California Dreaming or Just Another Nightmare? Yosemite and the Giant Redwoods.

When my children were young, we took them on a road trip to California, driving the Pacific Highway from Los Angles to San Francisco before going east to visit Yosemite National Park. We then returned cross country to L.A. to visit Disneyland, this a thank you to the children for the terrible imposition of having to do interesting things. Although all of the information here, historical or otherwise, is written from the perspective of the present day, many of the pictures were taken during our trip. Yosemite - The Battle for Survival. In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite…

Time Is Running Out for the Old Growth Forests of the Pacific North West.

It is commonplace for leaders in tropical regions to receive criticism for their inability to conserve natural forests, but in northern temperate regions politicians have not been made so directly accountable, and the felling of swathes of grand old trees has passed largely without comment. West of the Rockies in the Pacific North West, there is a particular problem, especially in coastal regions where old growth forests have been felled without much concern for environmental consequences. The timber trade has played an important role in local economies since the arrival of Europeans and the resultant destruction of virgin forest has…

A walk on the Wild Side – Smuggler’s Cove.

I can't remember exactly how many smuggler's coves I've visited, but it's a lot - their appeal is irresistible. In the Caribbean they are perhaps at their most romantic; whilst in the Britain they're the sort of places you might expect to see on an episode of Poldark. Along England's south west coast, where men in tricorne hats once shot unreliably at one other with flintlock pistols, smuggler's coves are two a penny. My favourite cove is Lulworth in Dorset, it is amongst the most beautiful of any to be found in Britain and part of the Jurassic Coast World…

The Skookumchuck Narrows – Going With the Flow on The Sunshine Coast.

My daughter thought that her mother and I could do with a break from the human clutter of British Columbia's Lower Mainland, and kindly booked us accommodation for three nights on the Sunshine Coast: a pleasant destination that lies across water to the north west of Vancouver; and we would benefit by visiting during May - arguably the best month to be anywhere that is natural in BC. Jen hasn't been well, so this will be a pleasant break for her; I was just pleased to escape the tedious chore of fencing the garden, and it wasn't long before we…

Travels Around An English Spring…. Graveyards, and the Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes’ Pipe.

Each year I return to Southern England from British Columbia to visit my father, and during late March and early April catch up on what an English spring has to offer. This year was a bit different though, I arrived a little later than usual to attend my step-mother's funeral and take time with my father after the sad event. My father lives to the west of Southampton Water close to the New Forest; and having spent a lot of time filming and taking photographs in the area, I can seldom resist the opportunity to visit places familiar to me…

Dances With Lions.

Everybody who meets a lion in the wild has a story to tell and I am no exception - all the pictures of wild animals were taken on the Serengeti (apart from the Cape buffalo photographed at Ngorongoro Crater). When I was a child my first sighting of a lion was on a Tate & Lyle golden treacle tin, the one that showed up on the table whenever there was steamed pudding. On the front was a picture of a male lion surrounded by a swarm of bees: this, I was told showed the lion to be the king of the jungle…

When In Doubt – Go To The Beach.

I presently live in British Columbia, where the car number plates say 'Beautiful British Columbia' - but really, it isn't like that down on the Lower Mainland where there's a competition to see how quickly the whole area can be covered with houses; planning isn't an issue though because there doesn't seem to be too much of that - it's just one big urban sprawl of grey and drab cow dung coloured houses, which, more often than not, are oversized for the land that they stand upon - it's ugly stuff and to add to the nastiness of the burgeoning…

Are we too Stupid to Save the Planet? Part 2 – Beyond Rational Thinking.

From Gambling to God. For reasons that seem inexplicable there's no shortage of stupidity... It's everywhere... In politics, in the pub, even on street corners - out there at this very moment there will be somebody carrying a placard that says, 'The end of the world in nigh'... a person a bit like me perhaps, although my preference is to garner at least a little scientific evidence before making a startling claim. There's a man who stands at a road junction close to where I live, and he carries a sign that says, 'Jesus Comes Soon'. I've been wanting to tell…