Exploration
People, places, thoughts that followed me home
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Where the snapping stops
12 Dec 2025In Naples I saw my first Maserati hearse. It was making its way slowly down a narrow cobbled street, mourners following slowly, solemnly in procession. I am always ready to be a respectful cortege onlooker. For one thing there’s the jolt, the reminder, as you’re going about your
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A life in colour
19 Nov 2025What counts as history? Anything and everything. It can be Big Bang and MAGA, it can be Einstein and Eric Trump. It can be an object lesson, it can be a chastening truth. What counts as history? What even is it? It can be, according to your mechanic, your gasket.
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No going back
29 Apr 2025More from the roads, high and low
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The one who left
24 Apr 2025more from the road
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Making the most of it
16 Apr 2025More road pics
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Brace position
09 Apr 2025Road photos
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Climbing out of the hamster wheel
17 Sep 2024A sales pitch for the circus in your mind
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The decades just fly by
01 Sep 2024Sunday column, Merdeka Day edition
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Keep it in your pocket
06 Aug 2024Where next? writes reader and intrepid voyager Jeff, Georgia? Cindy wonders if I'm doing it all overland in which case does that mean the Stans or Africa next? I'd like to say yes but my caution is saying no, think I’ll just skip to Mumbai
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Lovely piece of Turkey
30 Jul 2024More photos! Here we see two guys from New Zealand, mates since law school, now in their sixties, at the end of their 3,000 km ride from Nantes to Budapest. Some friends had their doubts. No-one should ever doubt our resolve. What do you do next? You have
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A friend in uncertain times
21 Jul 2024Sunday column
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Oh Vienna
10 Jul 2024Nothing can warm your heart like the sight of your daughter stepping off a train. Mary-Margaret arrived on Saturday to ride with us to Vienna. You know your way around a bike? the guy at the hire shop asks her. Yep. She’s ridden them on rail trails, Auckland’
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Strangers and others
07 Jul 2024Sunday column from the road
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Fairness and generosity
01 Jul 2024Sunday column on a Monday
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A privilege
25 Jun 2024On we go, at 20 kilometres an hour, truly the best pace for rolling through the world and breathing it all in. Fascinating to get to see two, four, twenty new places each day. Marvellous to get to see how very many different ways you can make it good for
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You take nicer pictures when you’re not drunk
20 Jun 2024Short story from the road
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Life at 20 kilometres an hour
12 Jun 2024We are still in France, getting from A to B. Possibly for only another week, though; Switzerland and Germany are looming now. On we pedal, towards Budapest, at about 20 km per hour. What are are mostly doing is inhaling a country, loving its ways and its food. Rolling, talking,
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Fission by the river
09 Jun 2024Sunday column
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Road trance
05 Jun 2024Sometimes technology is your friend and sometimes it can’t be bothered with you. Once you’re away from home and your dependable wifi, well, there’s no telling what will happen. I’ve been going in and out of high-speed and low-speed no-speed Internet pockets all
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maBaguette
03 Jun 2024road post
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Going some place and there's no going back
29 May 2024more road and rail
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Days in the life
23 May 2024We returned last week from England to London. Two different worlds. A quarter of an hour before dropping off our car, we came to a complete stop on the M25. Just moments before, there had been six lanes of hurtling cars and lorries. Now, everything was at a standstill as
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More road
12 May 2024Sunday driving
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Early evening, April 30
05 May 2024Sunday reading
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A land without pier
03 May 2024The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea. The land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. The more we have at stake, the
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Road photos
30 Apr 2024Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just pictures Popular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Beloved daughter has birthday bbq with friends. Even on
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Photos from the road
23 Apr 2024Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The Conversation What Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed
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Just trying to stay upright
22 Apr 2024Newsletter from the road
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Down the river
29 Oct 2023Sunday column
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Your face is blue
27 Aug 2023Sunday column
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A lifetime of driving flashes before you
16 Jul 2023Sunday column
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Bliss before sunrise
29 Jun 2023Newsletter on the move
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Fixing your mistakes
17 Apr 2023Holiday pictures
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Into the wild
09 Apr 2023Easter bulletin
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Pandemic-era material deprivation blues
27 Oct 2022Thursday column
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Not knowing you’re leaving for the last time
23 Oct 2022Sunday column
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Go there before they burn it down
17 Oct 2022Newsletter on holiday
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Southern report
06 Dec 2020Sunday column