Bucket List
(In no particular order)
- Write and publish at least one novel
- Buy a Ferrari
- Buy and ride a powerful motorcycle
- Drive round the M25 (the London ring road) doing a complete circuit clockwise then anticlockwise. The best time to do this would probably be 4am on the Sunday closest to 21st June, the summer solstice, which would be dawn and thus daylight, and there would be little traffic. I look forward to doing this in my Ferrari that I bought with the proceeds of a book sale. Stop for breakfast at a suitable hotel. There are plenty nearby.
- Drive round the Circuit de la Sarthe in my Ferrari. This is the public road circuit used for the Le Mans 24 Hours race each year. I’ve already driven round Mt Panorama and Amaroo Park plus several other tracks so I don’t need to do those again.
- Attend the Le Mans 24 Hours
- See the great pyramids at Giza
- See the Acropolis in Athens - try and get the same photo as dad took of mum
- Complete my BA, MA and PhD
- Drive along the New England Highway
- See Darling Harbour ship museum and the O class submarine
- Visit the New Zealand Alps on the South Island
- Walk around the walls of Maiden Castle in Dorset one last time
- Visit Pembrokeshire in Wales
- Go skiiing in Japan
- Visit San Francisco in California USA
- Drive to the top of Pikes Peak in the USA
- Climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania - 5,895 metres
- Walk to the highest point of Barrington Tops in NSW - Brumlow Top 1,586 metres
- See Pula Arena, Pula, Croatia
- See the “Wilhelm Bauer”, the only surviving Type XX1 U-Boot, Bremerhaven, Germany
- See the ancient copper mines of Timna (near Eilat) in Israel
- See the ancient city of Petra in Jordan
- Visit the Jordan Museum, Ras Al-Ein, Amman, Jordan
- See the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña, Spain, an ancient Roman lighthouse
- Visit Anderitum Roman fort, Pevensey, East Sussex
- See HMS Alliance - A-class submarine launched 1945 - Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport, Hampshire
- Visit the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London
- Visit Portchester Castle, a Roman castle on the south coast near Portsmouth, England
- See U-534 Type IX U-Boot, Woodside Ferry Terminal, Merseyside, England
- See U-505 Type IX U-Boot, Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, USA
- Burgh Castle in Norfolk near Caister
- Dove Bridge, River Dove, border of Staffs and Derbyshire - a mediaeval bridge
- Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, Staffordshire. The only English mediaeval cathedral with three spires. Also the Lady Chapel has mediaeval Flemish stained glass.
- The Central Coast dams in New South Wales, there are three
- Avoca Beach Theatre - a cinema
- Bouddi coastal walks, several different tracks through the National Park - take stout walking shoes, food, water and a hat.
- The Australian Reptile Park - Pacific Highway, Somersby, south of Kariong.
- Wyrrabalong National Park - on the road between Noraville and The Entrance
- The maritime museum at Darling Harbour in Sydney
- USS Nautilus - on display in Connecticut, USA. The first ever nuclear-powered submarine.
- The RAAF museum at Williamstown, north of Newcastle, New South Wales
- The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum, Cairns, QLD - has several German tanks including two Tigers and four or five Panzer IVs
- Mount Ararat in Turkey
- Dorney Court, Dorney, Buckinghamshire - a 15th Century brick manor house in excellent condition - used for filming "Sad Cypress" with David Suchet playing Poirot
- Explore La Perouse in Sydney including the island fort
- Murcia in Spain for the history, the weather and the food
- Hardwick Hall, Doe Lea, Derbyshire - near Junction 29 of the M1 motorway - Elizabethan "prodigy house" built in the 1590s
- Southwell Minster - Southwell, Nottinghamshire - 12th and 13th Century cathedral
- Mont Saint Michel in Normandy then Mount Saint Michael in Cornwall in the same week - drive between the two in my Ferrari taking a ferry from Cherbourg to England, as far west as possible
- Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor on the border of Cornwall and Devon
- Have a cream tea with scones in Cornwall and again in Devon
- Padstow in Cornwall - a very popular little port village - Rick Stein and Paul Ainsworth have celebrity restaurants there - avoid the height of summer and weekends when it can be very crowded
- Hay-on-Wye book festival - promote my own books!
- Tamar Valley, Devon and Cornwall - a beautiful river valley with a scenic railway line running through it
- Fort William to Mallaig railway line (West Highland Line) - Scotland - runs from the mountains to the sea