A few strands recently came together to see an old mate and I visit the continent. It was an unusual trip taking in a French seaside town that could have been twinned with Jaywick.

Shingle Street is an empty wild place where nature takes centre stage and modern life seems a bit puny. That night the stars shone brightly behind Mars and Venus.

After the job had finished, I decided to head up towards Brisbane as the busy tourist trap of the Gold Coast wasn’t really my scene and I wanted to meet a friend with similar plans. I met Thomas about a month ago over a ping pong table in another hostel. We both wanted to travel…

The Gold Coast’s a tourist destination on the eastern edge of Australia, where masses of burned and tanned bodies dressed in vests, flat caps and bikinis, writhe round the ankles of a forest of sky-scrapers.

My Dad, brother and I have a tradition of finding adventures on holiday.  Nick’s planning, stepping off the beaten track and mucking around, make for a good time.

Christchurch’s botanical gardens are beautifully kept, but after a day and a night, and another day of rain we nonetheless decided to go with the flow and head on down to the coast:

Unrelated to pretty much anything else here, but a good parenting fable and top of this trip’s playlist.

At Blockhill, Melisa and Olmec are 8 years into their sustainable, low environmental impact project, and we were bowled over by their efforts to turn a grass hillside into a verdant and bountiful garden.