Curtin Express

Some things are best left unopened – particularly when they contain dark secrets. David Paget should have thought of that when he agreed to collect a suitcase from Hong Kong and take it to Australia. The contents look too old to be threatening. But appearances can be deceptive. Like a genie from a bottle the past rushes in. Events develop with alarming speed and David is propelled on a mad flight through the vastness of Australia, pursued by hired killers. His friends mount a rescue operation. To succeed, they must delve into the past and find the reason for his plight.   Genre: mystery thriller.

 

  

Paperback: $9.50 from my US page on Amazon 

 

FREE FREE FREE:  For a limited time I am offering Curtin Express as a free ebook (PDF, 3.5 MB).  It has over 350 pages and 100 colour pics and looks great on PC, iPad, iPhone, and most other readers. DOWNLOAD NOW

 

Travel China – Tibet

The train was equipped with oxygen masks. It climbed the steady gradient through tunnels and over gorges on a track that had been completed a few months earlier. Lhasa now had a rail link with China’s coastal cities. The track and the train were symbols of a nation on the move, determined to make up for lost time and join the technologically advanced world as quickly as possible.

 

Travel China – Three Gorges cruise

The lake created by the Three Gorges Dam stretches all the way to the city of Congqing in the west and this is a good place to start a cruise down the Yangtze.

Travel China – Shanghai

It’s one of the world’s most dynamic cities and has been for a long time. The Europeans identified Shanghai as the place to do business and dominate China when the country was weak. It was a stronghold of the Mao Zedong communists in the early days of the revolution. Its present ambition is to surpass Singapore and Hong Kong and become the leading financial centre of the region. Shanghai is an interesting and exciting place.

 

China Travel – Nanjing

Nanjing was founded almost three thousand years ago and was formerly China’s capital. The Nanjing Treaty of 1842, following the first of the so-called “opium wars”, granted Hong Kong to Britain. The war was over the “right” of foreigners to sell opium to Chinese nationals. Imagine the Mexicans insisting on their “right” to sell drugs to Americans.

Travel China – Lhasa

Old Lhasa is still there. The ancient shrines and houses continue to stand beside the Potola Palace but the scene is changing fast. Modern steel and concrete buildings are sprouting up. I’m reminded of what happened to old Jerusalem.

Travel China – Huang Shan Mountains

We have all seen Chinese paintings of misty mountains with trees and temples hanging in space. It is a very old style and I used to think of it as pure fantasy. Then I went to China and was surprised to discover how close it comes to real life.

Sex orgies at sea

Graduate students at James Cook University of North Queensland are engaged in pioneering studies of sex orgies …

 

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef stretches for over 1500 km (1000 miles) along the tropical Queensland coast, from Rockhampton in the south to the tip of Cape York Peninsular in the far north. It is not continuous, as the name suggests, but is made up of hundreds of individual reefs. Some are tens of kilometres across. Others are much smaller.

Tibetan cool guy

I’ve met a few memorable people in my life and one was a Tibetan guy who organised the logistics for our climbing trip in the Himalayas. I injured my foot early in the proceedings and spent a lot of time with him while the rest of my party was away in the mountains. We knew him as Kangri. His parents called him by a different sounding name.