Singapore in 5 Photos

I recently spent 5 months travelling around South East Asia, across 6 countries: Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Sultanate of Brunei, the Philippines and Indonesia. I messed up the symmetry there but at one stage I was looking at travelling 6 months across 7 countries, so it would never have worked out! I thought I would…

Chasing Lenin – The Ukraine Edition

Hi All, Given my limited blogging on this page for some time, you could easily be mistaken for thinking I have not been travelling much but on the contrary I pretty much haven’t stopped travelling for the past year! I just lost the drive to blog about it! Don’t worry I am still going to…

Tanks, Roll Out!

At the recent Flying Heritage Collection Skyfair 2014 at Paine Field in Everett, Washington they had a little diversion from the aviation displays. A part of their collection includes World War Two tanks and on this event they were driving around their American M4A1 Sherman and Soviet era KMDB (Main Design Bureau) T-34/85 medium tanks….

The Siegfried Line

In 2012 whilst touring World War Two battlefield sites of the Battle of the Bulge (Germany’s last major western front offensive of the 1944/45 winter) in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg I realised I was very close to the German border and also the remnants of the old Siegfried Line. I knew it would be the perfect bookend…

Warsaw: Visions of the Past

Much like Berlin in Germany, by the end of World War Two the city of Warsaw, Poland lay in ruins. While Berlin was turned to rubble from round the clock Allied bombing and fighting, much of the damage in Warsaw was done by the Germans themselves. Firstly during the invasion of Poland in September 1939 that started the war, then during…

Berlin: Visions of the Past

I was looking over my old travel photos from Europe this week. Whilst viewing some 2005 shots of Berlin, Germany I thought it may be interesting to see what the same landmarks and buildings looked like in 1945 at the end of World War Two. A very stark contrast from 60 years later! From 1942 onwards the Allied forces…

Canadian War Museum – Part II: LeBreton Gallery

The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Canada is a must see for anyone interested in military history. The displays of equipment and vehicles is impressive and covers the entire scope of Canada’s military history from the First Nations and Colonial times to the modern age. My previous blog covered the majority of the display halls, but my favourite part of the…

Canadian War Museum – Part I

When visiting Ottawa in Ontario, Canada if you have any interest in military history you must not miss the world-class Canadian War Museum. The impressive looking museum covers every period in which Canadians have been involved in some form of conflict and the main galleries are in historical chronological order. The galleries start out with Battleground which covers…

D-Day June 6th, 1944: 69th Anniversary

Today marks the 69th anniversary of D-Day or “Operation Overlord” which was the largest seaborne and airborne invasion ever staged. This massive undertaking by the Allies on the beaches of Normandy in France in 1944 was the beginning of the end for the German Third Reich and Hitler’s reign over Europe. If you would like…

Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum at “Pucka”

The Armoured Corps of most nations armies originally started as horse borne cavalry units. With the introduction of the tank  in World War One by the British who first used Mark I tanks on the Somme battlefield in France on September 15th, 1916 the face of warfare changed completely (they were introduced to break the back of trench warfare). Cavalry…

Remembrance Day 2012

They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. ~ Laurence Binyon Lest we forget 11am on November 11th marks Remembrance Day when the armistice was signed by Germany…

The Cathedral of the Wimmera – Murtoa’s Big Stick Shed

I was born and have lived on and off over the years in the Wimmera region of the state of Victoria in Australia. The majority of this region is predominately farmland and to be honest there are not many prominent large historic buildings out that way that have survived modern progress. There is one huge…