Remembering Irish Mothers

The Memorial to the Great Famine is in the Grounds of Hyde Park Barracks in Macquarie Street in Sydney and commemorates the famine in the mid 1800s caused by the failure of the potato crop which led to the population of Ireland dropping by some 25%. Many died, the others migrated to America, Canada and Australia.

Last Sunday was Mothers' Day in Australia.

Over the weekend flowers had been left at the Memorial wall with cards remembering mothers and grandmothers, whose forebears no doubt migrated during the famine and helped build this country.

Jet Trails at Sunset

To see jet trails this clearly you need very clear, crisp conditions. Normally the trails are white. I noticed this one as the sun was setting and it was glowing pink.

Dawn till Dusk

Lately I've been leaving home before dawn for tai chi class. One of the few compensations for leaving home in the dark is that there have been some stunning dawns in the past week.

Even the station looks good in the dawn light. It looks like a totally different place, as a fellow commuter commented on seeing the photo - it looks like a little country station, not a boring suburban one.

As the sun sets between 5.00 pm and 5.30 pm at the moment, if I can get away from the office on time I'm also seeing sunset.

Mali and the Festival Au Desert 2008

The trip report of my January 2008 trip to Mali and the Festival au Desert has now been moved to my Travel Blog.

South America Photo Albums

Photo albums for Chile (including Easter Island), Bolivia and Peru from my 2004/05 round the world trip are now finished and linked to my Travel Blog.

Mali Photo Album

The Mali Photo Album is finished and up. See link on my Travel Blog.

Time to start doing this

Didn't realise I hadn't been here for over a year. Now I've finally got broadband its time to try and get this site set up.

This main blog is going to be a link to what I hope will be a group of travel journals/trip reports and photos, so that everything is accessible from the one place.

Anyway, that's the intention. Let's see what happens.