About Me

            Me relaxing in Mexico                                             At the Alamo

Who Made this Website?

My name is Tom, an intrepid traveller, adventurer and nature lover. I spent most of my life in the Canadian Army, serving as a signals operator with various units, including artillery, infantry, a field medical hospital and a helicopter squadron. I also served three years as a paratrooper with the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

Me after climbing Angel’s Landing in the background        Hiking in the mountains in Alberta

I have visited 36 countries and lived in seven of them. I have seen more than 1000 species of birds, three species each of bears and monkeys, several species of dolphins, including pink ones that live in the China Sea, ten different species of kangaroos and lots of other strange critters around the world.

                 In the army                                         Airborne

After leaving the army, I owned a computer store for a few years and then worked for six years as a college teacher.

Now I am retired and working on my bucket list. There are places I have always wanted to go and animals I have always wanted to see since I was a child. (Zoos don’t count). For example, I had always wanted to see the Alamo since I watched the Davy Crockett movies when I was very young. So I went there and did that. While in Texas, I travelled along the southern border and gulf coast, which is an excellent area for birding.

I had always wanted to tour New Zealand and Australia, so I did that. One of my best thrills was standing on the beach of an island off the coast of NZ when a couple of penguins came out of the water and walked past within a couple of metres of me.

                 Exploring caves in Mexico                                 Riding in the Sonora Desert

Some of my Past Adventures:

• climbing Mount Vesuvius in Italy (a live volcano)
• swimming in the Dead Sea
• walking across Germany and Holland
• touring Jerusalem and Bethlehem
• driving from Finland to Egypt
• walking in the Nijmegen Marches in Holland
• camping in a tent in northern Norway in mid-winter
• crossing the Arctic Circle on two continents
• seeing monkeys, penguins, Scarlet Macaws, bears, wolves and sloths in the wild
• seeing Humpback Whales, Grey Whales, Orca, Pink Dolphins and Whale Sharks at close range
• driving the Baja California Peninsula
• travelling through the jungle in the state of Peten in Guatemala
• searching for Scarlet Macaws in the jungle in Belize
• climbing Angel’s Landing in Utah
• several week-long canoe trips
• riding a Brahma bull on the beach in Mexico and a camel in the Sahara Desert
• canoeing in the Arctic Ocean
• dog sledding in the Canadian north
• photographing the Aurora Borealis
• driving to the tiny mountain-top country of San Marino
• driving all around the coast of Australia and through the centre (27,000 km in seven months)

Hiking in the Ogilvie Mountains                                     Dogsledding in the Yukon

Para Sailing                                                                Bull riding on the beach in Mexico

Countries I have Visited.

North America: Canada, USA, St. Pierre & Miquelon (a colony of France). Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Panama, and Cuba.

Europe: Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Italy, San Marino, Monaco, Belgium, Vatican City, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Greenland (Greenland is physically part of North America but politically belongs to Europe)

Middle East: Israel, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon

Africa: Egypt

Asia: Hong Kong, China  (the former British Colony of HK is now part of China)

South Pacific: New Zealand, Australia

South America: Peru, Ecuador and Galapagos

Hiking in the Grampian mountains in Australia.

Wildlife

The Future

Visit more countries and photograph more wildlife. But before I kick it, I hope to cross a lot more off my bucket list.