You can't time travel with a companion

A typical day would be to get up as late as possible, eat ahearty lunch and spend the afternoon driving around the countrysidevisiting local producers.If I have the time, I wouldn't mind having a massage or two,either! However, the most decadent thing I would do is eat outevery lunch and dinner. Stephen Smith, 53, is Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister.He lives in Perth. Having spent the past 15 years regularly flying from Perth toCanberra, and having spent more than 100 days overseas in more than25 countries in my role as Foreign Minister, my dream holidaydestination is one that doesn't involve a plane. Fortunately, the dream is reflected by reality. For the pastdecade or so, our Christmas family holiday has been in thesouthwest of Western Australia in the Margaret River, Yallingupand Dunsborough triangle.We stay within striking distance of the appropriately named SmithsBeach. The ideal day starts with a morning walk for an hour or so,sometimes past Yallingup Woodfired Bread to pick up the best breadin the area. Then it's off to Smiths Beach for a swim, followed bya session of a Test cricket match on TV and perhaps a coffee inDunsborough. Afternoon or early evening dips at Bunkers Bay, or more usually Eagle Bay, invariably open up the prospect of a glass of WestAustralian white or red wine on the beach. The occasional foray toa local winery, with Cullen Wines my favourite, is also readilyavailable. And after all of that (for a fortnight, if we can manageit) it's only a leisurely threetofourhour drive back toPerth. Robert Dessaix, 65, is the author of several books. Hislatest is Arabesques. Whenever I leave home alone for overseas, I like to time travel.You can't time travel with a companion. A fellow traveller keeps hauling you back to the present like amobile phone. Of course, I could just go to Devonport in Rosetta Stone Hindi Tasmania,but I want more than a time warp. I want to jump into the river ofcivilisation.Ideally, I head first to Bhutan for a taste of medieval Buddhistculture. No trekking or kayaking, just a bit of mooching invillages unchanged for centuries. From there, I might zip across to Zanzibar, and not just becauseit has two Zs in it and Freddie Mercury from Queen was born there.Wandering through the ancient streets of Stone Town, I would hopeto catch a whiff of cloves wafting among the mosques and topplinghouses, and a glimpse of what an old Arab spice and slaving portwould have been like. It would be tempting to drop in on Sana'a in Yemen to delight in its fantastic architecture and lose myself in the aromatic souks so Arabian Nights. But Yemen is not very safe these days, soperhaps I would head straight for Libya first class, naturally.There is no point in suffering en route, although on trains the crowd in second class is usually more communicative and fun. In Libya I'd go from Roman ruin to Roman ruin, trying to think myself back into the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. It's so much easier todo there than in downtown Rome. Sometimes I think I would like to visit a few truly appallingplaces not Las Vegas, somewhere worse. Lagos, say, or Mogadishu.It might remind me of the paradise I have here in Hobart. Paradiseis fine for living in, but now and again you have to get out. Les Murray, 70, was born in Nabiac, NSW. He has published morethan 30 volumes of poetry and has been called Australia's "bard ofthe bush".Nuuk, formerly Godthaab, is the capital of Greenland, which isstill faintly attached to Denmark [as an autonomous territory].Princess Mary's first royal tour went there in 2004. This vasttreeless land, with its towering mountains and one of the world's prettiest flags, contains the remote Thule airbase and the Inuitsite of Qaanaaq. Nuuk has a meat market called the bord ("table" in Danish) where you can buy walrus steaks, whale blubber, polar bearand fermented fulmar birds all the rich constituents of an Arcticmeatonly diet. I would try more than one, pleading that, afterall, I'm a vegetarian in India.

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