1990s

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1999

A visit to Melbourne in the New Year and a long weekend in Madrid. We loved the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum there.

	Restaurant Botin in Madrid - the oldest in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Hemingway allegedly ate there, and Goya washed dishes.		We also ate at this Mexican restaurant a few doors away - note the sign "Hemingway never ate here"!
	The back garden of my parents' house in Melbourne.		Melbourne from the banks of the Yarra river.
	South Kensington - Australian style.		"Puffing Billy" - a steam railway my father helped restore.

1997

We were married in July near Godstone in Surrey and had a honeymoon in Venice (in October).

	By the lake behind the restaurant where we were married. This photo copyright © Chris Rutter LMPA 1997 - a personal friend and highly recommended photographer.		Me on the Basilica San Marco.
	The Rialto bridge from a vaporetto.		A "back street" from a Gondola.

1996

On holiday in Cairns and Sydney in Australia, stopping in California on the way back.

	A strangler fig at Cape Tribulation. This amazing plant lodges in the upper branches of a tree (where there is sunlight), then drops a series of roots all the way to the ground. These roots eventually fuse together, completely surrounding and strangling the original host tree.		A crocodile basking beside the Daintree river.
	Amanda in "The Rocks" area of Sydney.		A great picture Amanda took of an aboriginal making fire at the Tjabukai park at Kuranda, near Cairns in Queensland.
	A nice shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge taken by Amanda.		The ruins of the governor's house and the prison on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco bay.
	Jellyfish in Monterey Aquarium, California.		The San Andreas fault, north of San Francisco - the epicentre of the 1906 earthquake. The two fences were one before the slip.
	Mum and Dad on the back veranda of the family home in Melbourne, taken by neighbour Frank O'Regan.		Sovereign Hill, a reconstructed gold rush town at Ballarat, Victoria.

1995

A three-week tour of China, my most interesting recent holiday.

	Karst (limestone) mountains and the village of Guilin in China, with me on a bad hair day. You've probably seen these mountains and the winding river in pictures in Chinese restaurants, and thought they were an exaggeration. It was not as tranquil as it seems because of the constant sound of car horns from the valley.		On the Great Wall of China (a steep bit, away from the crowds). A stunning and beautiful sight - the scale of it is mind-boggling, especially considering its age and manual construction.
	A street in Wuxi. I asked our guide what the sign around one of the doors said - it was "Video Rental Shop"! We were initially puzzled by the bowls of water in the street, used for finding bicycle punctures.		Astronomical instruments at the oldest observatory, in Beijing.
	Me with Frank and June LeBlanc, the other members of my tour. An example of the mix of plants and weathered rock with holes favoured by the Chinese.		A placard in Tian An Men square, counting the days (754) until the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule.
	One of the terracotta warriors near Xi'an.		More terracotta warriors - the headgear denoted rank.
	Macau, a former Portuguese colony now returned to Chinese rule. Note the façade in the foreground, preserved without the body of the church.		Boat trains on the "grand canal" from Wuxi to Suzhou. Our boat had just passed through that gap!
	Jacquard looms (using punched cards) still in use in Hangzhou.		A building in Guangzhou (Canton) being demolished (right behind our hotel, unfortunately) entirely by hand, in scorching heat.

1994

Working in Sunrise, Florida (west of Fort Lauderdale) for several months, and on holiday in Poland.

	"Seven mile bridge" in the Florida Keys, running just above the surface of the ocean as far as the eye can see, on the way to Key West one weekend.		Pink flamingos at Busch Gardens, a theme park on the west coast of Florida.
	The launch of space shuttle Columbia on mission sts-65, from about 8 miles away. Strangely silent at that distance, but spectacular nevertheless.		Just visible less than a minute later.
	The "rocket garden" at Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Note the ever-present tropical thunderclouds - we were not allowed off the bus in case we were hit by lightning.		Wind plants hanging from trees on a "Hammock" in the Florida everglades. Apparently they get all their nourishment from the air, using the trees only for support.
	A baroque building in Staromestska square in Prague, visited on the way home from Poland.		"Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. The most deeply disturbing place I have visited. Detailed architectural plans for its construction had recently been discovered.
	Sculptures in salt (discoloured by pollution over the centuries) deep underground in the Wieliczka salt mine in Poland. Now threatened by flooding, sadly.		Ornate buildings in Kazimierz in Eastern Poland.
	The river Danube and the parliament building in Budapest, visited on a day trip from Vienna after a meeting there.

1993

	A curious cactus garden in a village called Ézé, near Nice in the south of France. I had a free weekend between ETSI standards meetings and decided to explore the Côte d'Azur.		A monastery beside Lake Como in northern Italy, on a day trip from Milan.
	The Palácio da Pena in Sintra, southern Portugal (after another standards meeting).		All the famous port and sherry manufacturers in Oporto, Portugal.

1991

Working in San Jose, California for seven months, touring around on weekends and between Christmas and New Year (nearly 4,000 miles in one week!).

	Off to play at a wedding - we called ourselves "Col Legno" (with the wood, a style of bowing) and played light classical music.		Söll, in Austria, where I spent a week learning to ski with some colleagues from Racal-Datacom. As you can see, there wasn't much snow around that year but we had fun anyway.
	"Breaking the Piñata". The staff at Racal-Vadic in Milpitas, California taking turns to be blindfolded and then attempting to break a papier mache donkey full of sweets.		The video mixing desk at a public access cable television studio in Mountain View, California. At that time, cable television companies had to provide a public access channel as a condition of their licence.
	Lake Tahoe (and a funicular) in Northern California. I spent a day learning to ski near here in winter, but this picture was taken on a day trip in summer. One of the most beautiful places I have ever visited....		...but all was not well in paradise. The sign reads: "PLAGUE WARNING. Chipmunks, ground squirrels, and other wild rodents in this area have been found to be infected with Plague...If you or your pet become ill within 7 days of visiting this area seek medical attention...Do not camp, sit or sleep on the ground close to rodent burrows." Lyme disease had also been found in the area.
	The "Society for Creative Anachronisms" re-enact life in medieval times for fun, making elaborate costumes and "jousting" (with cardboard weapons) as seen here.		"Old Faithful" geyser (one of several worldwide) which erupts quite spectacularly every 40 minutes or so. Worth the wait.
	A petrified tree, millions of years old, with the wood now completely replaced by minerals, but retaining the original shape. Part of a whole petrified forest north of San Francisco, thought to have been buried millions of years ago by a volcanic explosion.		London Bridge, shipped to Lake Havasu in Arizona brick by brick and now spanning the Colorado River instead of the Thames. Rumour has it that the owners thought they were buying Tower Bridge.
	The Grand Canyon in Arizona. Far and away the most stunning sight I have ever personally witnessed. Of course, the picture can't do it justice - it is huge. I spent only a couple of hours on the rim - I would love to go back for a closer look someday.		A steep street in San Francisco, with part of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. The cable cars are great fun, but not very practical since you can walk from one end of the line to the other in the time it usually takes to queue for a ride.
	A "flash flood" at Universal Studios theme park near Los Angeles.		The "Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Rail Road".
	A "wind farm" generating power in California.		My friend Ruth Hamilton kindly supplying music at a cocktail party at the house I shared.

Most pictures on this page were taken with a Pentax Espio 70 compact camera, then scanned from slides with a Plustek OpticPro UT12 scanner and reduced in resolution for the web.

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