Hong Kong

After travelling since Sunday morning (Europe time) we arrived in Hong Kong this afternoon where it is warm and humid. A gentle walk around the block or two, a light meal and we are ready to sleep.

Malmo-Sweden

Today we travelled back up to Malmo ready to head on tomorrow flying from Copenhagen to Hong Kong via London.

Malmo is a really pleasant city of 250,000 people. It lies just across the water from Denmark and today was a clear day so we could see across the channel to Copenhagen. The Oresund(bridge)connecting the two is pretty amazing. We will travel on it tomorrow morning by train to the airport.

We spent the afternoon wandering round the old city ending up in a square surrounded by people attending the annual march for solidarity for people with disability. It was a really good atmosphere and great to be there. this was followed by sometime spent people watching in the square.A good way to end the scandinavian leg of the tour.

Skanor and Falsterbo

Friday was a full day at this conference. A really interesting day hearing about projects happening in a number of european countries on the development of accessible tourism in those destinations. Paricularly interesting is the Italian organisation COIN, the work that the University of Surrey have been doing with the CETA project, the work being done in the Czech Repbulic and the developments in Sweden. It has however added a number of dimensions to my thoughts on plans for work back in Australia. It will now be interesting to see what developments are discussed in Hong Kong next week.


Friday evening was spent at Angavallen Farm - a Restaurant highlighting their own organic produce. A memorable evening - the slogan is from field to fork - they just forget to mention the ringing of the cash register....

Flasterbo Sweden

We travelled to Sweden on Wednesday, and are now staying in Skanor on the Falsterbo Peninsula. I am currently attending a CETA (ENAT) Conference here on the competitiveness of accessible tourism. Topics for discusison are of interest and there are some interesting speakers including Dr Graham Miller from Surrey Uni. The networking opportunities with some of the accessible tourism projects around Europe are useful - a number of them are working on similar projects to ours and grappling with the same issues. It will be interesting to take some of the European perspective to Hong Kong next week

Copenhagen - Sunday and Monday

After a sleep in we caught the train from Odense to Copenhagen ( a ride of 1½ hours). The country side is flat and green with lots of Canola in flower. We spent the afternoon walking in the Tivoli area of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is another beautiful european city, very easy to get around and lots of old architecture to view.

Today (Monday) we spent time looking through one of the Royal Palaces and discovering the Canals. The weather has been cooler today - about 15 degrees - so an afternoon coffee and danish seemed perfect before an afternoon nap.

We have been struck with poor wi-fi internet connections for the last week, which we are finding very frustrating as we need to arrange some more accomm etc on our way home. We will have one more day exploring Copenhagen tomorrow before heading to Sweden.

Saturday

We spent today exploring Odense. A city of 180,000 and the regional capital of FUNEN
(the central island of Denmark). Odense was the home to Hans Christian Anderson and they are certainly proud of their local son. A 25% sales tax seems to be what makes Denmark slightly more expensive than other parts of Europe and the UK so it has been a matter of looking a little more closely at the cost of the evening meal....The weather has been warmer than expected - around 20 degrees today, so we have been dragging out the T-shirts from the bottom of the case. Odense has been a pleasant place to experience as our first encounter with Denmark. Tomorrow we head onto Copenhagen.

Thursday - today

Today we are catching the ferry to Denmark - an overnight trip which will take us to the west coast of Denmark - Osjberg. From there we will travel by train to Odense for a couple of days, then onto Copenhagen for another couple, before a 2 day conference on the Falsterbo Peninsula in Sweden. After that it is a flight (or ferry) back to London and on to Hong Kong for the Transed Conference.

DisabledGo - Tuesday 18th May

Today was spent in Stevenage meeting with some staff from DisabledGo. Have a look at their website - the information is well laid out and good quality. This organisation is on the same wavelength as IDEAS - Access Aware is very similar. We had some good discussions about provision of information - collecting data - what processes work and what don't and being the trusted source!

At the conclusion of our meeting Craig and I travelled to Hitchin just up the road and spent a couple of nostalgic hours as we visited the pub we had worked in some 27 years ago......
Exhausted again by the end of the day it was back to Cambridge for a quiet ale and dinner at the local pub.

Cambridge-Monday 17th May

I will come back to this and add some photos in the next day or two when I have a stable internet connection, but want to keep people up to date. Today we had to make a calculated decision. We were due to fly to Prague on Wednesday, however with the return of (albeit short lived) the volcanic ash and the looming threat of strikes by BA we felt that Prague was a risk, so spent most of the day looking at other options. Our plans now are to stay in Cambridge until Wednesday when we will head to Harwich to catch a Ferry direct to Denmark, so I can be sure to reach Sweden for the conference next week.

In Cambridge we have been very lucky to be guests of a Fellow of Trinity College which has meant we are staying in the Old Guest Room at Trinity (Accommodation used by Byron some years ago). Cambridge is incredible - an amazing history lesson all rolled into one. So in between sorting out bookings we have been wandering the streets of Cambridge and halls of Trinity and other Colleges. Not a bad place to have to spend an extra night at - the only downside has been no internet access at our accommodation, so has caused some frustrations toing and froing from Libraries and cafes etc. Oh well if that is all there is to complain about...

Saturday 15th May - London

Our last day of sightseeing in London so it had to be a big one. To begin with we had some chores to do - mailing home the excess baggage - printed materials I have been collecting on the way. And then we were off on our walk around the western side of the city. We stayed in South Kensington this week which we have thoroughly enjoyed. The Victoria and Albert Museum was our first stop today. What a brilliant Museum, we could have spent all week there. We did spend a couple of hours looking through the Middle Eastern rooms and the Medieval England rooms.

Our walk after that took us to Harrods, where we had to stop and buy food for our picnic lunch. We also spent time gazing at the watch collection.... Onto Hyde Park for lunch with our Chicken and Leek pies and Scotch eggs.

After lunch we headed over to the Australian War Memorial at Wellington Arch, then down Constitution Hill to Buckingham Palace. From there we wandered along st James Park to the Horse Guards Palace and then on to the Churchill War Rooms.

The Churchill War Rooms were certainly a tribute to Sir Winston Churchill and we spent some time wandering through the underground hallways and viewing the exhibits in the Museum.

The timing for our day had been pretty good as we came out of the War Rooms with a bit of time to get round to Downing Street, before heading on to Westminster Abbey for Evensong.

Evensong at Westminster Abbey was pretty incredible. The acoustics in the Abbey were amazing and it was a wonderful experience to sit there listening to the organ and choir through the service. A really nice way to end our last full day in London.

London work Wednesday-Friday

Back in London on Wednesday ready for the appointments I have made for the rest of this week. I spent lunchtime on Thursday catching up with Janet - it was lovely to see her. She is doing well- very into her dru yoga. We haven't managed to catchup at home at all - so lunch in London was a memorable time with her.

Later on Thursday I met with Elina Michopoulou from the University of Surrey. Elina spent time working on the OSSATE project and has strong knowledge in e-tourism and the requirements in developing information systems such as we want to do. This meeting was really worthwhile and I value Elina's comments and time. I look forward to further communication with Elina as we progress our project at home.

Preparations for the Olympics to be held in London in 2012 is providing opportunities for improvements to accessibility of the host city and London is obviously realising this. The opportunity to increase the knowledge and availability of accessible tourism product information is evident and I will watch with interest the outcome. There are a number of key players in the UK providing information on accessible tourism with a number of different approaches. My aim is to meet with as many as I can on this trip and I am well on my way.

My next meeting was with Jenny Littman the CEO for Tourism for all. A UK Based organisation progressing the call for inclusive and accessible tourism. Another very engaging conversation with lots of information and knowledge gained about the UK system.

On Friday I arranged another couple of meetings. I met with Dan Biddle from Direct Enquiries. Dan showed me the database that Direct Enquiries work with and how their commercial model works. This was really interesting to see an online directory of accessible tourism product that appears to be based on a commercial model. More food for thought.....

My last meeting on Friday was with a representative from the UK Government's Office of Disability Issues which sits (this week) within the Department of Work and pensions. This was another fruitful conversation where I heard and learnt about the disability information housed on the DirectGov website - what drives this website and how the content is managed. Another contact for down the track.

Bristol -Tuesday 12th May

With an afternoon and morning free we decided to catch up with friends in Bristol. We enjoyed a nice evening with Tim Hedgecock at Clifton Gardens on the edge of Bristol. A 2 hour drive down the M4. Clifton Gardens is a pretty little village on the edge of Bristol - home to a suspension bridge designed by Brunel.

Monday 10th May - RADAR

Back to work today. Up early and on the phone to finalise some appointments for later this week. I spent some time at RADAR today which was very worthwhile. Long history in the sector and interesting the changes they have gone through over the last 6-8 years, some due to funding. The day was more about general systemic representation and access as opposed to accessible travel - but really interesting to see the similarities (and differences) in the sector in the UK compared with Australia. A few more contacts made to follow up on and squeeze into the schedule. We are hoping to get to Bristol for a day this week as the meeting in Bournemouth has been rearranged to be in London later in the week. By coincidence I will meet up with an old school friend in London on Thursday. Janet Scharbow (Pidsley) is currently here as well - I look forward to seeing her.

Weekend 8-9 May

Another weekend in London - tired? We have to get out and see things - time to catch up later! So this weekend we did sleep in a bit and then walked the South bank from Tower Bridge to Lambeth Bridge and back up past Westminster. While we missed election day we are now being bombarded with the discussions taking place between the various parties. Interesting time to be here - especially when our original plan would have had us in Greece. We spent time at the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and thoroughly enjoyed meandering along the Thames discussing the various buildings we were viewing.
Sunday morning saw us sleep in again and then head east - Petticoat Lane Markets and Spittalfield Markets and then a walk up Brick Lane in the late afternoon before Dinner. A nice mix of cultures over the weekend.

Friday 7th May

Today we spent some time in Brussels and travelled back to London. Our home for this stay in London is at Aldgate near the Thames and Tower. We are starting to tire a little and need to spend a quiet weekend catching up I think

Thursday 6th May - Leuven - ENAT AGM

Lueven is a smaller city about 20 minutes east of Brussels. Another very old city with lots of interesting buildings to keep you walking for hours. I spent most of the day attending the ENAT AGM which was held at the Boerobund (Farmers Union) Building in Leuven. Ivor Ambrose is Managing Director of ENAT (European Nations Accessible Tourism) and had invited me to attend as IDEAS is an associate member. The day was very interesting and I learnt alot about some of the organsations in Europe involved in accessible tourism. It was interesting also to see the machinations of a european not for profit and how similar we all are. There was another call today for the development of an international network of some sort. I will meet up with Ivor and Lillian Muller (ENAT Chair) again in Sweden. This meeting has given me more research to do on other organisations and funding of activities we need to do.

Brussels Tuesday 4th -Friday 7th May

We headed to Brussels on the Eurostar on Tuesday morning. More cold weather (it hasn't got above 10 degrees since we left Phoenix)- we are getting used to it - preparing us for winter when we get home. We spent some time on Wednesday in the old city in Brussels and also spent some time at the Flanders Infopoint where I gained alot of information on accessible tourism in Flanders.

Weekend 1-3 May

The UK doesn't surprise us this weekend - cold and raining, however it is nice to see the red buses and black cabs. We spent the long weekend looking at London - the British Library, Convent Garden, Trafalgar Square to name a few. An Evening at the Theatre in the West End - what better than Oliver with Griff Rhys Jones when in London! Unfortunately it is a long weekend and so some phone calls that were planned for the weekend will have to wait till after Brussels. We stayed at Kings Cross which provided us with pleasant surrounds and some good pub grub.

London

We arrived into London yesterday and guess what - cold and raining, long weekend and its great to be here. Heading off to the British Library today.