Chanticleer: a pleasure garden.

"We were once a private estate, and we like to keep the feeling of a private garden ... a place of beauty, pleasure, escape  ....  ultimately, we want our guests to leave in a better mood than when they arrived." 
R. William Thomas, head gardener and executive director at Chanticleer.*

These words perfectly sum up the mood of Chanticleer. Tucked away in a quiet suburban street, 30 miles north-west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chanticleer with its slow-paced, welcoming atmosphere was the loveliest garden we visited.

Australia's most enduring UFO mystery - the disappearance of Frederick Valentich.

"That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again .. it is hovering and it's not an aircraft". 

These were the last words ever spoken by 20 year old Frederick Valentich, the young pilot at the centre of Australia's most enduring UFO mystery.

In the early evening on October 21, 1978, Valentich left Melbourne's Moorabbin airport for a flight to King Island in Bass Strait, the remote and tempestuous stretch of ocean separating the Australian mainland from the island of Tasmania. Piloting a single engined Cessna 182 L, Valentich was flying just off the coast, at Cape Otway near the Great Ocean Road, when he and his aircraft disappeared forever. The voice recording of Valentich's exchange with Melbourne Flight Service Control in the moments just before his disappearance makes it clear he believed he was being followed by a UFO.

Longwood Gardens and why you shouldn't go back to places!

The world is divided in two types of people - 'gardening people' who love nothing more than spending their time mucking about with dirt and 'non-gardening people'  who don't! Can you tell which one I am? 

David is a 'gardening-person'. He loves gardens. He spends hours and hours at home coaxing exotic plants to grow in our harsh Australian soil. In spring, when our quiet little patch of the planet lights up with colour it makes all the work worthwhile - or so he thinks.  I like gardens too - just not working in them!

Winterthur and the art of avoiding museums on your travels!

The world is divided into two kinds of travellers. I call them the 'museum people' and the 'spending an afternoon in a museum is my worst nightmare people' ('non-museum people' for short). Can you guess which one I am? It is not that non-museum people won't set foot 'ever' inside a museum (imagine coming home from Paris and announcing to your friends that you skipped the Louvre because it sounded boring!) it is just that in order to survive large museums you have to have a plan - and you have to stick to it.