Bradley Cooper back for one last Hollywood ‘Hangover’
 
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The Wanderer

Making Tracks…
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Return of the Iron Horse

By Paul Ash | 2013-05-14 16:42:26

A sprawling Free State farm returned to the steam age last week.

narrow gauge, Garratt, steam locomotive, South Africa

Garratts slumber in the smoky Sandstone engine shed

Twenty-two restored steam locomotives were fired-up and spent the week hauling trains on the 26km-long narrow gauge railway that picks its way through the maize fields and under the sandstone buttresses on Sandstone Estates near Ficksburg. Read More…

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May the wind be at your back. Tall ships head for Cape Town

By Paul Ash | 2013-04-09 13:57:24

Three Dutch sailing ships are presently heading across the southern Atlantic to Cape Town.

Oosterschelde, tall ships, sailing ships, ship, sail, Atlantic Ocean

Oosterschelde at sea. Click on the photo

The three vessels – the bark Europa, the Oosterschelde and the Tecla have embarked on a voyage to trace the route of the great Dutch explorers Abel Tasman and Cornelis de Houtman during which they will round the three notorious capes named by Dutch sailors – Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin and Cape Horn. Read More…

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Oh, what a beautiful sound: A World War II flying-boat over Jo’burg

By Paul Ash | 2012-12-10 10:15:51

THIS is the sound of two 1200 horspower Pratt & Whitney radial engines at full take-off power. Make that six Pratt & Whitney radials as a World War II-era Catalina flying-boat and a Douglas C-47 “Dakota”, and two Harvard chase planes took off from Rand Airport on a photo shoot on Saturday. You will hear the sound of one of the Harvards climbing out after take-off, followed by the wide-open-throttle sound of the Catalina and then the Dakota

Catalina take-off

The Catalina, fresh from a six-year restoration job, is about to depart for its new home on San Diego so this was a last chance for local photographers get pictures of this magnificent machine in the air. Read More…

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Ag, pleez, daddy, won’t you take us … Oh, it’s gone!

By Paul Ash | 2012-10-24 17:23:40

The Top Star in better days. PHOTO: Rodney Jones

Remember the Top Star Drive-in, one of Jo’burg’s more heartwarming landmarks? Read More…

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Dispatches. Five minutes to midnight on the Duong Sat Viet Nam

By Paul Ash | 2012-10-10 14:50:22
Hanoi, steam locomotive, Vietnam, Duong Sat Viet Nam, Reunification Express

On the shunt in Hanoi, Vietnam. Click on the photo

January 2, 1995. It was my last day in Hanoi. We had returned to the city from a five-day scooter ride in the country. We had been lost, cold, battered by the “Chinese wind”, rained on and starved of gas and food, and Vietnam had, occasionally, felt mean and less enchanting, as it would from under a soaked poncho and freezing mud in our boots. We had tickets for tonight’s train, the Reunification Express to Saigon. But first I had to wash the mud off my scooter and inhale whatever last memories I could of Hanoi. Read More…

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Neil Armstrong. The moon, sex and Mr Gorsky

By Paul Ash | 2012-08-27 13:46:31
Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, NASA, Saturn V, space race, moonshot, Cape Canaveral

The Apollo 11 patch, and a shot of the Saturn V rocket blasting off the launch pad. PHOTO: NASA/Wikimedia Commons

There is a story about Neil Armstrong that will endure forever. It goes like this: when he was climbing back into the lunar lander after his first historic walk on the moon’s surface, Armstrong is said to have muttered under his breath, “Good luck, Mr Gorsky”. Read More…

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Dispatches. You flew thousands of miles for that?

By Paul Ash | 2012-07-24 17:26:53

The Mona Lisa looks down on a slow day at The Louvre. Click on the photo

June 3, 2012 EIGHT million people a year shuffle down the long galleries of The Louvre. On any summer Sunday, it feels like all of them are there on the same day. That’s the cost of modern tourism and who can argue with that when it pays The Louvre’s rent? Read More…

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1time to fly to Vic Falls. Oh, hang on a mo …

By Paul Ash | 2012-07-24 17:00:56

The falls as a very lucky airline passenger might see them

Local no-frills carrier 1time Airlines plans to start flights to Victoria Falls as well as Harare. Apparently a test flight with civil aviation authorities aboard from both countries has been completed with smiles all round. So that’s all good. Read More…

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The good side of being crazy: hauling a steam ship over the mountains

By Paul Ash | 2012-07-06 17:05:51

The Alwyn Vintcent steams out of the V&A in her tourist boat days

There was this old steam tuboat, see, lying forlorn in the Victoria and Alfred Basin in Cape Town. It had seen better days. Once it had been used to take pilots out to ships waiting in the roadstead, and to shepherd fishing trawlers in and out of their berths in the V&A. After that it was used – briefly – as a tourist boat, taking people on cruises around the harbour. Read More…

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Seven really stupid things airline pilots have done in-flight

By Paul Ash | 2012-06-25 11:41:07

When we fly we want to know that the people up front have got it together. Of course, they are human and therefore prone to the same idiocy as the rest of us, at least some of the time. Luckily, having a brawl in-flight – during which none of the crew were actually flying the plane – and ranting over the intercom about the lack of sex on offer from your cabin crew, are not everyday events on most airlines.

For a list of the seven worst things a pilot can do, check out this story.

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