I arrived in the Swiss mountain village of Mürren on August 11 2024 after spending almost 3 months in the UK which was my longest continual period in the country since 2009!
I had spent the time in the UK with and visiting family, competing in Backgammon tournaments and exploring Wales, the West Country and London with my Filipina friend who was visiting the UK to select a university to continue her postgraduate studies.
In December 1973 and February 1974 my then girlfriend Heather and myself spent two month’s hitchhiking around New Zealand when we took an extended break from our jobs in Sydney Australia.
It created many positive memories that remained with me for the next 50 years. It was where I made one of my first mountain hikes near Mt Cook but above all it was the friendliness of the people so proud of ‘God’s own Country’, and the incredible variety of the scenery and landscapes that remained in my mind. Continue reading
Although I am writing these words in Thailand, with an outdoor temperature of 30 degrees centigrade, I am fortunate enough to have spent most of the time from early September 2021 to February 2022 in the mountain village of Mürren in Switzerland, as described here.
I consider myself fortunate indeed that I have been able to experience the best part of a lifetime’s work in the travel industry. I chose that career path because of my own love of travel, formed very much on the foundation of my own early travel experiences. Continue reading
I have been posting articles and photo essays on my website for almost 10 years and observers may have noticed an absence of articles and images in regards to my home country, the UK.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly I have never enjoyed the UK’s maritime and damp climate with so many grey and overcast days and prefer to spend most of my time in Thailand or South East Asia (winter), the mountains of Switzerland (summer) or in Canada. Continue reading
My Canadian nephew Daniel recently stayed with me in Mürren, Switzerland for 12 nights. It was his fifth visit, as he first stayed with us when he was 9, again at 18 not long before we climbed Kilimanjaro with our daughter Lisa. He returned again when he was 23 and 29. I think we worked out he had spent almost two months in Mürren, although his father and my brother-in-law Wayne has yet to make a visit! Continue reading
At the age of 69 I had considered that my days of Himalayan trekking were long since past so how did November 25 2018 find me bouncing around in a minibus heading north from the Nepalese lakeside town of Pokhara to the trailhead at Kande for a 12 day return trek into the magnificent Annapurna Sanctuary? Continue reading
With the exception of two 12-day trips to Spain and three 48-hour visits back to the UK for minor surgery (and follow up) on my left eye, I consider myself immensely fortunate to have spent most of the period from mid-June to mid-November this year based in the Swiss Alps. Continue reading
In the end there were just 5 of us who flew out of Bangkok heading for Kota Kinabalu in Sabah via a change of flights in Kuala Lumpur.
And just why were we heading off to Borneo in the first place?
For the absence of doubt I am not a fan of hiking in the tropics which will explain why, despite an extensive record of mountain walking in 5 continents over the last three decades, for all the accumulated years I have spent living in Thailand I have never ventured further than walks along the Pattaya and Jomtien promenades in an effort to maintain my fitness or walks through the rice paddies when staying in Isaan! Continue reading
Notes from a Nomad 