South Australia’s green scene

South Australia is arguably the most eco friendly destination down under says writer and well-known British environmentalist, Tony Juniper

One size fits all in Australia: part two

Australia accommodates everyone’s idea of a perfect holiday, from four-year-olds to grannies, reports Pippa Jacks

National Travel Health Network and Centre

From the website:

“The National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) promotes standards in travel medicine, providing travel health information for health professionals and the public.

NaTHNaC is funded by the Health Protection Agency.”

Explore Shandong

Heading to China in the year of the Dragon? Seek out Shandong – steeped as it is in myth and supernatural allure

Grass Cutting at the Weekend That’s Different

If you scan down the 750 or so items listed in our events column you will find strange, amusing and oddish ones that reflect the make up of our countries. Take, for example, the National Scything Championships at the annual Green Scythe Fair that were held exactly a week ago at Thorney Lakes in Somerset. Who does go to fairs like this? How much interest can there be apart maybe, from enthusiastic scythers?
Quite a lot seems to be the answer because record crowds gathered including lots of children. What is a record crowd for an event like this I hear you ask? 50? 500? The answer is more than 2,000 for what I would have thought was of only little interest. How wrong I am.
According to the organisers scything is a sport. Agriculture’s answer to snowboarding.

Airline Passengers at the Centre of Thinking

Last Wednesday saw the opening of a new terminal at Bournemouth Airport. It cost £45 million and was planned when airport growth was expected to grow to 3 million passengers by 2015. The recession has put paid to such growth, or at least, so far. Many passengers have already passed through the hall since it has been open since March. It’s just the official opening was two months later! Now the owners, Manchester Airport Group (owners of Manchester, East Midlands and Humberside as well) are turning their attention to arrivals hall which has seen better days. That will be refurbished by summer 2011.
This opening has coincided with a speech on the state of the air transport industry by the director-general, Giovanni Bisignani, of IATA (International Air Transport Association) the airline membership body. Yes, I could tell you how the industry is back to about 80% of its pre recession levels and that the volcanic eruption has cost airlines $1.8 billion but that even after all this they estimate that airlines will make about $1.9 billion profit this year.
No let’s discuss passengers because we sometimes get overlooked in the push for profits and making life easier for airlines.

Museums at Night

Starting today is Museums at Night, the once a year activity when museums across the countries stay open late so that you can see their collections in a different light. In fact it is not just in our countries that this happens. All over Europe, museums take part, sometimes staying open all night so that you can see things completely differently from daytime. Be quick though because it only last from the 14-16 May.
Here is just a quick rundown of what is available around some of the museums. For the rest go to www.culture24.org.uk/museumsatnight.