Islay and Its Whiskies

For whisky fans and their travelling buddies.

This insightful and well-researched pocket guidebook is all you need to enhance your Islay visit. It is the ideal companion for the Scotch whisky dreamers and those who share a passion for Scotland’s islands.

Pop it in your back pocket and set off. Information at a glance with no need to plan or study beforehand.  

There are 10 world-famous Scotch whisky distilleries to discover, all with useful insider tips clearly listed. Islay’s other treasures are not forgotten either: ancient history, archaeology and Islay’s amazing bird life also feature.

There are suggested daily tour routes around Islay highlighting what to look out for. There are also details of day tours to the nearby Islands of Jura and Colonsay.

The author has been guiding groups from all over the world for almost 20 years and is very much aware of what visitors actually want. This guidebook has it all!

Journey to Beijing

This book gives an account of some amazing places which the author was fortunate to visit in China--from magical Guilin to historical Zunyi; from the stunning Three Gorges to tropical Hainan; from cities of the eastern provinces to the Avatar mountains of Zhangjiajie; from relaxing Xishuangbanna to hectic Hong Kong and Macau; and in the north from the Mongolian grasslands of Nei Menggu to the heart of it all: Beijing. Many people travel today, with something approaching 10,000,000 people in the air on an average day. Yet this is only a fraction of those who travel by other means. Why? For relaxation? For education? To get away? Or simply to say they have "been there"? On his own travels, the author saw many tourists arrive at a scene, struggle to get to a vantage point, get there, take the obligatory photograph and move on. They have not even looked, let alone appreciated where they are. All they are doing is ticking off places on their "bucket list". In this book, the author is striving to delve deeper, especially when it comes to the significance of Beijing.

Little Orange Nightbook

Written in the first person, these stories are designed to be read in bed just before you go to sleep. The way to enjoy this book is to follow the author’s intentions: read one letter each night, put in your bookmark, firmly resist the temptation to turn the page and read the next one, switch off the bedside light and go to sleep. That way you have nighttime reading – hence the book’s title – for a month, more or less, and at quiet moments during the course of each day you can, if you so fancy, speculate about what’ll be on the reading menu tonight: which country you’ll be transported to, and whether he’ll be telling you about something which happened to him last year or half a century ago. To read it straight through would be the equivalent of ordering a three-course meal of, say, tomato soup, poached salmon with a side salad followed by chocolate fudge cake with hot sauce – and then putting them all on the same plate and eating the mixture with a spoon. Of course, it’s a free country. But courses are served separately so that different flavours may be enjoyed.

If you’re now sufficiently intrigued, turn to page one and the Introduction.

Notes of a Shorewalker

Unhappy teaching and spurred on by an obsessive attraction to a young student, Catherine took a job in a hotel on the North Norfolk coast. The beauty of what she found made her want to discover more about Seashore life. These are notes she made on her walks.

Who are the Belarusians?

A Guide to Belarusians, Belarus and what makes the country unique.

Being on the crossroads between invading armies since time immemorial, Belarus has emerged with a growing sense of identity that sets them apart from their neighbours. The author opens the lid on the background, attitudes and behaviour of a people about which little is known.

‘Belarusians often describe themselves with the word ‘Pamiarkoŭnasć’. This spans the kaleidoscope of attitudes such as ‘moderation’, ‘self-restraint’, ‘patience’, ‘resignation’, ‘tolerance’ and an excessive interest in what other people think of them.’

‘Whereas in the UK politeness is generally applied in order to preserve a general sense of harmony, in Belarus it is selective and done for specific reasons and in specific contexts. A Belarusian is polite when the situation demands.’

‘In the bus, there may be an empty place in an otherwise crowded interior while many are standing uncomfortably. The empty seat is like the last biscuit on the plate – everybody wants it but are too polite to take it.’

‘Generally, the Belarusians are a law-abiding folk. This is not necessarily an instinctive need to adhere to the rules or a paranoia about the results of not following them. In fact in most cases, there is a feeling that it is better to stay within the rules which amount to one of the few uncertainties in life than to go out on a limb and risk unforeseen consequences.’

Chasing Our Dream in La Rochelle

When the newly married Gillian and Bill leave Britain for rural France, little could they imagine the adventures they will have: from expert house renovation to wily language-school owners, to becoming involved in village life. The pair embrace all that comes their way, especially Bill, whose eye for the French ladies becomes legendary.While the newly christened 'Gilly-Anne' makes her debut as an English teacher in a school at La Rochelle, Bill tackles their new investment: a ruined house with no water or electricity. Fortunately, they are helped generously by their new neighbours. So many customs to discover, so much to explore in their camping van before the couple finally succeed in making France their home.New author Gillian Broome has written about her experiences with whimsy and humour. For those who have sought a new life abroad or are dreaming about one, her book will be a source of inspiration"”or laughter.

Transit to India

Changing times bring changing outlooks but even back in 1984, well before the plethora of today’s health and safety laws and risk-averse attitudes, an overland school trip to far-off India was considered somewhat extreme. And doubly so, given that travel through Iran was unavoidable despite Iran at the time suffering the upheavals of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution and engagement in a bloody war with neighbouring country Iraq.

The idea behind this 10000-mile, eight-week journey was to present a ‘retired’ old school Ford Transit minibus to the charity ‘Lepra’ to aid its life-saving work among India’s rural poor. Ten pupils aged 12 to 16, accompanied by two teachers, made up the delivery crew, in so doing possibly making the longest school minibus trip ever undertaken. One of the boys travelling (aged 15 at the time) said recently: “Surviving all the adventures and hairy incidents, all I can say is that I set off as a boy and returned as a man.”

Two Old Farts, Boots, Map and Compass

This interesting and fun-loving book draws the reader into sharing many unique experiences of walking in the South Lake District, Bowland fells and the naturally drained conditions of the limestone link, stretching from Kirkby Lonsdale to Grange-over-Sands via Arnside, giving pleasant walk experiences during the wet winter months in England.

Leaving England behind, they catch the first flight out to their beloved Crete and villa for the summer months. Come along and enjoy the wonderful walks in the Psiloritis and Lefka Ori mountains and villages, explore the wild and beautiful gorges and visit many sites of great archaeological interest.

Read the tales of helping friends plant beetroot and artichokes, pick and tread grapes the old traditional way and watch raki being made in one of the mountain villages. Read about parties with Cretan friends in the moonlit warm evenings and BBQs in a quiet olive grove after helping friends clear the land beneath the trees. Enjoy the many experiences that the average tourist never sees.

Tales of Travels and Trains

Jim Nicholls takes readers on a journey like no other. Visit places as remote as the Zulu battlefields in South Africa, learn about an inventor who made the first heavier-than-air flight before the Wright brothers, and take in an Easter church service in a small Portuguese town.

All this and more are held together by tales of trains ranging from a tiny rail motor in the Queensland outback to a wild ride in Borneo. Experience Switzerland and America from the windows of a train.

Train travel opens a window on the world, allowing a visual eavesdropping and intrusion into a country’s backyard that, if done in any other form, would probably result in arrest. Trains have it all, they convert the journey into the adventure. Real people travel on trains.

Discussing with a young girl from New Zealand how one meets interesting and friendly people on such journeys, she neatly summed it up: ‘Yeah, how many nice people do you ever meet on an aeroplane?’

Trampled by Tapir and Other Tales from a Globe-Trotting Naturalist

Pete Oxford is an award-winning photographer with images and stories appearing in the likes of National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Time and Outdoor Photography Magazine – which named him one of the top 40 most influential nature photographers in the world. He has travelled to each continent many times. Wearing different hats, he has been privileged to know many of the world’s most remote and pristine destinations as a professional wildlife photographer, an expedition leader on adventure tourism ships, a professional naturalist and on his own personal quests. Pete has a deep knowledge of all things natural and you will find yourself enthralled by this collection of short stories from his exhaustive travels. At times you will laugh out loud at the hilarity of the tales, then be blindsided by a short, thought-provoking sentence. Pete reveals his most embarrassing moments, his fears, his triumphs, his insights and his uninhibited passion for the wild. It is an inspiration to immerse yourself on a journey of adventure and discovery in the natural world.

Travel With A Gavel

‘I was a most unlikely traveller. Growing up in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, I had no great ambitions to travel other than to visit friends and family within a two- or three-mile radius. From the age of 11, I had to take the bus each day to the nearest grammar school, 10 miles away in Omagh. Apart from that there was an annual, one-day, bus trip to Bundoran, a small seaside town in County Donegal. That was more than enough travelling for me. At the age of 19, I had never been to Belfast or Dublin, and didn’t feel I had missed anything.
Sixty-two years later, when I sat down to write this travelogue, I realised that in the intervening years I had visited seventy-five countries and all five continents, many of the countries visited multiple times. How had I morphed from someone with little interest in travel into someone who was ready to fly off to anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat? Were the wanderlust seeds sown in my formative years or was I bitten by the travel bug after accepting an offer to represent Northern Ireland at an international conference?
I begin by trying to answer that question before going on to recount my unique experiences and perceptions, gathered from over 30 years of travel, along with insights into different countries, places and peoples. I hope you will agree that the outcome presents as a rich and illuminating read.’

Two Suitcases full of Kangaroos

Passport? Check!

Suitcases? Check!

Kangaroos? Check!

And we’re off! If you enjoy travel, having a laugh, are a keen conversationalist and even keener historian and lover of brilliant architecture, then these trips are for you!

Take care to cosy on down in your seat, and choose your fellow seat-mate discerningly because one foot on the buses and there’s no looking back.

Tempted? Then make haste to hobble, hurdle or haul yourself up the gleaming silver steps of these ‘Laugh a minute’ luxury coaches and await further hilarious instructions. Rest assured you will never be able to look a tour guide straight in the eye ever again without thinking of Aston, Gilda, Stan or Hugh (no, not puppies).

From the wilds of Cornwall to cosy little Irish pubs, from pirate coves to magnificent Gothic churches, and from the oceans to the mountains across the valleys and windswept moors – these two coach tours have it all. Not to mention the mystery of the tiny, furry kangaroos.