In Review: Bypass: The Story of a Road

~ At the age of 40, former Jesuit priest, Michael McGirr – armed with not much more than a copy of Anna Karenina, some spare clothes and a less than state-of-the-art Chinese built bicycle – set out to ride the 880 kilometres (547 miles) of the Hume Highway which links Sydney and Melbourne.

While the ride forms the backdrop to McGirr’s book Bypass: The Story of a Road, like all good travelogue’s the ride itself is really just a frame to hang the real story around, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway.

From its humble beginnings as a rough track across the Great Dividing Range, to it’s current state as a modern dual carriageway, the Highway continues to serve as the major thoroughfare linking Australia’s two largest cities.

Bypass takes you on a wonderful journey covering the history of the Hume, and the politics that helped shape it. Along the way you meet some great – and not so great – Australian characters that have helped imprint the name of the highway into the Australian psyche. People like the 61 year old Cliff Young (great), who in 1983 won the inaugural Sydney to Melbourne foot race against competitors half his age. And men like Ivan Milat (not so great) who was convicted of the murder of seven young backpackers and hitch-hikers, all of whom he buried in the Belanglo State Forest.

Then there are the explorers Hamilton Hume (after whom the Highway was eventually named) and William Hovell, who in 1824 along with at least six others, set of from Appin (near the present day Sydney suburb of Campbelltown) for the first successful quest to reach Melbourne. We also meet truckies; the bushrangers Ben Hall and Ned Kelly; the dog that shat on – or in – the tucker box; and the poets ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Henry Lawson. We attend a Catholic Mass in Tarcutta – officially the halfway point between Sydney and Melbourne – where apart from the priest and two parishoners, the only other people in attendance are the author of Bypass and his companion Jenny, who has by this time joined him on his ride to Melbourne.

We visit almost every country town along the route of the Hume Highway, and learn something about each of them. Towns like Goulburn, famous for the Big Merino and Goulburn Jail (where Ivan Milat is currently serving seven life sentences). We visit Holbrook and learn why the outer shell of the Oberon Class submarine HMAS Otway now sits in a public park in the middle of town. In Chiltern we pass by the childhood home of the Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson, and learn that Henry’s real name was Ethel Florence. We learn too, that like other female writers have done throughout history, Ethel wrote under a male nom de plume because at the time it was felt that women didn’t have what it took to be great writers. And we also visit the town of Yass, and drop by the Liberty Café for a meal before continuing on our journey.

Now, I have to confess this section of the book took me completely by surprise, and was one of the great unexpected pleasures I got out of Bypass. Let me explain why.

Some years ago, I was returning to Adelaide from Australia’s national capital, Canberra, and on a whim decided to pass through the town of Yass, which is some 60 kilometres or so from Canberra. Because I had been on the road less than an hour, and because I could see no reason to stop in Yass, I simply left the Hume Highway, drove into town and up along Yass’s main street, while all the time looking left and right taking a mental snapshot of the landscape. I then headed back out onto the Hume and continued on my way.

It may seem such an odd thing to do, but then I am prone to do odd things on no more than a whim, and this was one of those occasions. The reason I write about it now is that as I drove up Comur Street, Yass’s main throughfare, my gaze fell on a small dining establishment called the Liberty Café.

At this point I should mention that apart from putting this blog together, one of the other ‘strings’ I’ve added to my ‘bow’ is songwriting. So within minutes of passing through Yass I began writing a song called The Liberty Café*. This song subsequently appeared on my second album American Dream, and remains one of my favourite songs. Never the less, I had always regreted not stopping in at the café as I drove through town. I’m pleased to say I made amends for that lapse earlier this year, when in April, I again drove to Sydney, and this time I did stop at the Liberty Café for a meal break. In fact, I stopped there for a second time on my way back to Adelaide. So, as I say, it was a delightful surprise to read about the Café in Bypass, and know that of all the restaurants and cafés in Yass, Michael McGirr had also been drawn to the Liberty.

Across its many short chapters, Bypass also introduces us to some of the thousands of bumper stickers that adorn the rear ends of many Australian vehicles. In fact, McGirr uses stickers as chapter headings to introduce us to every aspect of his journey. Thus, the bumper sticker THE OLDER I GET THE BETTER I WAS, allows him to explain some of his own personal story and the reasons for his decision to ride the Hume Highway. In the chapter THE GODDESS IS DANCING, McGirr introduces us to his riding partner Jenny, and in DEATH IS THE MANUFACTURER’S RECALL NOTICE, we pause to learn about some of the many roadside memorials that mark the sites of fatal road accidents that line the Highway.

To conclude, Bypass is a book that ticks a lot of boxes in terms of my personal criteria for a good travelogue. The book is immensly readable, always entertaining and informative, often surprising, and constantly filled with odd facts and humourous anecdotes. These keep the story moving along smoothly and effortlessly – which can not always be said of Michael McGirr’s monumental bike ride.

I began this review by writing “like all good travelogue’s the ride itself is really just a frame to hang the real story around, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway.” But it should also be said, that Bypass: The Story of a Road is not merely the story of one relatively short (by Australian standards) stretch of highway. It is also about the history of this country, and about the people who have helped build and shape it into the modern land it has now become.

UPDATE, MAY 2011: At the time I wrote this review Bypass...  was out of print. However, I'm delighted to report the book is back in print and available from Amazon.Com. Michael McGirr has also written Things You Get For Free which is also available from Amazon. To make the purchase of both books easy for you, I've added direct links for both books below.

Click here... Bypass: The Story of a Road to purchase Michael McGirr's book. Click the link below to purchase McGirr's Things You Get For Free.

* Click here to listen to the song, The Liberty Café...

Further Reading at Wikipedia

More about Ivan Milat…

More about Cliff Young…

More about the history of the Hume Highway…

The Week That Was #8

~ Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: Kandovan – The Stone Village. Is this the village that inspired the setting for Riven, the setting for part three of the Myst series of games? Kandovan (Candovan) is a tourist village located near the city of Tabriz, in Iran. Legend says the first inhabitants of Kandovan moved here to escape from the invading Mongols. They dug hideouts in the volcanic rock and ultimately ended up transforming them into permanent houses. It is now one of Iran’s most popular tourist destinations and the rock-houses rival the famous Cappadocia Hotel.

The Useful: Niagara Falls Webcam. Never been to Niagara Falls – the most powerful waterfall in North America? Don’t worry dear reader, you can watch six million cubic feet of water fall over the crest line every minute in high flow from the comfort of your own home, simply by tuning into the Niagara Falls webcam attached to the Sheraton on The Falls Hotel. Of course, you will have to adjust your time zone to suit. As I type this it is 11.30pm at the Falls, and all I can see is a dark, grainy image of something which looks like water flowing in the murky blackness. However, I will be back to take another look during daylight hours. In the meantime, I am looking at a huge interactive map here… to help me get my bearings.

The Downright Bizarre: Ryanair Poll - Passengers Would Fly Standing. No, it’s not an April Fools Day joke, according to a Ryanair online poll, 66% of 120,000 respondents said they would be willing to stand in the cabin on flights one hour or shorter if the fare was free. Well, for a flight of less than an hour, I guess even I would be happy to stand if it meant getting there for free. However, the figures change as the options become less accommodating. Read more here…

Friday Photo #6: America For Sale

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I encountered this massive mural on the wall of a building on the corner of Garnet Street and Smith Street, in the Brooklyn suburb of Red Hook (close to the Smith St/9th St., station for the ‘F’ and ‘G’ trains).

The artist is Scott LoBaido, who has made a name for himself by painting huge murals featuring the American flag on buildings in every U.S. state. I should point out that America For Sale is the title I gave the photograph, it is not (as far as I am aware) Scott’s title for his mural. In fact, after looking at his website, I think it is fair to say that Scott is a flag waving patriot – and unashamedly so. So I’m not sure what he would make of my title for his mural.

However, while I was setting up to take photographs of the mural, a man who happened to be passing stopped to tell me how appropriate the juxtaposition between the ‘For Sale’ sign and the mural on the wall was. Of course, it was exactly this juxtaposition that had caught my attention in the first place.

‘America is being sold off to the Chinese’, he loudly informed me, clearly not happy with the idea. All I could do with empathise and tell him that the same thing had been happening in Australia for years. I’m not sure he left any happier, but maybe he found some comfort knowing others were suffering the same fate!

The New York Daily News site has a short article and 3:38 minute video of Scott talking about his 50 mural Flags Across Staten Island project…

Photograph: America For Sale, by Jim Lesses

Location: Brooklyn, New York, April 2008.

40 Money Saving Travel Websites

~ You have to love the internet. I know I do. It is a very rare day when I can not find information about the obscurest topic I can think of, or feel like exploring further.

Since this blog is focussed pretty much on all things to do with travel, and since too, I am constantly researching for my own travel adventures, I am always happy to find other sites outlining ways to cut down on my own travel costs. So when I found an article by Lynn Truong listing the 40 Most Useful Travel Websites That Can Save You a Fortune, I was immediately interested.

Lynn breaks the list down into three groups; Cheap Flights and Accommodation, Destination Guides and Travel Communities, and Budget Traveler Magazines and Blogs.

Among the sites in Cheap Flights and Accommodation, Lynn lists a perennial favourite for discerning budget travellers everywhere: CouchSurfing, the worldwide community the brings together generous hosts and adventurous travellers seeing the world on the cheap. Then there is Yapta – which stands for Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant. Yapta notifies you when prices for flights drop. It can do it even after you purchase your tickets, giving you a chance to get a refund of the difference from the airline.

Under Destination Guides and Travel Communities, you will find several sites I myself am a member of (like BootsnAll Travel, and Lonely Planet), and numerous others including The Backpacker (for reviews of local bars, restaurants, accommodations, attractions, and tours) and IgoUgo (with more than 500,000 travelers on IgoUgo sharing trip stories and pictures, they've built a library of honest opinions, tips, and experiences that you won’t find in any guidebook).

Finally there is the Budget Traveler Magazines and Blogs suggestions. Here you will find some amazing blogs by some of the world’s most adventurous travellers – many on extended round the world journeys. Among my personal favourites are Matt Gross’s Frugal Traveler blog in which Matt seeks out high style on a low budget; The Professional Hobo where Nora Dunn writes about her round-the-world vagabonding life; and Working Your Way Around the World – a site that shows it is possible to pick up and move to different parts of the world on a regular basis — and work along the way.

Take a look at Lynn Truong’s full list here…

While you are there, make sure you read through the Comments for even more great money saving tips and ideas…

The Charm of Broadway

~ By Joy Cagil

We always leave a beloved place in order to return to it sometime. Broadway in New York city is such a place for me, and I return to it as often as I can. Sometimes, I take a flight to JFK or to the La Guardia Airports and then a taxi to a hotel in Manhattan as close to or in Broadway; at other times, I return to it in my heart and in my writings.

Broadway has inspired many poets. Of the old school, Sandburg has the pessimistic look when he says: "Hearts that know you hate you/... Cursing the dreams that were lost / In the dust of your harsh and trampled stones." Walt Whitman's excited and dynamic words describe more of what I feel about this parcel of New York City: " Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, /Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments." In fact, Broadway is and has been the theatre district not only for the United States but possibly for the entire world

Broadway, today, extends from the 34th Street to the 56th, on the east and the west of the avenue called Broadway with Times Square at its core. Broadway is most famous for its stage shows. The longest running Broadway shows to date are The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Les Miserables, A chorus Line, Oh! Calcutta, Beauty and the Beast, and Rent.

Broadway's becoming a theatre district goes far back to the time before the Revolutionary War. In mid-eighteenth century when two actors wanted to bring the staging of the plays of Shakespeare to Manhattan, the seeds of Broadway were sown. The first theatre in Manhattan was in Nassau Street. Later on, P.T. Barnum operated an entertainment complex at Broadway and Prince Street. During the first few years, a variety of shows entertained the working and the middle classes. When the Astor Place Theater opened, these theatre goers rose in a riot, objecting to the upper class audiences.

The first performance that added dance and music to a play was The Black Crook, in 1866. Its duration was five and a half hours. This musical attracted so many audiences that musicals became high quality entertainment. At the turn of the twentieth century, some of the earliest musicals were Cakewalk, George Washington Jr., A Trip to Coontown, The Fortune Teller, Little Johnny Jones, and 45 Minutes from Broadway.

Twentieth Century brought Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta, and The Red Mill. Since colored lights did not last long, white lights were used at the time; thus, Broadway took the nickname "The Great White Way."

The advent of the motion picture industry and the Actors Equity Association strike were feared to bring a halt to Broadway; quite the contrary, during the roaring twenties, Broadway flourished and added serious drama to its light-hearted repertoire and Ziegfeld revues. Oklahoma was the first such hit. At that time, Noel Coward, Rudolf Friml, Sigmund Romberg produced memorable work alongside with the eternal Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Rodgers and Hart.

Then, in 1947, Tony Awards were established to recognize the best performers and performances of the American Theater and especially Broadway. Nowadays, most shows are made for profit by the many theatre establishments in the area, although some are produced by non-profit organizations such as the Roundabout Theater Company, Manhattan Theater Club, and The Lincoln Center Theater. On the average, musicals run longer than non-musical plays, and some of the successful musicals and plays go on tour to other cities in the off season or after their curtains close on Broadway.

Besides the Broadway theatre district, smaller Off Broadway theatres that are located between 57th and 72nd Streets offer less publicized, less expensive, yet more experimental and daring plays. Sporadically, a successful Off Broadway show will later run on a Broadway stage. Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Godspell, Chorus Line, and Sunday in the Park with George are among such works.

Then, in Manhattan exist Off-Off-Broadway theatres with less that 100 seats for staging smaller amateur performances such as the Flea Theater in TriBeCa. After K. W. Bromley referred to Off-Off-Broadway as "Indie Theater" in his acceptance of an Innovative Theater award in 2005, Off-Off-Broadway shows are sometimes called the Indie Theater shows.

Broadway shows' greatest rival today is the television. The finest plays and musicals and the most talented theatre actors have to compete with the corniest TV shows for audience recognition, mainly because of the high cost of the tickets and the amount of people a theatre can hold. Watching a live stage show, a serious play, or a musical is a great thrill that cannot be matched by the movies or the television.

For me, the streets of Broadway add to the dash of its theatres, musicals, comedy clubs, and movie houses. Broadway and Times Square is where I can walk in and out of two to five-star hotels, coffee houses like the Starbucks, diners and gourmet restaurants; or where I can browse inside all kinds of shops but especially gift shops that sell theatre paraphernalia such as costumes, masks, and props; or I can stroll and absorb the excitement of other pedestrians, the street-corner preachers, and the lights of the establishments while I watch the limousines bringing actors to performances and actors signing autographs in front of the theatre buildings, or an occasional scalper selling last minute tickets to shows with the corner of his eye guarding the whereabouts of the police.

Like Whitman, I too, "arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze," because with all its coquettishness, Broadway makes life turn around our drama of existence.

Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joy_Cagil

Image: Young Frankenstein, Broadway, May 11, 2008

Photo: Jim Lesses

10 Tips for Finding Wheelchair-Accessible Lodging

~ Although it’s been well over a decade since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law, wheelchair-users and slow walkers still have problems finding accessible lodging. In fact, according to a 2005 Harris Interactive survey, 60% of disabled travellers experienced problems with their overnight lodging choices.

“Finding an accessible room would be an easy task if every accessible room had the same standard features,” explains Candy Harrington, author of 101 Accessible Vacations; Travel Ideas for Wheelers and Slow Walkers. “But that’s not the way it works in real life. In reality, two properties located right next door to one another may have vastly different accessibility standards, so travellers need to ask the right questions in order to get a room that suits their needs.”

In the end, a little advance planning mixed with a healthy dose of self advocacy goes a long way towards finding the appropriate room. Here are Harrington’s tips for accomplishing that task.

• Never just ask for an “accessible” or an “ADA compliant” room. Instead, describe the access features you need.
• In Europe, if you need a room with an accessible bathroom, ask for an adapted room. An accessible room only features a barrier-free path of travel; however an adapted room also contains an adapted shower and toilet.
• Make sure and ask about the availability of elevators, especially in small European properties. It’s not unusual for a property to have an accessible room that can only be accessed by a stairway.
• If you need a roll-in shower, ask for one. This is not a standard feature in all accessible or even adapted rooms. Specify your needs.
• Always call the property directly, rather than calling the central reservation number.
• Bed height is not regulated under the ADA, so make sure and ask for measurements. Many properties are replacing their standard mattresses with high pillow top and luxury models.
• Avoid yes or no questions. For example, ask the clerk to describe the bathroom, rather than just asking if the bathroom is accessible.
• Ask the reservation agent to fax you a floor plan of the accessible room. This will give you the dimensions of the room, but remember that access can vary depending on the placement of furniture.
• If you have difficulty determining if a room will suit your needs, ask to speak to somebody who has recently been in the room. Employees in the housekeeping or engineering departments usually have a good knowledge of access features of the individual rooms.
• Remember to ask the reservation agent if the accessible room can be blocked for you. If the answer is “no” or “sometimes”, then find another hotel. Remember, even the most accessible room in the world won’t work for you, if that room isn’t available when you arrive.

Finally, always trust your instincts. If a reservation agent hems and haws, gives ambiguous answers or sounds inept, call back and talk to another reservation agent or call a different property. When in doubt, always go with your gut.

101 Accessible Vacations; Travel Ideas for Wheelers and Slow Walkers is published by Demos Publishing and is available from your favourite bookstore or on-line at www.101AccessibleVacations.com. Visit Candy Harrington’s Barrier Free Travels blog at www.BarrierFreeTravels.com for more helpful access tips, news, resources and information for disabled travellers.

Image courtesy of Orlando Fun Tickets…

Top Travel Social Networks

~ One of the methods I have been using for help with research into my forthcoming trip is social networks geared around travel enthusiasts.

You will no doubt be familiar with social network sites like MySpace, Facebook and the more recent phenomenon – Twitter. These sites are very general in their nature and makeup in that they attract and appeal to a huge broad range of users. However, if you are currently researching your next vacation, these sites (and the many others like them), may not be the best way to connect with travellers who have already visited the locations you are planning to travel to.

To connect with travellers all over the world, you need to join one or more of the many travel related social networking sites available online. I myself am a member of the Trip Advisor forums, BootsnAll, and the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forums. But there are many more. Thankfully, John Van Kirk, the Travel Answer Man has put together a list of ten of the best travel social networking sites, which includes the three I am signed up with.

Along with the three already mentioned, John includes Dopplr – a site which lets users create trip itineraries and find travel tips created by other travellers; Trip Wolf – which is similar to Facebook for travel because of its “friends” and “travelers” features; and Virtual Tourist – which John claims is the web’s largest travel community and social network, although I suspect Trip Advisor might question this claim.

All these sites have many common features such as the ability to ask questions in location specific forums; the ability to post reviews of hotels, café’s and restaurants, and almost anything else; space to upload trip photographs; the capacity to plan trip itineraries, and many more features. Of course these sites work best when you contribute to the discussions, reviews, and other areas of the sites where input is encouraged by travellers just like you.

Even if you are yet to travel away from your own home town, you can make positive contributions by joining discussions related to your home town or city. After all, those who are best placed to write about a particular location, are the locals. So get involved, and join a world wide community of travellers. You’ll be glad you did.

John Van Kirk has broken his list of top travel social networks into two posts on his blog. Click here for Part One; and click here for Part Two…

The Week That Was #7

~ Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: Top 5 Naked Events And Top 5 Nude Beaches. I bet that got your attention! Those people over at Tripso.Com have a feature on the top nude events and beaches around the world. They even mention Maslins Beach (Australia’s first official nude beach), here in South Australia, which apparently hosts the Nude Beach Olympics in January. I wonder if they will let me down there with my video camera to film a clip for this blog?

The Useful: Ten Tips for Planning a Round The World Trip.

Planning a trip is always part of the adventure of travelling, and even more so if it’s a round-the-world (RTW) trip across many countries on various continents. Planning a trip around the world is a fun experience but keep in mind that there are various distinct aspects involved that are usually a non-issue for a typical ’single-destination’ holiday. These include varying costs and climates in different countries. When I prepared my RTW trip last year, I made many notes along the way, organising them by region. My notes included things I wanted to see, transportation, costs and accommodation options. I also created a checklist for other important aspects such as travel health insurance and things to pack. Read more here...

The Downright Bizarre: 35 of The World’s Most Bizarre Hotels. Hot on the heals of last weeks entry about 21 strange and unusual hotels, comes Newsday with their online feature about the very same thing. Not to be outdone, Newsday has photographs and information for 35 out of the ordinary hotels including covered wagons,

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing – enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Friday Photo#5 ~ Private Property

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I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of this tree, slowly devouring the Private Property sign, when I encountered it on State Street in Teaneck, New Jersey. I had gone to Teaneck to see one of my favourite American singer-songwriters, Steve Forbert, who was performing at the Mexicali Blues Cafe at 1409, Queen Anne Road (201-833-0011‎).

This tree gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, nature was not on the retreat. What if instead, nature was on the attack? What if nature, in a million surreptitious ways was slowly claiming back its rightful place on the planet, and we were too blind to even notice. Well, after all, it wouldn’t be the first time that people where so preoccupied with their own petty greed and jealousies, that nature was able to exact some type of revenge for years of neglect and abuse.

Or maybe this was natures way of saying, Neither this tree or this planet will ever by your ‘private property’. It belongs to everyone.

Photograph: Private Property Tree, by Jim Lesses
Location: Teaneck, New Jersey, May 18, 2008.

The Countdown Continues

Click on image to enlarge

At the beginning of June (in The Countdown Begins), I wrote about my nascent plans for my next major overseas trip planned for 2010. Back then I’d been home in Adelaide eight months following my last trip, and I was counting down the ten months before my expected departure.

Now here I am, two months later and find those numbers have been reversed. I’m now ten months back with eight months before I head off again around the end of March.

My plans are still no clearer in my mind, with respect to what I want to do, and where I want to go, other than I want to undertake a major road trip across the United States, and once again end up in Greece for an extended stay. Greece is the ideal place as the final destination of my travels because I have two sisters living there, and the free use of the original family home on the island of Ikaria.

Regular readers of this blog will know I have been conducting lots of research in the form of reading (and reviewing) books – old and new – in preparation for my trip. I’m a great believer in trying to get a broad understanding of the cities and the landscape of countries I am travelling through, so I can better enjoy the experience. Knowing something about the history, culture, and lives of the people I might meet helps build insight and awareness into the overall travel experience. The more I research and learn, the more I am able to see the world through the eyes of the locals and modify or drop my own preconceived ideas of how I think they should or should not be living or behaving.

And so to America. So far my thoughts are thus: I will probably fly into Los Angeles. I will then catch up with various relatives on the west coast (San Diego; Tucson, Arizona, and elsewhere).

I will then embark on my road trip. But for how long and to where exactly? This is currently my great dilemma. The United States is so vast and varied that there is far too much to see and do in one road trip no matter how extended it may be. My plans have ranged from a circumnavigation of the continental United States that would involve driving some ten to twelve thousand kilometres (assuming Google has done the maths correctly), to much shorter drives of four to six thousand kilometres.

I am currently more inclined to aim for a shorter drive where I can spend more time savouring the journey and the destinations along the way, but I’m still a long way from deciding where my road will lead me.

My latest Google mapping exercise has me plotting a route from Los Angeles across the southern states as far east as Alabama, and then up to Nashville before driving back to L.A. along Route 66 (see map illustrating this entry). However, at around 5,300 miles (or 8,500 kilometres), even this road trip looks like hard work, and vacations should not be hard work. They should be relaxing and fun, and stimulating and exciting.

Not that I am baulking at the distances involved – even though I will probably be on my own. One thing Australian drivers learn to do early – whether they like driving or not – is drive long distances. We know that short of flying between major capital cities (or taking a train or coach), the most convenient way to get anywhere is by car. And since we hate to be without a car at our ultimate destination, driving our own vehicles to our final destination is almost always our preferred option.

Anyway, I know I will return to this theme several more times before March, so bear with me, and if you have any ideas or suggestions, please pass on your tips via the Comments box below.

House Swapping Checklist

~ This is the fifth in an occasional series of articles about house swapping your home with another family, thereby making the most of your travel experience in another city or country. The first article was House Swaps: The Practical Way To Go; the second article, House Swapping for Seniors, provided practical advice for that age specific group of travellers; the third House Swapping for a Better World discussed how this concept can help break down barriers between different nationalities and cultures; and the fourth article House Swapping for Families discussed how families as a whole can benefit from exchanging homes with other families. These blog entries are sourced from, and used with the permission of the Aussie House Swap website.

Here are some suggestions for making your house swapping experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

1. Give yourself time to organise everything

Don't expect to go online and immediately find the ideal house swap at the perfect location and the exact time to fit in with your plans. Realistically, it may take some discussion to and fro as to possible dates, and people may be willing to fit in with you but have to change some other arrangements to make things work. This all takes time.

However, it must be said, there are many experienced and first-time swappers who have organised their house swap within a few days of the exchange commencement date. This suits some but it is best to allow yourself a few months to make sure you get everything right.

2. Don't just list, then sit back and wait

You'll have a far better chance of finding a suitable swap if you take the initiative and contact some people, than you will if you just sit back and wait for responses. This may be obvious, but it bears remembering. Finding a suitable house swap does take some effort on your part.

3. Flexibility is important

Realise that it won't necessarily be easy to find a swap for the exact time and location you want. Therefore it's best to be a bit flexible, and stay open to what's available at your ideal time, or to alternative times when your ideal swap may become available.

Here's another option for you to think about: non-concurrent swaps. This means that a swap partner stays in your home when you're away, but you're not able to simultaneously swap with them. For example, you may go interstate or cross the Tasman for a wedding or a special birthday. By extending your stay, it may be possible for your swap partner to come at that time. Or you may even arrange to house sit for a third party, leaving your place empty.

Either way, your house is vacant at a time to suit your swap partner, but it's not possible or not convenient for you to go to their place at that time. So your partner visits and stays at your place, and then at a later time when they're away doing something else, you stay in their home.

You can even arrange for a simultaneous, three-way swap. In other words, A goes to B's place, B goes to C's place, and C goes to A's place, all on the same day and for the same period of time. This may take some arranging, but we know of an instance where it happened amongst our swappers.

4. Ask lots of questions

Gather as much information as you can from your swap partner. Put together a list of questions on things which may cause you to think twice, or even abort a swap. For example, would be prepared to swap with a smoker? Do you need an Internet connection? Are you allergic to cats? Do you find it impossible to sleep near a railway line, or an airport? What size beds do they have? Do you hate waterbeds?

Are you interested in swapping cars? Is your (or their) Mercedes off-limits? Ditto each of your desktop computers?

5. Sort out the details

Here's a good practice: put it in writing. Get agreement on each party's expectations of the other, including any specific inclusions or exclusions (e.g. they can use the Ford, but not the Mercedes). Decide how the utility bills will be split. Then write it down — in either a hard copy agreement, or an exchange of emails.

6. Check your insurance

In most cases, house swappers are each other's guests. Check with your insurer to ensure you're covered for the normal risks while they're in residence and you're away. (This is usually the case, but don't leave it to chance!)

If you're going to allow your visitors to drive your car, and you'll be driving theirs, it's basic common sense to know exactly what is covered in both cases. Does a nominated party have to drive in order to maintain cover? Does the driver have to be over a certain age? (For example, you may not be covered if your teenage son is driving your swap partner's car.) What's the excess, in case of an accident? Who has to pay it?

7. Clean up your house, yard and pool

Since the launch of Aussie House Swap in 2003 we have received less than two complaints each year regarding someone's house swap experience. Out of these few complaints they have nearly all been cleanliness issue and could have been resolved easily with good communication.

If you want things to be in a clean and tidy state when you return home, you need to have them looking that way before you leave. Don't leave a mess, or a half-done job, and expect to come home to a manicured lawn, a trimmed garden, a spotless pool and a professionally-cleaned house.

It may happen, because some people are very finicky that way. However, you can't expect it if you don't set the example before you leave. Besides, it's a matter of common courtesy to tidy up before guests arrive.

We have swappers who pay for a cleaner to come in to clean their house before they head off for that swap, and many also organise one for when they vacate their swap partners house. A very small cost if you're not into cleaning and want to spend your time on other, nicer, things!

8. Pets

Remember that your house exchange partner is on holiday and the thought of feeding, walking and/or grooming the dogs may not be their idea of relaxing. If you are pet swapping too (caring for each others pets) while on the swap then it's usually fine but if you have a pet and are thinking of leaving it at home but your swap partner isn't please be considerate. Try and arrange a friend or family member to look after it.

If you have agreed to pet care, ask your neighbours to look in on them and (if necessary) feed them after you've gone, in case your swap partners are late in arriving. They can then introduce themselves, which will mean that your guests will start out knowing at least one person or couple right from the time of their arrival.

9. A warm welcome

Why not leave your guests a bottle of wine and some nice cheese in the fridge, with a note on the door explaining where the water crackers are kept? Or if you know they're teetotallers, swap the wine and cheese for a caddy of Twinnings tea and a good brand of coffee, and perhaps some special biscuits. And don't forget to leave some fresh milk!

10. Detailed instructions

You'll probably have explained various routines and preferences over the phone and by email, well before your guests arrive. However, we highly recommend using our Handy House Swap Form found in the menu on the Aussie House Swap website.

This will help inform your guests where things are kept, list important phone numbers, explain how the TV, air conditioning and so forth work, and remind them of any peculiarities they need to know about.

You can also list recommended restaurants and attractions, and write down any other local knowledge you think they should have. (E.g. "Rusty's allowed to sleep on the lounge, but don't forget to let him out first"; or "Must book! Best steak in town.")

For more information…

Please visit our website. There is a considerable amount of information available. If you can't find what you are looking for then please contact us.

How much does it cost?

Aussie House Swap membership is only $65 per year! However, if you do not manage to house swap in your first year we will give you another 12 months membership absolutely free! This is our guarantee to you! For $65 (less than the cost of one nights motel accommodation) you can make as many house swaps as you like within your 12 months.

Article courtesy of Aussie House Swap website. Like our Partner site, Home Away, Aussie House Swap gives you the opportunity to stay in someone else’s home, while they stay in yours.

Numerologists Take Note

~ At 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4AM on August 7, 2009, the sequence of numbers spelling out the time and date will be 04:05:06 07-08-09.

This will not happen again until the year 3009!

Of course, if you write your dates out using the American system of putting the month before the date, the above sequence of numbers will look like this: 04:05:06 08-07-09, which makes the whole point of the exercise worthless – which it ultimately is, anyway. But then I had to write about something, and this was it.

By the way, if anything of significance does take place at that exact time, I’d like to know about it. World peace would be good, but if that is asking too much, how about a dream revealing all the winning numbers for the next multi-million dollar Powerball Lottery?

Or how about a shift in the time/space continuum that actually transports the planet earth to the year 3009?

Now that would really take the concept of travel into a whole new realm.

Bring it on!

In Review: Great Plains



 

Click here to order from Amazon.Com

~ “Away to the Great Plains of America, to that immense Western short-grass prairie now mostly plowed under! Away to the still-empty land beyond newsstands and malls and velvet restaurant ropes!”

So begins Great Plains, the 1989 examination of America’s heartland. That vast inner expanse of plains and prairies that range from Canada in the north down to the Texas panhandle in the south. Stretching some 2500 miles in length, and about 600 miles across at their widest point, the Great Plains encompass parts of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and parts of the American states of Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Part history, part travelogue, part extended road trip, Great Plains has the grandeur and sweep of the frontier itself crammed into its concise 214 pages of main text – which is no mean feat, let me tell you.

By the time he wrote this book, Ian Frazier had driven some 25,000 miles on the plains – from Montana to Texas and back again. Twice. As well as many shorter distances. His meanderings took him from an abandoned anti-ballistic-missile system command centre in remote Montana, to the exact site of Bonny and Clyde’s automobile plunge into the Red River; from the location of Sitting Bull’s camp on the Grand River, to the site of Custer’s last stand on the Little Big Horn; from Fort Union in North Dakota, to Fort Stockton in Texas.

It is no accident that rivers feature so much in this book – even as peripheral ‘characters’. The Great Plains are at times so dry and barren that in the early years of exploration parts of them were known as the Great American Desert. It made sense for the early settlers – just like Native Americans – to build their forts and villages, their towns and cities along the banks of any river large enough to provide a source of life-giving water and food to the populace.

No accident too, that the history of conflict between Native American Indians and settlers crops up throughout Great Plains. Frazier manages to examine the slaughter of millions of bison, the betrayal and death of Crazy Horse, and meet and mix with numerous descendents of the great warriors of the past as he traverses this immense space.

All the great characters are here; ranchers and homesteaders, mountain men and fur trappers, outlaws and gangsters, cowboys and Indians, railroad barons, oil men, coal miners, and more. You get to meet the great and humble, the rich and poor, emigrant Germans and former Southern Black slaves, and the men and women who struggled for generations (and who still struggle today), to make some sort of living from the Great Plains.

Ian Frazier is clearly a man in love with the Great Plains, its history, and its immense cast of fabulous characters – both modern and ancient. As an introduction to this vast area of land and open space Great Plains is entertaining and informative, and filled with insight, obscure historical facts and references, and ultimately, immensely readable.

Finally, the book is well indexed, includes 16 pages of black and white photographs, and has almost 70 pages of extensive notes to supplement the main text. Highly recommended.

“This is a brilliant, funny, and altogether perfect book, soaked in research and then aired out on the open plains to evaporate the excess, leaving this modern masterpiece. It makes me want to get in a truck and drive straight out to North Dakota and look at the prairie.” —Garrison Keillor

Click here to purchase Great Plains via Amazon.Com...

Great Plains by Ian Frazier (First published: 1989, Penguin Books)

Now available in Picador (May 4, 2001) . ISBN-10: 0312278500

Also by Ian Frazier is the book On the Rez, billed by Amazon.Com as “…a history of the Oglala nation that spotlights our paleface population in some of its most shameful, backstabbing moments, as well as a quick tour through Indian America. Much of On the Rez revolves around Le War Lance, whom Frazier first met in Great Plains.”

Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (May 4, 2001). ISBN-10: 0312278594

NOTE: scroll through the Reading List box on the left to purchase On The Rez directly from Amazon.Com. You can also click on the In Review tag below to view other book reviews on this site.