here) which we wrote for Viator. You can read and print our more comprehensive piece at Viator, where you can also book some of the tours we've mentioned:

DAY TWO
1. Take a walk in the park (or around town) - Darwin’s city centre is compact and first thing in the morning (before it heats up) is the best time for a stroll. The pedestrian-only Smith Street has Aboriginal art galleries and gift shops. On the Esplanade is gracious old Government House, the striking modern Parliament House, and leafy Bicentennial Park overlooking the turquoise sea.
2. Appreciate the devastation of Darwin in WWII - the continual bombing of Darwin by the Japanese (there were more bombs dropped here than Pearl Harbour) profoundly affected the city (and Australian psyche); you can learn about the damage, losses and resilience of the people at the fascinating East Point Military Museum and Aviation Heritage Centre.
3. Savour the sunset under some sails - the city enjoys some sublime sunsets, which can be best appreciated from the deck of an historic pearl lugger such as the 1959 Streeter, with a glass of champagne in hand.
4. Down a few drinks with some Darwinites - Darwin’s alcohol consumption is well above Australia's already heady national average, and buzzy Mitchell Street is where locals do much of their drinking, in boisterous bars such as Ducks Nuts and the Lizards Bar and Grill.

Pictured? That's the gorgeous Moonshadow Villa we stayed in, set within lush tropical gardens. If you want to find out more, visit Viator.

And the Pursuit of Happiness

I'm kicking myself for only having now discovered Maira Kalman's enchanting and inspiring series of 'blogs' about American democracy, that are more like illustrated stories, in the New York Times. (Most of you might know Kalman for her beautifully illustrated covers for The New Yorker). Called And the Pursuit of Happiness, the 'posts' represent a delightfully-naive, obversation-rich documentation of sightseeing visits to Washington for Obama's inauguration (called The Inauguration. At Last), to Philadelphia for the Lincoln Archive (In Love with A Lincoln), to Vermont to observe a town meeting (So Moved), and to the Supreme Court (May It Please The Court). Part-travel journal, part-history lesson, and part-fashion/food/design notes, they're very much written and illustrated from the point of view of a woman traveller experiencing the (democratic) world (or, America) for the first time. I'm a huge fan of Kalman's book (un)fashion, which she produced with her husband Tibor Kalman (an influential designer himself who was creative director of Interview magazine, and editor-in-chief of Benetton's ground-breaking globally-aware Colors magazine in its early years; he died in 1999), and although this is quite a different project, you'll see a similarity between the fantastic portraits of people in both the book and the 'blogs'. Let me know what you think.

Sacred moments when you travel

Do you seek out sacred moments when you travel? Or do you simply open yourself up so as to allow them to occur serendipitously? And when they do surprise you, do you recognize them as being special and savour the moment? Or do you only appreciate them later on? To me, a sacred moment is one that is so inspiring that it stirs the heart and soul. A sacred moment might occur when you meet someone special, someone with an uplifting story to tell. Or simply when you spend quality time in a special place with someone you love. It might be an experience that is so emotionally moving, that it's transformational, even, dare I say it, transcendental? But then again something very simple can be sublime - the way light falls in a particular way, the exquisiteness of a just-opened flower, or the clear cobalt sky that starts your day. I would count visits to shanty towns in Rio and Lima, a bushwalk in Australia with an indigenous guide, travelling through a stunning landscape with husband Terry, and experiencing Uluru at sunset, as among my sacred moments. Life coaches and self-help books advise us to collect our sacred moments - by photographing them, writing about them, or simply storing them in our memory - and retrieving them when we need to remind ourselves of what's important in life, what we value. One of the things I most love about travelling are the opportunities that are presented for experiencing sacred moments. There's something about travelling that opens the mind and prepares your soul for recognizing and receiving special moments and saving them for that day you know you're going to need them. So, when was the last time you experienced a sacred moment?

Motives for dark tourism: enrichment, education and empathy? Or just plain voyeurism and morbid curiosity?

Last weekend I posted about Anzac Day, sacred moments, and the revival of nationalism and Anzac Day imagery and 'young Australia': national identity and the need for heroes. The extensive media coverage here in Australia showing young flag-wearing and flag-waving Australians on Anzac Day was what had motivated my series of posts reflecting on the growth in grief tourism and dark tourism. I felt that for these young Aussie 'dark tourists', travelling to Gallipoli or other battle sites or war memorials for Anzac Day was partly motivated by a desire to commemorate wars their ancestors fought in, but was also for the entertainment value and the desire to participate in something that's now considered to be a cool thing to do. For me, it's almost as if Gallipoli is the new Bali - a rite of passage for young Aussie travellers. But I also think their presence is to do with a need to reinforce their identity and their national identity in particular, and a desire to strengthen their sense of belonging to an idealised notion of their nation. And it's this that I'm uncomfortable with, partly because I think it takes away from the true purpose of the day (rememberance), but mostly because it excludes all others who don't identify.

Much of the media coverage and analysis related to dark tourism dwells on the dilemma of the dark tourist. On the one hand, their visit to a site, whether it's a war memorial or concentration camp or battlefield, and their participation in a 'dark tour' is motivated by a desire for self-education and self-awareness, for developing empathy and for personal enrichment. Alexander Schwabe writes about a visit to Auschwitz (pictured) from this perspective in his comprehensive account in Der Speigel, Visiting Auschwitz, the Factory of Death (Jan, 2005). On the other hand, rightly or wrongly, the same kind of participation can be perceived as morbid curiosity or overt voyeurism. Simon Reeve touches on this in When it's right to roam (The Observer, Oct 2005) as he considers his impact and value of a trip to Uzbekistan, while James Marrison reflects upon similar issues in Wise to the streets, when he joins tours to see transvestites and shanty towns in Buenos Aires. In Humour and Hospitality go with the Territories (Oct 2005) Andrew Mueller believes the positives outweigh the negatives, convinced that the rewards for tourists and locals alike are immense. Likewise, the motives of a "genocide tourist" addict in Steve Silva's Genocide Tourism: Tragedy Becomes a Destination (Chicago Tribune, Aug 2007) make for a compelling case for this form of tourism.

But rarely do writers touch upon issues of identity that might be at play, and yet those have very much been a part of my experience of dark tourism. I did the tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau that Scwabe describes and our experience was similar. For me, it was transformational. I developed an understanding and an empathy that I never truly had before. We went in winter and it was snowing and I'll never forget the bitter cold I experienced although cocooned in my layers of thermals, stockings, sweaters, scarf, boots, and coat. How on earth did these people survive the cold, let alone everything else, I constantly wondered? However, what had been a sobering and poignant experience was almost marred by the behaviour of a large group of Israeli students who came (like the Aussies at Gallipoli) wearing and waving enormous Israeli flags. They appeared to pay little attention to their guide, they spent little time at exhibits, they rushed through as if visiting a dull natural history museum, and they seemed to be more consumed with each other than their surroundings. Instead, they giggled and joked and waved their flags with an attitude that I perceived as arrogance, as if celebrating their team's victory at a football match. What was going on there do you think? My sense is that they shared someone with those young Australian travellers at Gallipoli on Anzac Day...

Dark tourism resources, references and first-hand accounts

The best depository of dark tourism resources must be the the University of Central Lancashire's Dark Tourism Forum which has a long list of links to books, scholarly essays and media articles on the subject. Their definition of dark tourism also takes in a prison tourism and the specialised area of Holocaust tourism and genocide tourism. The body of articles on the site testifies both to an increase in interest in researching and writing about dark tourism in recent years as well as to an actual increase in the popularity of dark tourism. For instance, take a look at Post 9/11 Dark tourism booms, which states that 2.2 million people visited Ground Zero in 2002, and Visiting sites of tragedy to touch history, ease grief (CNN.com, 2008) which claims that 5.6 million visited the Ground Zero site in 2006. The Guardian and The Observer are another great source of articles; they've given dark tourism extensive coverage in recent years, with a number of first-hand accounts of dark touristic experience from Sarah Johnstone's Strange and unsettling: my day trip to Chernobyl (Oct, 2005) to James Hopkirk's visits with prisoners in Checking in to the Bangkok Hilton (also Oct, 2005).

Dark tourism, tours and DIY how-to guides

The term 'dark tourism' is generally thought to have first been coined by UK academics John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in the mid-1990s. They were the first to publish a book on the subject, 'Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster' in 2000, which explores the rise of this phenomenon in the late 20th century. Lennon claimed in 'Tourists who yield to the lure of the macabre' (The Independent, 2001) that it was actually a Schindler's List tour that inspired their research. For those averse to organized tours, sites such as eHow provide step-by-step do-it-yourself 'dark tour' guides, such as How to Take a JFK Assassination Tour, while wikiHow gives advice on How to Plan a Dark Tour or Halloween Vacation, with links to Find a Grave (so you can locate famous burial sites) and the Dark Destinations database, where you can get more ideas - or add your own.

The history of dark tourism: from Roman gladiator spectacles to contemporary conflict zone tours

Dark tourism is not new, as my readers (whose insightful comments always inspire further reflection) point out: Travel Muse recalls touring German war sites as a teenager, while Sandy suggests that The Crusades, which revolved around a fascination with the macabre, might also have been an early version of dark tourism. Indeed, the thesis of 'Guided by the dark: from thanatopsis to thanatourism', published in 1996 by A V Seaton, is that death is the one heritage that everyone shares and therefore has been an element of tourism longer than any other form of heritage. (Thanatourism is generally described as the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death.) The nobility watched the 1815 Battle of Waterloo from a safe distance, while one of the American Civil War sites (Manassas) was immediately marketed as a tourist attraction after the war ended, according to UK scholar John Lennon in Journeys into Understanding in The Observer (2005). Indeed, the Auschwitz-Birkenaz concentration camp museum and memorial (pictured) was established in 1947, less than two years after the Red Army troops arrived in 1945 and found 7,000 emaciated prisoners there; it now receives nearly a million visitors a year. Debbie Lisle in 'Defending Voyeurism: Dark Tourism and the Problem of Global Security' (in Peter M Burns and Marina Novelli's Tourism and politics: global frameworks and local realities, 2007) argues that historical spectacles such as Roman gladiator matches and public hangings were also forms of dark tourism, and that the phenomenon also takes in sites of celebrity deaths, such as the site of JFK's assassination in Dallas and the site of Diana's death in Paris, as well as tours to modern conflict zones, from Bosnia to Mogadishu. It was just recently that tourists visited Iraq for the first time since 2003, starting with an independent traveller (see Fallujah's Strange Visitor: a Western Tourist in the New York Times) in February 2009, followed by a group of package tourists (see I took a picture to show my dentist in The Guardian, 21 March 2009). It's interesting to note that the group didn't consider themselves to be 'war tourists', claiming they were there for the history and culture, despite visiting places that are still very dangerous, such as Mosul, while the Italian independent traveller simply seemed naive. Neither the Iraqis nor Italian officials nor American marines interviewed for the story thought Iraq was ready for tourists yet.

The rise in Grief Tourism or Dark Tourism

Is it real, imagined or constructed? Recent years have seen a rise in grief tourism, dark tourism and disaster tourism, according to media reports. But I wonder if this has any actual foundation, whether the increase is real or whether it's a case of more media reporting, arising from more academic analysis on the phenomena? It would be interesting to see a comparative study on how tourist numbers at specific sites have changed in recent years. The media, as much as the travel industry, values novelty - indeed, the industry is in the business of manufacturing and commodifying novelty, of creating new tourist products that inspire people to travel to their destination - so is it simply a case of old practices being renamed so that they appear new?

Regardless of whether there has been an actual increase in these touristic practices, or simply an increase in coverage of them, I find the phenomena intriguing. Essentially, grief tourism is travel to a place to remember, commemorate and mourn a significant loss of life, such as visits to cemeteries, war memorials and sites of murders. It's a sub-category of dark tourism, which involves travel to places associated with death, tragedy and atrocities, such as battlefields like Gallipoli (which I've been posting about recently), mass graves such as the Killing Fields, and concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau. But that visit doesn't necessarily involve mourning or grief, but may be more about education - developing an awareness and understanding of the tragedy, and attempting to better empathize with the suffering - and also entertainment. And then there's disaster tourism, which involves visits to sites of mass destruction such as New York's 'Ground Zero', Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and places where natural catastrophes occurred, such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the 2004 tsunami in South-East Asia, and Cyclone Tracey in Darwin. The terms have long been in use - the Germans' use 'Gruseltourismus' or shudder tourism, which I like. So while the discussion of these phenomena might have travelled from academia to the media and to the blogosophere (see the Dark Tourism series on Vagabondish for instance), has there actually been a rise in the practices themselves in recent years? What do you think? And if so, what does this say about tourism and about ourselves as travellers?