Bosnia

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: Europe; Published: 27 January 2020; Hits: 22132

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More driving today. Leaving Dubrovnik, we headed North to Split - also in Croatia. Yet, on the way we encountered a border post - Bosnia. I suppose one country inside another is obvious to those familiar with the Balkans. After all it's the very definition of the term: 'balkanisation'.

This brief gap in the map of Croatia is a corridor to provide Bosnia with direct access to the Adriatic.

Some of the way was on an excellent expressway
A scenic drive even if the Fiat had trouble keeping up on the hills

Bosnia lasted for all of 20 minutes. We waited at the two border stations for longer. The people on either side look as different as those on either side of the Murray. It seems a ridiculous duplication of economic resources but then Croatia is doing much better than Bosnia economically. Bosnia has been a bit of a basket case since the demise of Yugoslavia - and not just economically.

Anyway, some of the way was on an excellent expressway, even if the Fiat had trouble keeping up with the 130 km/h speed limit when we got into the hills.

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Travel

Ireland

In October 2018 we travelled to Ireland. Later we would go on to England (the south coast and London) before travelling overland (and underwater) by rail to Belgium and then on to Berlin to visit our grandchildren there.

The island of Ireland is not very big, about a quarter as large again as Tasmania, with a population not much bigger than Sydney (4.75 million in the Republic of Ireland with another 1.85 million in Northern Ireland). So it's mainly rural and not very densely populated.

It was unusually warm for October in Europe, including Germany, and Ireland is a very pleasant part of the world, not unlike Tasmania, and in many ways familiar, due to a shared language and culture.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Easter

Easter /'eestuh/. noun

an annual Christian festival in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, observed on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or next after 21 March (the vernal equinox)

[Middle English ester, Old English eastre, originally, name of goddess; distantly related to Latin aurora dawn, Greek eos; related to east]

Macquarie Dictionary

I'm not very good with anniversaries so Easter might take me by surprise, were it not for the Moon - waxing gibbous last night. Easter inconveniently moves about with the Moon, unlike Christmas. And like Christmas, retailers give us plenty of advanced warning. For many weeks the chocolate bilbies have been back in the supermarket - along with the more traditional eggs and rabbits.

Opinions and Philosophy

World Population – again and again

David Attenborough hit the headlines yet again in 15 May 2009 with an opinion piece in New Scientist. This is a quotation:

‘He has become a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, a think tank on population growth and environment with a scary website showing the global population as it grows. "For the past 20 years I've never had any doubt that the source of the Earth's ills is overpopulation. I can't go on saying this sort of thing and then fail to put my head above the parapet."

There are nearly three times as many people on the planet as when Attenborough started making television programmes in the 1950s - a fact that has convinced him that if we don't find a solution to our population problems, nature will:
"Other horrible factors will come along and fix it, like mass starvation."

Bob Hawke said something similar on the program Elders with Andrew Denton:

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