For a second season the Wilkins blue ice runway in Australian Antarctic territory is closed due to warm conditions. Well, comparatively warm. Crikey's aviation journalist Ben Sandilands discusses landing planes in the coldest place on Earth.
Sure, Frodo and Sam may have trekked all the way from The Shire to Mount Doom, but as far as epic journeys go, Alexandra Patrikios can go one better. She made the journey from Melbourne to Oxford, by way of Wellington, all to catch a glimpse of a real-life hobbit and to sip beer amongst fellow nerds.
Central Australia has generated near record rainfall since January, but the dangerous flipside is a very busy fire season ahead. Guest blogger Steven Rhall has photographed the first big fire of the season near his town.
Red is far from dead in China. Instead, entrepreneurs in Yan'an are cashing in on the novelty and historical value of communism for tourists, from battle recreations to museums on Mao.
Photographer Steven Rhall lives up in the tiny NT town of Balgo. He writes of the first big fire of the season up his way, where fires can sometimes run for weeks -- if not months -- and burn-out huge tracts of land.
Queensland’s Gold Coast is a magical place where beautiful men and women do nothing but tan their perfectly sculpted bodies, and children run amok the beaches in theme parks. Well, that's how Caroline Zielinski remembered it, but the latest trip showed something different.
The Maya domesticated the Criollo variety of Theobroma cacao about 3,000 years ago in Central America and it still produces the finest chocolate today. A team of researchers have sequenced the DNA of Criolo and they expect their findings will lead to expanded production of it, writes Richard Farmer.
It’s one thing for airports to close because of really heavy snow and one thing for airports to close in light snow because of greedy, foolish airport owners but for Moscow’s airports to be paralysed because it was too warm in winter is something out of left field.
The audience gathered within San Francisco City Hall awaits the annual Tree of Hope Lighting ceremony. They are in for a treat of contradictions: a pastiche, a pantomime, writes Binoy Kampmark.
It looks like beef, but when you don't speak the language and can't read the menu, the food can be a bit of a mystery. Rebecca Arnold takes a nibble on some chicken hearts and makes some new friends in Hiroshima, Japan.
