Why are shipwrecks so attractive? I don’t mean a shipwreck unfolding before our eyes – I’m sure that would be a horrific thing to witness. Yet many people are fascinated by the legacies of shipwrecks – the stories they generate and the physical evidence they leave behind. From the beautiful 16thcentury sailing ship Mary Rose to the magnificent …
Five years ago, I became acquainted with the website SmartTraveller, hosted by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, or DFAT. I’d received a last-minute invitation to join a group travelling to Borneo. My immediate response was to consult our big World Atlas (I’m old school with maps), because I didn’t even know where Borneo …
A few weeks ago I visited the Dead Central exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales. Billed as an exhibition ‘In Memory of a Lost Cemetery’, it tells the story of one of Sydney’s oldest burial grounds, the Devonshire Street Cemetery, which in 1901 was partly moved and partly overbuilt to create Central …
The other day, I came across the essay ‘Of Travel’ by the English Renaissance polymath Sir Francis Bacon. Published in 1601, the short (two-page) composition is a statement of advice to young men preparing to travel out of their own country. Setting aside the gender-exclusive character of the writing – it would have been unthinkable …
