Alison Stewart's Blog, page 14
August 20, 2015
Khajuraho – scandalous sleaze or erotic art
Far from sordid sleaze, India’s exquisite Khajuraho Temples in Madhya Pradesh represent a philosophy of life that employed the sensuous to achieve the sublime.
The remaining 25 temples, which are World Heritage listed, are India’s second most visited attraction after the Taj Mahal. When you experience them, you can see why this is so.
Here’s a screenshot of my story that appeared in Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald Traveller and Melbourne Age Traveller on August 14, 2015, or you can read it online here:
http://www.traveller.com.au/the-erotic-allure-of-the-khajuraho-temples-ginufx
The Corinth Canal – a tight squeeze
Navigating the 21-metre-wide Corinth Canal in our 18-metre-wide ship leaves little room for error. It’s exhilarating to sail the canal that links the Aegean’s Saronic Gulf with the Adriatic’s Gulf of Corinth, the sandstone walls towering above.
Attempts to forge the canal resulted in the death of a number of ancient rulers, fulfilling the prophesy that those who tried would die horrible deaths.
Here is my story that appeared in Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age Traveller on August 14, 2015, or you can read it online here:
http://www.traveller.com.au/tight-squeeze-navigating-the-corinth-canal-gijnfb
August 7, 2015
Charming Tasmanian Villages
There are gorgeous islands in every ocean but one of the most beautiful lies right at our feet, literally.
Our very own Tasmania is curled up like a beautiful kitten at the foot of Australia. It’s worth visiting – not least for the breathtaking landscapes, clean air and water and the spectacular home-grown produce.
Here are my Six of the Best – Charming Tassie Towns:
http://www.traveller.com.au/six-of-the-best-charming-tasmanian-townships-gidt6s
Journey by the Book
We can’t possibly travel to every last rock on this planet, much as we would love to. That’s where writing kicks in. There’s enormous joy in reading of others’ experiences – living vicariously.
You can walk with bears in the Appalachians, travel the Nile, become a pilgrim on the Camino, run with the bulls in Pamplona, frequent the cafes and bars of old Paris. Not quite the same of course, but if the writing is good, the experience will still be inspirational.
Six travel writers reveal the book that inspired them in the cover story of The Sydney Morning Herald/ Melbourne Age Traveller, and you can read it below. The book I chose isn’s necessarily one I would choose now, but it was the book of my time and it captured the zeitgeist. The screenshots are below but the online link is here:
Also, here is my choice of five other great travel books that transport the reader somewhere else. I should really also include Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City, a beautiful contemplation of a complex city with a mysterious, melancholy past:
The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow by A.J. Mackinnon
A wonderfully eccentric travel book by Australian author “Sandy” Mackinnon, who has the batty idea of leaving his teaching job at a Hogwarts-style Shropshire school and sailing away in a dinghy “just to see where I got to – Gloucester, near the mouth of the Severn, I thought”. Totally unprepared, he bumbles along various waterways, eventually crossing the English Channel and carrying on to the Black Sea. Remarkably, he stays alive to tell the tale.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Bryson, like Paul Theroux, can be curmudgeonly, but his engaging, self-referential style and mastery of dialogue is mesmerising. I think this book is Bryson’s best – his funny account of walking the Appalachian Trail hike skillfully explores the challenges of the journey and the grand intransigence of the landscape (and his travelling companions). Thanks to Bryson, I too want to walk in the woods – just without the bears.
I’m also currently reading The Lost Continent which is Bryson’s hilarious take on returning to the US from his new home in the UK to try and rediscover the America of his youth.
Old Serpent Nile by Stanley Stewart
Stewart’s book is travel writing at its best – insightful, witty and elegant. Bernini’s sculpture in Rome, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (fountain of the four rivers), inspired Stewart’s dangerous journey from the Nile Delta to the Mountains of the Moon in Eastern Equatorial Africa. When Bernini made his artwork, the Nile’s source was unknown.
The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux
This is Theroux’s account of his journey on various trains from Boston to Patagonia – almost at the end of the world at South America’s southern end. He writes about his passion for trains and his fascination with people, from the misanthropic to the engaging. He makes keen observations on individuals and landscape. If a cross-looking gentleman with glasses tries to engage you in conversation while on a train, pretend you speak no English.
My Family and Other Animal by Gerald Durrell
Durrell’s affectionate book about his family’s five-year sojourn on the island of Corfu is a utopian portrait of a sun-soaked island and its inhabitants. Durrell’s book has been influential in Corfu’s ascendancy as a tourist destination because who wouldn’t be enchanted by his tales of wandering through olive groves, gorging on figs, snoozing under cypresses with the sea sparkling below?
Out of Africa Karen Blixen
Not strictly a travellers’ tale but if a book, in this case, a memoir, induces a yearning to visit a place, then it qualifies. The opening words paint a picture of Kenya’s exquisite landscape in a time now past: “I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north … In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”
July 19, 2015
Earn Your Strips – Indian Tiger Safari
India, that multi-hued jewel, is a glittering destination. And you won’t be sorry if you can slip away from Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Goa, Udaipur, Kashmir, Amritsar and Khajuraho to visit Madhya Pradesh in Central India. Specifically the tigerlands of Mahua Kothi and Bandhavgarh national parks. Here’s a screenshot of my tiger safari story, published in Fairfax Media’s Traveller on Sunday on July 19, 2015. And if that’s too hard to read, here’s the smh.com.au link to the online story:
http://www.traveller.com.au/in-search-of-an-indian-tiger-gi8al2
July 15, 2015
The Stella Prize schools program
The Stella Prize has published teaching notes on each of the 2013 and 2014 Stella Prize shortlisted books. As these books are mostly not suitable for students below Year 10, they have also compiled a separate reading list for Years 7 to 10, along with some general reading questions and classroom activities to encourage wider reading of Australian women writers at younger secondary levels too.
Books are grouped under the themes of identity, place and history. I’m delighted that my dystopian young adult book set in Sydney has been included in the Year 9 – Place section with a number of other books as follows:
Year 9 – Place
Rise of the Fallen by Teagan Chilcott (Magabala) The first in a YA paranormal romance series by the winner of the 2012 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships.
Grace Beside Me by Sue McPherson (Magabala) Small-town life is explored with warmth and humour through the eyes of Fuzzy Mac in this award-winning book.
Days Like This by Alison Stewart (Penguin) In this dystopian thriller, Lily is a prisoner held hostage by her parents and wondering what her own fate will be following the disappearance of her brother.
The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn (UQP) One day, everything is normal; the next, Fin is fighting to make sense of a world devastated by nuclear fallout.
Please have a look at all the recommended books in this resources/schools program list:
http://thestellaprize.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/The-Stella-Prize-for-younger-readers.pdf
June 6, 2015
Enchanted waterworld
Anyone who as a child ever read The Magic Faraway Tree will relate to the exotic worlds that come and go from the top of the magical tree.
APT’s wonderful 15-day Ancient Mediterranean cruise aboard the French luxury small ship Le Soleal reminds me of this. Wake up, draw back the curtains and there’s another enchanted world.
It could be Istanbul at dawn with the minarets in silhouette. It could be Venice, mist-shrouded, its waterways coming to life. It could be Kotor, Montenegro, sailing into a fjord that isn’t a fjord, or the ancient lost city of Ephesus, or Santorini’s volcano.
This is Australian cruising, French-style.
Here’s my story, published in The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age Travellers on June 7:
Or you can read it online at smh.com.au/traveller here:
http://www.traveller.com.au/mediterranean-history-cruise-an-ancient-world-revealed-ghbfmk
May 31, 2015
Lost cities of the ancient world
Islamic State’s objection to taboo “idolatrous images” may lead to the destruction of the ancient city of Palmyra in Iraq, as has already happened with Iraq’s Nimrud.
With this in mind, we should be aware more than ever of the value of the world’s ancient lost cities. They are treasure maps to our past.
If you’re interested in the cities that hold our histories, please have a look at my cover story in The Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age Traveller which was published on Saturday, May 30. You can also read it online at smh.com.au/traveller here: http://www.traveller.com.au/road-to-r...
May 22, 2015
Tasmanian road trip down memory lane
Years ago, when our children were young, we rented a campervan and drove around Tasmania. It was brilliant!
They’re older now and we’ve been on many holidays since then, but this is the one we remember most fondly, for its innocence and simplicity. So Rob and I recreated the journey with just our memories. It wasn’t the same but it was still terrific, because Tasmania is an exquisite destination, however you travel.
Here’s my story, published in The Sun-Herald/Sunday Age Travellers on April 11, 2015:
And you can read it here online at smh.traveller.com:
March 31, 2015
48 Hours in Boat Harbour, Tasmania
Here’s Rob’s Guardian Australia story on our relaxing 48 hour sojourn in Boat Harbour on Tasmania’s rugged northwest coast.
Boat Harbour Beach might be in the eye of the Roaring Forties, dipping its toes into Bass Strait, but headlands shelter this charming beach hideaway, rendering it yet another little paradise on earth.
