Engaged Readers

Picture this: you’re at the departure gate, surreptitiously clutching your economy ticket as if it were a winning lottery ticket. · The carefully choreographed boarding ritual is about to begin. · Loading these modern-day chariots of the sky, with their precious and semi-preciou ...

Come to New Zealand, they said! Go bungy jumping, they said! Watch Maori warriors do the Haka, they said! Catch a whiff of rotten eggs gas as you bathe in hot mud and see the geysers bubble and hiss, they said! Visit a Hobbit hole, they said! · Wait a minute! Hobbit holes? · Well ...

It was hot … bloody hot! … yet here we were in the middle of the 'high dune' country, in the south of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on the edge of Saudi Arabia's 'Empty Quarter'. · We were drilling site investigation holes down to 20m or 30m depth and logging the soil recovere ...