If you are into airplanes, then this is the place for you: Britain's National Museum of aviation features over 70 full-sized aircraft including a unique collection of British, German and Italian planes.
The Museum also houses a flight simulator, 'Touch and Try' Jet Provost Trainer and Sunderland Flying Boat 'walk through' experience.
Address: Grahame Park Way, NW9.
Open: Daily, 1000-1800
Tube: Colindale Rail: Mill Hill Broadway.
Enquiries: 020 8205 2266 Entrance: FREE.
Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on airport codes. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!
Which cities are served by airports with the following codes:
For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.
U. S. Soldiers Home, Mac: I am a compulsive reader and pick up any newspaper, any printed matter I see laying around and start reading.
This is from January 14, 2003 issue of Examiner newsmagazine. Nick Jeffreys write about a guy walking around the world. The walker is Karl Bushby from Hull, England. He is a 33 years old ex-paratrooper. He began the walk Nov l, l998 at the tip of Chile. Has walked 12,00 miles so far going through Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico. He goes 20 miles a day every day and has nine years to go.
He started out with $500 sewn into his jacket (I would probably absent mindedly lay the jacket down some place.) His mom and dad send money and replace his boots every 1,178 miles. His website is www.earthtrekuk.net and there is a lot of info on it, about Karl, why he is doing it, his Colombian girlfriend and more.
He pulls a small aluminium cart with his gear tent, sleeping bag, food, and water behind him When his provisions run out, he lives off the land. A picture of the cart shows that it has large wheels. I always like large wheels on carts as they pull easier and easier to pull up and down stairs. He was in a Panamanian jail for l8 days “in a stinking cell with crooks of all varieties,” for not having the correct visa.
When his journey is over in 2010 he is not sure what he will do next. “But he has a lot of time to think about it. “ Maybe I will just throw myself in front of the TV and never move again.” If I am ever thrown out of the soldier’s home I live in, I hope he will loan me his cart and I will try to follow in his footsteps, although, at 79 I may just be dreaming!
Would you like to take part in a documentary we are currently making for Channel 4? It is provisionally titled Travellers Tales, and is about travellers who have experienced tropical illnesses. Perhaps… you unwittingly transported a bot-fly home from a remote destination? You got lost at sea? You are being de-wormed for tapeworms? You were made part of drug smuggling scam? You were held hostage by terrorists? You left the country on a mission to solve a medical mystery? You survived a natural calamity? Or are you still staggered by a memorable bout of Delhi Belly? Perhaps you even know a British traveller currently receiving treatment in a clinic or hospital abroad?
I would like to hear about your experience of the places you have been to in addition to accounts of any illnesses you might have had. I am concerned with illnesses ranging from diarrhoea to dengue and would be very interested to hear your story – funny or painful – with a view to including it in the documentary. Should you be interested in taking part, your journeys will be portrayed accurately and responsibly.
The idea is to tell people's cautionary tales as a way of helping viewers understand the need to prepare for travel to far flung places in the world and to offer some suggestions of how to deal with problems should they arise.
If you have a gripping story to tell or know anyone who has been afflicted by long haul travel OR have faced unplanned challenges, please do get in touch. If you have been ill contact catherine.brindley@rdfmedia.com If you have a story to tell about the severe hardships you faced the please contact danny.horan@rdfmedia.com
If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites
Matt is a volunteer at the Old Boma, Mikindani, Southern Tanzania.
During a visit last year to Mikindani, I was informed of a physiotherapist working in Nyanguo mission hospital and having now started my degree in this subject I decided to try and gain some experience. Arriving I was happy to find the hospital staff willing to have me for the day.
Physiotherapy is a treatment supplementary to medicine and aims to bring people back to as high a possible level of recovery. In its simplest form it is finding out what a patient wishes to achieve and working towards that by doing things differently or using treatments. I had the opportunity to go on the ward rounds at the hospital and saw many patients and got to see the differences of practices here in Tanzania compared to the UK.
The cause of hospitalisation can be more bizarre here: one patient had been washing his hands in a river when a crocodile bit his arm. Although he was severely wounded there was no loss of nervous tissue, so exercises could be done to help him regain hand movements. Another patient had fallen from a coconut tree and broke his back so was regaining strength in his upper body after prolonged traction.
Physiotherapists can have time to sit and talk to patients, which allows you to find out a lot more about them, their problems, and local life. A female road worker suffering from ‘good old lower back pain’ revealed that she had visited a witch doctor, which had resulted in infection and incidentally, increased pain.
The most rewarding part of the day was spending time with one small girl who had fractured her femur, trying to get her to use small crutches. She was very active and enthusiastic, and after some effort she could manage alone. We also visited the paediatric ward to play ball games with the kids to keep them active. Here the physiotherapist had done a great job building relationships with the children, which made it easy to fit in and create conversation with them.
The sight of a child overwhelmed by cancerous growths or a victim of major burn injuries was not pleasant but obviously these sorts of things are expected in hospitals. However, unfortunately all of the cases were affected by the patients' financial situation and therefore ability to pay fro treatment. Without payment, treatments are not given and, this being true of government hospitals also, many people are left to suffer. I could only be left thinking how much luckier we are to have the British National Health Service to fall back on.
However having read several articles about hinting that only the ‘dark’ side of Africa it told, I always try to pick out the magical things here of which there are many. A wedding is such a colourful and happy event, and the end of Ramadan is always an event to remember with the children dressed in new clothing and adults enjoying the night. Everything I have experienced here thus far seems to be more enhanced than at home and I encourage anyone to come and see things for themselves.
For more information about Trade Aid, volunteers and their work, please visit their website www.mikindani.com
Visitor figures to the Balearic Islands have slumped because of a controversial eco-tax introduced just a year ago.
The tax, (around £12 million raised so far) paid by tourists to the islands, started in May 2002 to counter the environmental damage caused by mass tourism.
The levy proved very unpopular with families visiting Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza or Formentera as it added as much as £70 to their total holiday cost.
The tax now looks likely to be abolished by the islands' newly-elected government.
“Ladies and Gentlemen do you want the good news first or the bad news?
“The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. I felt sadly let down by the fact that none of you sent me a card! I drive you to work and home each day and not even a card.”
“The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means that we probably won't reach our destination for a good ninety minutes yet. We may have to stop and return. I won't reverse back up the line – simply get out, walk up the platform and go back to where we started. In the meantime if you get bored you can simply talk to the man in front or beside you or opposite you.”
“Let me start you off: “Hi, my name's Gary how do you do?”
After staying overnight in San Pedro, in Northern Chile, we were off again, hot footing it down the highway bound for Santiago. But on the way we discovered that Chile has the most marvellous loos (washrooms), as I’ve said earlier, every service station welcomes one with hot water, toilet paper, toilet attendants who seem to take a pride in keeping their domain clean … And our group pigged out on ice cream, chocolate, crisps and other fattening snacks from the Esso shop! Then we discovered La Serena, a seaside resort in Chile with the most marvellous shops. I am ashamed to say we revelled in the cleanliness, the sheer European look of the place and again lots of money was spent on clothes and food and stocking up on film and even one of our members bought a tent in order to free himself from a two-man tent which wasn’t really big enough for him and his companion!
And so on to Santiago, a place we could have done with staying in a little longer but unfortunately, time was short. We arrived in the late afternoon, stayed just two nights and were away very early on the second morning, having acquired two new people and reacquired one of our members who was supposed to leave us in Santiago and join another truck as we had three new people supposedly joining us, but at the last minute, the third new person had slipped a disc and was unable to come so our departing member was suddenly rejoining us, much to our pleasure as we have all bonded now and were sorry enough to see two of our group depart at the end of their respective trips, one to return to Scotland and the other to Australia.
And so I am now in Pucón and here we stay for three days. There is a volcano to climb, horse riding to be done, rafting and trekking, etc, but at the moment all yours truly is doing is catching up on e-mails and chilling out. There is a lovely lake to go and sit beside or wander around and for the time being I am going to do my own thing and try and get some time to myself – all this togetherness tends to pall after a while and it is nice to say – “Cheerio,” to the people taking packed lunches off to their various day long activities and to as it were, mentally close the door on them and take my shoes off, put my feet up and relax!
From Pucón we went on to Bariloche, which is a small but interesting little town and I would have liked to stay there longer than the one night but it wasn’t to be. We camped outside of Bariloche for just the one night (I hate these one nighters, all that trouble of putting the tent up for 12 hours and then taking it down again) but that’s life on the road! From Bariloche we went to a place called Perito Moreno where again we spent the one night and then on to our next port of call, a place called El Chalten. We stayed here for three nights when members of our group went rafting (two fell out into the river and got quite a fright) and others went glacier walking leaving the camp site at 0500 in the morning and not getting back until 2100. They said they had a good time and although quite a frightening and challenging one as well as the weather was none too good up high and they were all very sore from muscles that were overstrained.
My friend Judith and I went on a long, long trek that was meant to last 8 hours but in fact stretched out to 12 hours as we took a different path on the way back and discovered it was a very circuitous route. Needless to say we were exhausted by the finish as we had left at 0820 and got back at 2045! Luckily the group had got a barbecue going and we arrived just at serving up time! And we beat the glacier walkers who clocked in just 15 minutes later. But the first part of our trek was fantastic. We were walking to view some glaciers rather than walk them and for the whole of our walk, the full 8 hours, on the outward and return journey, we were seeing those beautiful snow clad peaks with their blue glaciers shimmering in the sunshine and could not resist taking picture after picture after picture of virtually the same scene but seen from different aspects. I dare say we will both throw away most of them but we were enthralled. And when we eventually arrived at the foot of the glacier (still out of sight) we had to cross a fast flowing river coming down from the glacier and there were only two logs straddling each other with no handholds.
Luckily, there was a man who had attempted to cross with other women and he was standing astride the logs in the centre of the stream and another man was assisting us from the bank so we managed somehow to straddle the logs in a prone position and inch our way across with help! Judith went first and so I had to follow but my heart was in my mouth the whole time and I didn’t dare think of what might happen if I slipped or the man helping me lost his hand hold on me! But I got over and it was a great achievement. Then after a walk up a gentle slope we came to a real hard climb with lots of loose shale and small boulders with hardly any hand holds and only the occasional prickly bush to grab hold of and immediately let go of and so often it was a case of scrabbling on hands and knees to get up to the top. But finally we managed to get to the first summit, so to speak only to find a downward slope leading to another upward slope, but we were determined to carry on and it was well worth it as when we did get to the foot of the actual glacier it was the most beautiful sight we had seen in a long time as there was a brilliant blue lake and these fantastic glaciers cascading down the mountain. We sat and ate our lunch there and just marvelled at the scenery and of course took heaps more photos. But we were the only two to do this particular walk because the members of our group had gone to see a completely different more popular glacier in the opposite direction to us.
If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk
Swiss based global travel group, Kuoni has announced that it will stop operating in Burma from the end of the 2003. The move is said to be due to recent events in Asia and low public demand. The MD of Kuoni said “However, we very much look forward to returning to Burma once the British public demands it back, which we expect to happen as soon as democracy is restored in Burma.”
Kuoni was under pressure from UK activist groups including the Burma Campaign UK and Friends of the Earth, both of which – in conjunction with Burma’s democracy movement – are calling for a boycott of companies doing business with what they call “one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world”.
Have you been to Burma? If so, the Beetle would love to hear from you.
Details: www.kuoni.com / www.burmacampaign.org.uk