At the drop of a hat!
My love of islands came before my love of travelling. Making tea stained treasure maps after reading Treasure Island, imagining tropical beaches as I listened to Harry Belafonte sing, Island in the Sun.
With Burgo on 6PR we spent the evening going ashore on Rottnest, the Abrolhos, Borneo, Hong Kong and others.
Islands have history and culture, some have pristine beaches and impenetrable jungle and others are full of shops.
Whatever your island, go ashore and have the adventure of a lifetime!
On 6PR Weekend Wrap Up, I found myself sharing the airwaves with John Burgess, an icon of Australian television and radio. A tv game show host legend and a radio dj when dj’s were gods of the airwaves. It was very cool to laugh our way through stories about sports tourism.
From callers with tales about naked West Indian cricketers to iconic events and venues around the world and close to home, with a lot of laughter we covered more ground than the MCG.
Enjoy listening to the first half of the show in the file below. Just like a Grand Prix driver, we go off track from time to time but we got to the finish line in style!
It was lots of fun to learn where our best bakeries are. Heats in Cockburn was a surprise that many callers say have the best donuts. Rottnest Bakery wasn’t a surprise nomination and it’s a great example of what we like about our favourite bakeries when we travel. They’re part of that rite of passage moment that defines your arrival. You haven’t really arrived on Rottnest until you’ve been to the bakery.
Williams Woolshed has a sausage roll that will get you through the day and Mount Barker with its range of gourmet pies was a popular choice.
A good bakery can be a reason to travel or it might just be the traditional break on your way to somewhere down the road.
With Prue on ABC Victoria Statewide we discussed the strategy required for that short interval break during a theatre show. Do you run for the bar or the bathroom? Do you try both?
We explored London’s West End, New York’s Broadway, The Loop in Chicago and even closer to home in Perth with opportunities to see Wicked at Crown Theatre and upcoming productions in Geelong.
Musicals can lift an old story to new heights, think of Matilda and Lord of the Rings. They can provoke an interest in history thanks to Les Miserables, Evita and, of course, Hamilton.
Musicals and tourism walk excitedly hand in hand, engaging you in temporary escape experiences and providing an opportunity when you’re in distant lands to immerse yourself in local culture or closer to home turning a night out into a night away.
Try and book early for your theatre experience but there’s nothing wrong with Prue’s approach to just rocking up to the ticket counter in your best back packer outfit and trying your luck!
Just a reminder if you’re booking online to please make sure it’s an official ticket purchasing site.
The curtain is about to come down on this description but it might come back for an encore if I can upload the audio file of the discussion a bit later on.
On 6PR on a recent summers weekend on the airwaves, we took to the skies to discover how getting into the air can inspire your travel or be an exciting part of it. It was also an opportunity to reflect on my air moments.
I used to love accompanying dad out to the Narrogin airstrip when his patients needed to fly out with the Royal Flying Doctor. I’d walk around the gliders and light aircraft, imagining I was a fighter pilot waiting to hear the call to “Scramble! Scramble!”.
I love that my kids have enjoyed getting into the air. Tom has ziplined, parasailed and been in seaplanes and even done ifly indoor skydiving. Matilda has ziplined and been in helicopters and even flown up the coast in a Tiger Moth, one of the worlds most beautiful and gentle aircraft.
Astronaut Michael Collins’ wife wrote out the aviators poem High Flight for him to take into space. In his book, Carrying the Fire, Collins remarked that he wondered what Magee would have written if he’d experienced space and not just flying a Spitfire through the blue summer skies of wartime England.
Even the most non religious pilots enjoy putting their hand up to the sky and murmuring…
‘And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod, the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God”.
Magee posted a copy of the poem to his parents and not long after was killed in a flying accident.
From KL to Penang is easy to do. A quick flight and you’re there. But only a little bit longer and a lot more fun is the journey by train.
Enjoy reading my published story below. And remember that if you can’t get a newspaper in your hands, my published stories with Have a Go News are just a click away on their website.
One of our best ever Hidden Treasures stories of all time! With special guest star, global writing superstar Molly Schmidt, we explored local books and the use of local locations and how they inspire our travels.
Listen to our chat below and learn not just what our favourite Western Australian books are but how important those local locations can be:
There are not many reasons better for a long day out, or a bucket list travel journey, than the fun to be had at a theme park. The rides, the costumed characters, even the overpriced food and merchandise is an experience most of us will indulge in.
On ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast we had a wonderful discussion about our theme park experiences which, it must be said, included some embarrassing moments. Enjoy the audio file below and then below that, just a few words to help with your own memories of theme parks:
My tv childhood in a four-word nutshell was: The Banana Splits Show
Even better than the cartoons and antics of The Banana Splits were the opening and closing credits, much of which showed them having fun at Six Flags Over Texas, a 1960’s era theme park still going strong today. Lots of log rides into water and stomach heaving roller coasters. It was the first place I ever wanted to visit.
Theme Parks From Perth’s Past:
The Overseas Experience:
Theme Parks are Hidden Treasures because … just like the Banana Splits theme says; you can have a “mess of fun and there’s lots of fun for everyone” and no doubt you’ll come home with an overpriced fridge magnet or coffee cup with your photo on it, to always remember a great day out.
On ABC Saturday Breakfast we like to keep things inspiring and exciting but sometimes to do that we have to remember those moments that were less than perfect.
There’s certainly been a lot of excitement about being able to travel again. It might be time to reunite with loved ones, use that voucher for travel that was cancelled because of the pandemic or maybe it’s the first family trip overseas?
There’s a lot to be excited about but on Hidden Treasures we thought we’d look at some of the experiences that have become great stories but at the time might have caused a bit of anxiety or discomfort. Have you been stuck in an airport sleeping on a plastic chair because of delayed flights? Have you been bitten by something? Have you had non-stop rain or got bogged with a rising tide on the beach?
Think about it! What story are you more interested in? The glistening toilet in a six-star resort suite or a bucket on a barge, one night on the border between Malaysia and Thailand.
I love any good story and I think some of the best stories in the world are survival stories. Surviving storm tossed seas, stumbling over endless dunes in the Sahara, being attacked and left for dead by a bear!
But there are also those survival stories, those horrible tales that are told when we’re home safe and sound from our travels.
Having to sleep on a plastic chair in a busy airport with one eye open to guard your luggage. Having to sleep on a plastic chair in a busy airport while they try and find your luggage.
To help us along I’ve come up with four categories:
Bureaucracy:
Travelling with my daughter and being detained in South Africa due to bureaucracy around child slavery laws.
Being stuck in an airport in the middle of the night with a toddler.
Events:
Attending the Indian festival of Deepavali in a far away land and feeling even further away after being hit in the head by a street lit firework that was aimed at my head.
Critters:
Being attacked by a flesh-eating spider in Borneo and forgetting my bedroom was split level.
Leeches! Just like the scene in Memphis Belle when they’re panicking over whose blood is all over the cockpit, my scenario was in a dinghy, deep in the jungles of Perak in Northern Malaysia. We were wondering whose blood was sloshing around the bottom of the boat. It was all of us!
Accommodation:
Hotels in Rome are less hit and miss these days but I definitely got the miss on my first visit. The pillow slip had been made in Ancient Roman times and barely held the mouldy pieces of foam where I was expected to rest my head. Nothing worse than a bad bed.
Houseboats. For me, a category on their own. I’ve stayed on a barge in the jungle with hygiene the Dark Ages would have been proud of and with a toileting task that required me to move my movements from the toilet on one side of the boat to the other. With a soup ladle. I wasn’t eating anything that came out of that kitchen.
I’ve also stayed on what could only be described as a non airconditioned donger with floats, with two sets of my greatest friends who by the end of the trip were close to being my greatest enemies. Tempers flared as temperatures rose. Lost items overboard. Bird sized mosquitoes.
Traditional Longhouse in Borneo. Not so bad as a cultural experience but when you’ve had a few Tiger beers and you’re at the end of the longhouse and getting up for a wee in the middle of the night means walking on creaking bamboo slats that wakes everyone up it’s embarrassing and means you can’t get up again.
Motels by the side of highways. If it’s not roadtrains going past it’s the the Peters Ice Cream truck parked outside with the genny on the truck running to stop the drumsticks from melting. All night long …DRDRDRDRDRRDR.
Worst travel experiences are Hidden Treasures because as long as you’ve survived, you’ve got a great story and maybe a photo as well. Worst travel moments are hidden treasures because they’re character building. God! I sound like my mother!
The May issue of Just Urbane has just been published and inside you’ll find my story about a weekend in Singapore, just a weekend. Just Urbane is India’s leading lifestyle magazine with a print circulation of nearly 80,000 and online subscription readership of much more than that.
Enjoy my story in the file above but to read all my stories in Just Urbane, every month, take out a subscription with Just Urbane by clicking on: https://www.justurbane.com/subscribe-justurbane
Chris Parry Writes For Us 