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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Are We Too Stupid to Save The Planet? Part 1: The Limitations of Perception.

It's nothing personal - lurking in every human brain is the potential for stupidity. Most of us think, or at least hope, that there are people out there who are far stupider than we are; and the confidence this provides, helps us feel better about ourselves; which suggests perhaps that we don't live so much in the outside World as much as inside our heads, experiencing a virtual world brought about by our brains interpretation of external stimuli. Whatever the case, few of us are critically analytical about the way we think, or question why our brains work the way they…

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The Down Side of Remote Pacific Islands – The Disappearing Species of Hawai’i.

The Hawaiian Islands were formed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by tumultuous volcanic activity - this is still happening and is presently centred on the Big Island, Hawai'i. Mt Kilauea on the south-east side of this island remains active and has been spewing lava almost continuously since 1984. Put simply, Hawaii is moving steadily over a hot spot that lies beneath the Pacific Plate. To the west and more central to the island is the volcanic mass of Mauna Loa which rises just short of 13,700 feet; it has erupted only twice since 1950: once in 1975 for a day, and…

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New Zealand and Hawaii. Remote Islands and Why Each One Is Different.

Given the many problems caused by humans to the various species living on Pacific Islands, their rapid decline seems inevitable, but to a degree this process was happening naturally, long before we showed up. Such losses and gains were, and still are, dependent upon many factors, but as a general rule, smaller islands exhibit a greater turn over than do larger islands; and the arrival of man has now pushed the losses to the level of a major extinction event, with both New Zealand and Hawaii exhibiting clear examples of the problem.  I mentioned Hawaii's carnivorous caterpillars in a previous…

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The Down Side of Remote Pacific Islands – The Disappearing Species of New Zealand.

Hawai'i is the third largest island in the Pacific after the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Each has a reputation for beautiful landscapes but all have experienced extraordinary losses of their unique flora and fauna. When man arrived on Pacific Islands, most low altitude habitats were rapidly degraded and indigenous species either lost or pushed into rapid decline; but sadly many people fail to recognise the problem. On islands where there are higher altitudes many indigenous species cling on, but invariably they are compromised in some way, in particular by introduced pests.  To the casual observer Pacific Islands appear…

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