Travography - Travel Writing and Photography

from:

Take Your Chances

When it comes to fatalities on the roads and in the air, no traveller wants to become a statistic. So before you grab your passport and risk winging it out the door, here are some numbers that might help you answer the big question: Why are you tripping?

Adventure cruising, and its almost seamlessly interchangeable appellation, “expedition cruising”, has its roots deep in the human psyche. It stems from our innate desire to inquire, explore and expand the boundaries of our environment whilst deriving intellectual rewards from the experience. Expanding on this, one could name great navigators like Magellan, Cook, La Perouse and Pytheas as some of the best known “adventure cruisers”. Often travelling under the veil of commerce, military expansionism, geography or science, these iconic sailors were driven by a desire to expand their own personal knowledge quite apart from obligations to their respective bankrolling empires.The 21st Century adventure cruiser is transported in vastly different vessels. Complete with state-of-the-art satellite navigation, first rate medical facilities, gourmet cuisine and comfy bunks, gone are the days of deprivation, scurvy and mythical sea monsters.Just as cruise travel is enjoying a very healthy resurgen…

As published in

When Australia’s Baby Boomers want to get away from it all, they head to Byron Bay. But they don’t leave their hard-earned integrity, status and comforts behind.

Words and pictures by Roderick Eime. Additional photography courtesy the Byron at Byron.

“No one lives for the moment anymore,” laments Lyn Parché, manager of the once controversial Byron at Byron Resort and Spa, “people are just consumed with business and materialism these days.”

Lyn and husband John have spent thirty years in the hospitality business, but their youthful exuberance and enthusiasm belies their extensive international experience. Classic ‘Baby Boomers’, John and Lyn were snared by ‘early boomer’ and entrepreneur, Gerry Harvey, to manage his $45 million resort complex in the eclectic seaside town of Byron Bay on the New South Wales North Coast.

With a higher proportion of the post-war offspring than any town in Australia, Byron Bay is a whacky mix of spaced out surfer types, retirees, holidaymakers,…

Article from: In the skyrocketing cruise market, there’s still room for good old fashioned charm. Roderick Eime lied about his age for a glimpse of retro-cruising, British style.The small crowd watches on with palpable anticipation. Ted stares purposefully toward the small pile of rope rings arrayed on deck and takes his shot. His red quoit lands tantalisingly short but slides delicately toward the yellow ring occupying the coveted centre circle. Then, impact, and the yellow quoit is ejected from its smug position and deposited on the perimeter of the target, leaving Ted’s projectile in its place. He celebrates the masterful stroke with a little jig.“Oh you brute,” admonishes Cynthia, expecting Ted to do the gentlemanly thing and allow the ladies to win. But this is deck quoits - and there are only winners and losers.Within the burgeoning world wide cruise market, the big players are striving to outdo each other with grandeur, scale and opulence. The recent visit to Sydney by Cunard’s…

Story and photographs by Roderick Eime

Beyond the well trafficked sea lanes and cruise ship haunts of Alaska's Inside Passage lies the true Alaska. Still a wild frontier where, if you stroll in the woods, you take a cut lunch and a .303!

“Walk loudly, sing songs, whatever,” says the pimply young ranger at Anan’s visitor station, “you don’t want to surprise the bears. If they hear you coming, they’re a lot more relaxed.”

We’ve just arrived at the Anan Bear Sanctuary in Jim Leslie’s 600hp jet boat, Chutine Warrior. The trip took less than an hour from the quaint little seaside village of Wrangell, tucked delicately into a sheltered bay on the island of the same name. It’s here that Jim and wife Wilma operate, Alaska Waters, a tiny tour company that caters for small groups and independent travellers in search of the ‘real’ Alaska. For many, the postcard perfect fishing hamlet is just another whistle stop on a big ship Inside Passage cruise.

Australians are travelling to Alaska in record …