08 January 2006
Best of 2005
Antarctica
For many on my cruise (and even a little for me) visiting Antarctica had a certain trival 'complete the set' quality--the last continent remaining unvisited. I generally prefer destinations with some cultural content and some human resonance, and I'm interested in the interaction between people and their environments and the impact those environments have on their culture. Orderly farms speak to me in a way wildernesses generally don't. But the white silences of Antarctica, even if unavoidably shared with a hundred other people, and the experience of weaving over partly-frozen seas inches above waters at death-dealingly low temperatures to land on beaches occupied by thousands of penguins was memorable even to my overloaded brain, and I would happily go again. A photograph I took of abandoned water boats in heavy sleet has a memorably gloomy appeal. Anyone wanting to see for themselves should get aboard The M/S Explorer:
http://www.gapadventures.com
Something's already appeared in Canada, and there's a major in-flight feature with Rob Stimpson's photography appearing later this year. (Note, in passing, that the income for this won't actually arrive until about two years after the trip was taken.)
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires lacks inspiring monuments or wonders of the world, but I took to this huddle of villages, to the variety of its European architecture, to its articulate and cosmopolitan people, to the huge variety of its restaurants, and to shopping for locally designed and made clothing and shoes for ridiculously cheap prices. I've something to do on this for a Canadian paper this week.
Australian sheep dog trials
Actually walking the course at the Royal Adelaide Show with the judge as he gave scores to dogs and their handlers was definitely a highlight. The competitors were clearly very pleased that someone was taking an interest in their sport, whose importance at the show has rather decreased over the years in the face of competition from the human cannon, monster trucks, and so on. I would rather have attended a small country meeting but the charm of the traditions overcame the artificiality of the environment, and the sheep dog people couldn't have been more friendly and helpful. This was also true of the owners and staff of the sheep station north of Adelaide I subsequently visited to see real sheep dogs do real work, and particularly 'backing', where the dog actually runs across the backs of the closely penned sheep, helping to separate out one at a time for shearing. Peter Fisher was good company and his photography was also brilliant, and I look forward to seeing this story run as a six or eight page feature in an airline magazine later this year.
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon
It's always a pleasure working with photographer Rob Stimpson, and although this tiny French archipelago, a mere 15km from Canada's Newfoundland, has little in the way of spectacular attractions, its sheer unlikeliness and the friendliness of its people, made it an excellent long weekend (although we spent more on food and drink than really made the visit viable in economic terms). And let's be clear, this isn't an offshoot of Francophone Canada. It's a French department, with its government appointed by Paris, using the euro, and whose residents beautiful Parisian French (and precious little English). A story about this is in Cathay Pacific's in-flight magazine this month, I believe.
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