Simon Varwell's Blog, page 18
December 23, 2013
2013 in review

As I reported at the tail end of last year, 2012 was a big year for travel – I visited eight foreign countries in total, the most since 2001.
My prediction that 2013 would be quieter on the travel front was correct, but only to an extent. Yes there was no overseas travel, but I more than made up for it with domestic adventures. It became a bit of a mission for Nicole and I, after a big (and expensive) European rail trip in 2012, to try to make the most of our weekends this year and see a bit m...
December 22, 2013
TROTMH 7: San Francisco
This is the seventh and last in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This final extract is an account of a day’s touristing in San Francisco.The photo is of the city’s skyline, taken from the Coit Tower.

The next day, our only full day in San Francisco, began early. Our morning would be spent at one of the world’s most famous former prisons and a major American tourist attraction — you’ve got it, another of Ju...
December 21, 2013
TROTMH 6: Fresno
This is the sixth in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This penultimate extract describes an evening in the curious, almost claustrophic town of Fresno, California. The photo is of the town’s utterly out of place cinema.

We arrived in Fresno as the sun was beginning to set, and settled into the rather basic and characterless motel that Justin had booked online. We were hungry, so aimed to eat at Fresno’s ap...
December 20, 2013
TROTMH 5: Salton Sea
This is the fifth in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This antepenultimate extract is about the harsh landscape of the Salton Sea, in the desert of southern California, which I visited in search of Mullet Island. I’d never experienced a heat, landscape or atmosphere like it. It was shortly before visiting Salvation Mountain. The photo is of the ruined house mentioned below.

Following the increasingly rugge...
December 19, 2013
TROTMH 4: South Island road trip
This is the fourth in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This fourth extract describes one of my roadtrips through the South Island – a beautiful country that had more than a few echoes of Scotland. The photo below was taken later on that day, somewhere north of Queenstown. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to picture this scene somewhere in the Scottish Highlands.

The following day, I headed south...
December 18, 2013
TROTMH 3: The Scots in New Zealand
This is the third in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This third extract describes my visit to Te Papa, New Zealand’s excellent national museum in Wellington, which at the time of my visit included an exhibition about the contribution Scots had made to the country. The photo below was taken in Te Papa itself.

The afternoon, after a quick check of emails in an internet café, was spent in one of Wellington’s...
December 17, 2013
TROTMH 2: Motutapu Island
This is the second in a series of extracts from my new bookThe Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This second extract describes my visit to Motutapu Island, an uninhabited island off Auckland which was home to Mullet Bay, one of New Zealand’s five mullets. I got there after an invite from the local restoration trust to join them on a work party. The photo is from the beautiful Mullet Bay itself.

We sailed far out to sea, the journey a little less t...
December 16, 2013
TROTMH 1: Tipping
This is the first in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week.
This first extract is from my trip to Canada, the second country I visited in the book. In amongst the mullet hunting, I was able to spend time with family in the town of Barrie, Ontario. A night out with my cousin exposed me to the absurd pitfalls of North American tipping. The photo is an outline of the now-demolished town hall in Barrie, an oddity...
December 9, 2013
One week old, and a price cut
The Return of the Mullet Hunter has been out a week now, and I’m delighted by and grateful for some of the comments I’ve received from people. Well, all of them, in fact. It’s not like there’ve been comments about it that I’m not delighted by or grateful for. At least not ones related to the book.
Anyway, to celebrate The Return of the Mullet Hunter’s one-week birthday I’ve reduced the cost of the book right across the different Amazon regions. For instance it’s now £1.53 on the UK site, AUS$3...
December 5, 2013
How to become a bestselling travel author
Amazon’s a funny thing.
Well, some would say something worse than funny, but I’ll stick with it for now.
I’m not too ashamed to confess that since The Return of the Mullet Hunter‘s release, I’ve been watching its Amazon pages like a 3G-enabled hawk to see how sales have been doing.
The highlight has been this rather delightful achievement yesterday:
Yes, as you can see from the bottom there, my book was – and still is at the time of writing – the bestselling title in the Australia and Oceania sub...