What is the best passport in the world?  And the worst?

A comparison of the passport “value” of various countries makes interesting reading.

It’s easy to assume that a British or American passport would open more immigration doors than any other.

Not so, by quite a margin.

Just finished a road trip around North Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand, starting in Christchurch, taking in Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura and finishing back in Christchurch. It’s a popular circuit called the Alpine Triangle.

We made it a three-day long weekend jaunt, but I would suggest you make it at least four days, even better five.

The eagle has landed. Snapped this shot of a Haast Eagle sculpture on the road from Queenstown to Glenorchy at the head of NZ’s Lake Wakatipu.

Glenorchy-based sculptor Dan Kelly used century-old steel fence standards from a high country station to create this 1.2m high sculpture of the now extinct bird, in its time the top predator in the New Zealand.

Take a break from the rigours of the road when you are enjoying your Great British Road Trip.

Catch a canal boat.

Having nearly fallen into irrecoverable decay, the canals of Britain are enjoying a renaissance, thanks mostly to the indomitable efforts of volunteers who repair, rebuild and resurrect these great industrial and commercial highways.

So now you, dear traveller, can enjoy one of life’s quieter pleasures.

Sorry Britain – there’s no such thing as spaghetti bolognese . . . not in Italy, as I discovered on a recent visit to Bologna.

It is, like chicken tikka masala, entirely an English invention and, according to any Italian cook, not one of the better ones.

Nonetheless it is a compulsory item on the menu in any one of Britain’s 4700+ Italian restaurants.

The Lady Driver and I specifically stopped off in Bologna to have spag bog in what we assumed was its native habitat.

On the dinner-time taxi ride into the old city, our driver realigned our gastronomical thinking.

How would you like to watch the sun rise at Stonehenge on the day of the summer solstice? No problem. We can do this.

Usually that would involve being there with over 20,000 of your closest pagan friends. Not this strange year. The event will be eerily quiet yet millions of people will be watching it.

For the first time ever, English Heritage, the organisation that manages the site, will livestream the rising of the sun on the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day but there will be no-one, other than production crew, at the site itself.

There’s an awful lot of bullswool talked about finding cheap airfares. All manner of self-styled “experts” will tell you how to find that absolutely amazingly cheap air fare.

Sorry to give you a large slosh of cold water but here are some questions with answers you mightn’t like:

• Is there a “best” day to buy air fares? No.
• Is there a “best” site on which to find the cheapest air fare? No.
• Do airlines track your browsing habits and up the fares accordingly? No.
• Can some websites predict price movements? No.
• Is there a “best” time to book? Maybe.
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What is it about train travel that is so alluring? Is it just a harking back to simpler days? Is it just another manifestation of the retro thing?

Whatever.

I hadn’t been on a train in donkey’s years, but having done the Ghan last year I now found myself sitting in one of the 1^st class cabins on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai overnight train.

Ok, it sounds a bit poncey to be in 1^st class. I sure as hell can’t afford it on an aeroplane, but at my great age I really can’t see me doing the all-in-together-in-one-big-happy-party of a second class carriage.

Besides, the trip cost me 2430 Thai baht to have a compartment all to myself. That’s about $US75. Why would you not, especially given that it avoids a night‘s accommodation?