A day on the Routeburn Track
I get a kick every time I tell people how the Routeburn Track got its name. The Routeburn Track- one of New Zealand’s nine Great Walks- started out as a trail in the 1860s...
Author: Anis
Postcards from Southland, New Zealand
I’ve got this thing about going as far north or as far south as I can. Eight months ago, I stood at Cape Point, South Africa. At 3,900 miles (6,248km) away from the South Pole,...
One Tree Hill
I’ve been counting my footsteps here in New Zealand. It takes me 701 steps in about six and a half minutes to reach Cornwall Park from where I stay in Auckland. Next to Cornwall...
Meeting Paul Theroux
Sometime in 2001, I discovered my mother’s copy of The Great Railway Bazaar. It was an old Penguin edition, hiding on her bookshelf outside my parents’ room. Many of the pages had...
Still alive
I’ll be honest (not to say that I haven’t been in the past), but if you’re one of the five people who actually read this blog and one of the twenty-one souls who follow...
A nice kind of dizzy
It happened again yesterday. The first time I felt or thought I felt the ground swaying was on Olkhon Island in Russia two years ago. About a year later, I felt the floor move...
It’s not new if it’s already out there
I don’t usually write about writing, but I will today. I don’t make it a habit to write about writing because I don’t always consider myself entitled to do so. People shouldn’t be critical...
Postcards from the Namib Desert
Sometime in mid 2013, I came across this photo: I don’t remember where I saw the photo but it came with a link to the National Geographic website. This was a real photograph of a...
Going up Table Mountain
“A man is the head of a house but a woman is the head of your money.” “Love is a pain no doctor can explain. It strikes the heart and affects the brain.” “If...
On Sudan, fizzy drinks and walks by the Nile
Some countries are clear-cut tourism magnets. Other countries, when you tell people you’re planning a visit, they stop whatever they’re doing, turn to you and ask, “Why?” That was the general reaction I...
