by Ian Cochrane | Feb 22, 2013 | Oceania, Utopia
Outside there’s a neon finger-sign soaring skyward, the oversized letters reading `ASTOR’. The building’s not much to look at; the high facade brick, of cream and red. The veranda is low and squarish, the fascia lined with a string of bare light globes....
by Ian Cochrane | Feb 8, 2013 | Oceania, Utopia
Boerne is 51yrs old, handsome in a rugged sort of way; olive skin, high cheekbones and black straw-like hair. He’s never been a talker and we sit on the veranda drinking beer instead, our eyes drawn to a 2 x 6 metre recycle bin out front. At the end of the day the sun...
by Ian Cochrane | Jan 27, 2013 | Oceania
Arriving yesterday, we’ve turned off the Eyre Highway towards the Great Australian Bight – careering down a steep escarpment across dunes and a rocky 4WD track – to 50km southeast of Cocklebiddy; the old Eyre telegraph station. In the morning we meet Shirley while...
by Ian Cochrane | Jan 16, 2013 | Oceania, Utopia
‘Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.’ ― JM Barrie There’s a large page-4 headline and a small picture. His face is olive-brown, tilted slightly towards me, the hand of a close friend across the back of...
by Ian Cochrane | Dec 18, 2012 | Americas, Oceania, Utopia
Sometimes I sit and think, pondering the luxury of an unquestionable faith in something; to know that innocent kids killed in a pre-Christmas tragedy will somehow find a better place. From a cathedral of sticks I gaze across at the towering neo-Gothic spires of St...
by Ian Cochrane | Dec 14, 2012 | Oceania
A courageous rooster crows in the sleepy Fijian village below. I clamber up concrete stairs by the dining room, along a spur straddling huts of palm frond thatch and sheets of rusted iron. Monster mango trees throw a shroud of welcome shade – cool and dark – over...
