Thanks to Pierre’s massive generosity, we are spending 3 amazing days in his beautiful house on the river at Saint-Antoine. Pierre is a sailor, hitchhiker and vagabond himself, and fortunately a very good English speaker, so we have some great chats! (Top: the view from the front yard of Pierre’s house) Saint-Antoine is the…
I feel like a pilgrim to a palace from Lord of the Rings. The island is completely covered in medieval stone structures, walled around with soaring battlements, and topped with a sky piercing spire adorned with a gilt statue like an angel. Sea birds circle the island, and here and there men are walking across the sand flats barefoot, with baskets, collecting shellfish…
On the road north of Abbeville, Arnould picks us up, and decides to show us Mers-Les-Baines.The beach front is a short stretch of sand, in front of a massively steep shore of smooth, glassy stones. They are uncomfortable to walk on, but heated by the sun, excellent to lie on. No sand in your…
Riding with Belgians and Dutch, as we head south, we hear the same thing time and time again: “you will not be able to get rides in France; the French are a rude arrogant lot; they don’t speak to you if you can’t speak French; they don’t like foreigners…” We start to wonder if…
Highlights of the Netherlands: swimming in the north sea and sleeping in the beautiful gardens in Den Haag; the street museum with giant medieval fairground robots; realising that queuing 2 hours to see the tiny box Anne Frank lived in is probably a silly idea; meeting Carel, the nano-technologist who gave us a…
Confest is outrageous. I’ve been to three now, and I go every chance I get. What is it? It’s a festival. It’s a party. It’s a love-in. It’s a new age spiritual pilgrimage…
After Confest last week, Nia and I spent a couple of days in Wagga Wagga. Wagga is my home town, where I grew up. I hadn’t been back there for about 15 years, and although a few things had changed, the town was much like I remembered. We camped on the Murrumbidgee River bank…
You went to Confest again? Why would you want to get nude with a thousand randoms and play music in the mud for a week..? This is a pretty typical reaction to announcing my intention of attending Australia’s premier weirdo convention. Confest number 3 for me. The first one I went to in 2007…
I photographed these awesome human powered kids fair rides in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In the same park, which was outside the royal palace, there was a magic tree. Nia told me that I had to walk in a straight line across the park to the tree with my eyes closed, and because of the tree’s…