KEY TO AUTHOR’S BIZARRE DISAPPEARANCE

david ellis

ONE of the world's most bizarre mysteries has fans of the who-dunnit genre as mystified today as when it involved Agatha Christie, the Grand Dame of Mystery herself, eighty years ago.

And there are more unanswered questions now than those the writer's very own mystery generated in 1926, with scenarios as baffling as any she could create.

Agatha Christie liked to write about places she knew, and none could be more apt for a mystery writer than the grand Pera Palas Hotel in Istanbul where she often stayed to pen her works, including the classic Murder on the Orient Express.

The hotel had been built in the early 1890s for well-heeled passengers on the legendary train, and played host to it's clientele of monarchs and politicians, playboys, musicians and movie stars, and authors such as Christie and Ernest Hemingway.

And with American and British Embassies virtually next door, to spies.

Margaretha Zelle, the exotic dancer better known as Mata Hari who was executed for spying for Germany against France in the First War, and Kim Philby the English double-agent who turned on his country to spy for Russia in the 1960s, were both Pera Palas regulars – slipping through an underground tunnel from the Bosphorus waterfront direct into the hotel's lobby.

Whether Mata Hari – with a Javanese mother, the Indonesian stage-name means "Eye of the Dawn" – used her Pera Palas exotic dancing as a cover-up while spying in Istanbul is unclear. Whatever, a room in the hotel is named after her.

But Kim Philby used the hotel assiduously to befriend British targets, including Embassy staff whom he "loosened up" with drinks after-hours, and spent hours on a telephone on the hotel bar – some claim that with his double-agent skills, to eaves-drop on the neighbouring British Embassy.

But it's Agatha Christie who draws inquisitive visitors daily to the hotel to see her regular Room 411, now permanently preserved as a memorial to her.

After a stay at the Pera Palas in 1926 Christie left suddenly, disappearing in Britain as mysteriously as one of her book characters. Despite an 11-day nation-wide search, she was not found until a tip-off she was in-hiding at a Harrogate country hotel.

Christie claimed memory loss after the shock discovery of her husband's infidelity, compounded by the death of her mother. She then refused to discuss the matter.

But on a 1932 stay at the Pera Palas she unexpectedly told staff "the key to my disappearance will be found in my diary on my death."

Christie died in 1976 and in 1979 the hotel owner brought in a clairvoyant who directed him to a key mysteriously hidden under a floorboard inside Christie's Room 411. But there was no clue as to what it might open.

The mystery faded away again until just last December when, after his death, staff found the former owner had locked the key in an unknown compartment within the hotel's safe.

Christie's official diary gives no clues to her disappearance, begging the questions: if there is a second diary in a box somewhere that the key found last December in the hotel's safe might open, what strange secrets might it reveal?

And did Christie really have memory loss in 1926, or did she "disappear" to Harrogate to write a quickie mystery based on her philandering husband?

Or had she stumbled on an intrigue at the Pera Palas Hotel in 1926 that spooked her to disappear?

Why did she go to the trouble to hide the key under the floorboard in the first place? And why was it then so carefully secreted in the safe to apparently prevent its discovery?

Its a mystery worthy of the Grand Dame of Mystery herself.

The Pera Palas Hotel today is a rustic reminder of what was once one of the world's grand hotels, still furnished in the cluttered olde-worlde style of its heyday, with nostalgic photos, old menus, and historic advertising posters on its walls… and the original and first electric "cage" lift in Istanbul.

Book a stay through travel agents. Or just drop in for a drink in the lounge and imagine rubbing shoulders there with Agatha Christie and the spies Mata Hari and Kim Philby.

www.perapalas.com

Save the Murray & Save 50% - July 2008

Early this month Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister of Climate Change & Water, Senator Penny Wong visited to the Lower Lakes of the Murray River. Unfortunately the resulting media has created a public perception that the entire Murray/Darling system has run dry. This is far from the truth and we want to reassure our passengers that PS Murray Princess continues to cruise to our current itinerary between Murray Bridge and Swan Reach and we do not foresee any change to this itinerary in the coming months.

PS Murray Princess has been operating on the Murray River since 1987 and the ship has seen many floods and droughts. Our Captain and Crew have first hand knowledge of the river and its environs. Below is the latest report, direct from Captain Ray Weedon on the Murray River.

July 2008

There has been no change in the operation of the Murray Princess since December 2007. The Murray Princess continues to provide a "must see" cruising experience.

Should the worst case scenario be reached and the Lower Lakes dry completely, the main channel of the River Murray between Wellington and Swan Reach will retain enough water to ensure a continued water supply to Adelaide and thus allowing tourism on the Lower Murray to prevail. All water related tourism continues to flourish and visitors are surprised to see so much activity on the Murray.

The lower water levels are providing our passengers with amazing new sights. Historic artifacts, old stone causeways and huge red gum snags that haven't seen the light of day for over half a century are emerging from the river depths. Newly-formed mud flats are becoming feeding grounds for a variety of fauna. The conditions have proved ideal for Southern River Red Gums with thousands of seedlings forming mini forests up to two metres high. This is providing a new habitat for a diversity of birds and small animals. And as inland sources of water recede, animals and birds are migrating to the river environment in a concentration of animal life rarely seen on the river.

Don't take our word for it, take a well deserved break and check it out for yourself! Experience this once in a lifetime opportunity to view the astounding scenery presented by the drought.

Book before 31 Aug 08 for travel Aug & Dec 08, or Jan-Feb 09 and as a Club Member you will not only save a massive 50% but help to restore confidence in this spectacular cruising waterway. Excludes Christmas and New Year's Eve cruises. Click here for full details

Phone 1800 804 843 from Australia or 61-2-9206 1100 International or visit www.captaincook.com.au

UNIQUE CRUISE-AND-STAY HONEYMOONER SPECIAL IN TAHITI

Talpacific Holidays have an extra special island-and-cruise honeymoon idea later this year in what is arguably the Pacific's most romantic location – Tahiti.

And not only does it include three nights in Papeete at the InterContinental Tahiti Resort with a Welcome Honeymoon Gift, another in Rangiroa in the outer Tuamotu Archipelago, but as the piece-de-resistance three nights aboard the boutique motor-cruiser Haumana that carries just twelve couples.

While not cruising the placid waters of the vast Rangiroa Lagoon, guests can spend days ashore enjoying guided village walks, strolls on uninhabited beaches, snorkelling over coral reefs, kayaking, swimming, organised fishing excursions… or simply lazing around with a book and the sun-block.

There's even a 4-star beach picnic one day at which tables and chairs are set under palm-frond shades in the waters of a pristine island beach.

An exclusive "honeymooners-only*" price starts from $5249pp ex-Sydney and from $5419pp ex-Melbourne or Brisbane inclusive of return air and taxes, hotels, all return airport transfers within Tahiti, all meals aboard Haumana including wine with lunches and dinners, and shore excursions and activities.

*This 7-night package is valid for travel 24 November to December 8 2008; Guests need to provide a Wedding Certificate and travel within 12-months of their wedding date. Details including costs of honeymooner travel at other times of the year, phone 1300 137 727 or visit www.talpacific.com.au

TWENTY-SIX MILES ACROSS THE SEA…

david ellis

POP group The Four Preps assured us in 1958 that Catalina Island was twenty-six miles across the sea… or in metric parlance, forty kilometres in a leaky old boat…                

We've believed them all these years, even though they were wrong on both counts: Santa Catalina is in fact 22-miles across the sea, which converts to just 35-kilometres. But, hey, what sounds better when put to music?

And in any case, Catalina Island is all about the contrary: where else will you find a casino where you can't gamble, a post office that doesn't deliver the mail (the grocer will do it for you with your home-delivery order,) a bird park that has no birds, a town with a Third Street but no First or Second Streets, pizzerias that send your dinner home by golf cart, and a grand mausoleum with no one in it?

Or where the less-than 4000 locals are outnumbered 250-1 by 1-million visitors a year, primarily retirees who pour ashore mid-week from day ferries in their 'sensible' slacks, walking shoes and golf caps to reminisce in yesteryear?

At weekends a younger crowd flocks to the island that despite being just an hour or so off California's coast, is almost-1950s time-warp in architecture and pace of life – and is the only place in America to govern the number of cars on its roads.

Locals have got around this disconcerting legislation that sees them waiting up to ten years for a permit to import a car, by taking to the streets aboard an armada of golf carts that hugely outnumber cars and trucks and give the streets of the main town of Avalon, a look somewhat akin to Fred Flintstone territory.

Visitors too can hire a cart to get around. Or walk.

Most day-visitors make a bee-line for the biggest building in town, that vast dome-shaped Casino where they can't gamble.

Its builders reckoned "casino" meant "gathering place," and when this one opened in the 1920s it was to gather for dancing and dining, with Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Harry James and Benny Goodman pulling the crowds.

Today it's still home to dancing, dining, movies and concerts.

And while Catalina's Bird Park was once one of America's biggest with 8000 species in 500 cages covering 4ha, it was scaled down during the Second War when the island was taken over as a troop base; it never recovered and  closed in 1966.

Visitors to the park today go there to walk or cycle its vast grounds.

Chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Jr had a house on Catalina Island and built his own marble mausoleum, but it too is empty: while he was laid there for a short while, he is buried at Forest Lawn, and his mausoleum is now a memorial.

In the 1920s fourteen bison (buffalo) were shipped to Catalina Island for a movie The Vanishing American based on a novel by Zane Grey who wrote the novel while living there; when filming ended the beasts were abandoned and numbers exploded to around 600.

Today 200 roam free, with regularly culling seeing excess numbers sent to mainland national parks.

For long-stay visitors there are bus tours over the mountain from Avalon to Two Harbors, wildlife spotting for bison, foxes or dolphins, glass-bottom boats, golf (Catalina's was Southern California's first golf course in 1892,) sea caving, diving on wrecks including a one-time Chinese smuggler's ship, horse-riding, Jeep Eco-touring and a fascinating museum.

Catalina also has excellent seafood and international-favourite restaurants, countless ice-cream and waffle parlours, and the circa-1946 Marlin Bar, the oldest on the island still sports its 1940s décor including an ancient sign: I am not an alcoholic – alcoholics hold meetings.

Oddly Catalina Island's Constitution was written in pencil, Winston Churchill once caught a marlin here, actress Natalie Wood drowned off the island in 1981 while boating with her husband Robert Wagner, and actor Phil Hartman was murdered here by his wife in 1998…

And a young radio announcer who won himself a Hollywood acting contract while temporarily working here in 1936 went on become President of the United States.

His name was Ronald Regan.

For information about day-visits or longer-stays on Catalina Island contact Canada & Alaska Specialist Holidays on 1300 79 49 59 or www.canada-alaska.com.au

                                                              …………….

PHOTO CAPTIONS:



WORLD's only casino that outlaws gambling is on Catalina Island off California



TIME warp: Catalina Island's Marlin Bar still sports its 1940s decoré



HOME on the range – bison (buffalo) descended from fourteen taken to Catalina Island for the making of The Last American



(photos: Rraheb/dreamstime, David Ellis Heather, Jones/dreamstime)

CHRISTMAS IN ANTARCTICA – A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Christmas in Antarctica is amongst a series of cruise holidays aboard the smaller, classically-styled expedition ship Discovery from South America in December and January.

And savings of up to $1500pp can be enjoyed by those who book and pay through Cruiseco by July 31 for these 15- to 18-night adventures, bringing the 15-night Christmas package from as low as $4195pp twin-share.

Guests will have two-nights pre-cruise in Buenos Aires including a half-day's organised sightseeing, and on December 17 fly to Ushuaia to join Discovery for Drake Passage, six days in Antarctica's South Shetland Islands, Antarctica Sound, Paradise Island to celebrate Christmas Day, and Half Moon Island.

There's also a rounding of Cape Horn, cruising the Beagle Channel and Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas, 2-nights and a half-day's sightseeing in Santiago.

Other packages on the luxury Discovery include 16-nights return from Buenos Aires to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands on December 4; Santiago to Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Buenos Aires for 19-nights on December 27; and 18-nights Buenos Aires to Santiago via Antarct-ica and the Chilean Fjords on January 11 2009 (or vice-versa January 25.)

Prices include all onboard dining, airport/hotel/ship transfers, and gratuities for cabin stewards and restaurant waiters; for full details including costs of air to join these cruises, phone 1800 225 656 or visit www.cruising.com.au for the name of your nearest Cruiseco cruise specialist agency Australia-wide.

ADDITIONAL DISCOVERY DETAILS: The uncrowded 20,000 tonne Discovery that carries just 700 passengers has two restaurants and optional on-deck alfresco casual dining, ten bars and lounges, a nightclub, guest lecturers, a theatre and cinema, library, casino, card room and internet café.

There are two pools, two jacuzzis, a gymnasium, health centre and beauty salon.

                                               

CARIBBEAN B&B’S AN EASY CELL

david ellis

THE Dutch are marvels at creating engineering wonders on their home turf, but when they were asked back in the 1940s to build a road around and over the tiny island of Saba in the Caribbean's Netherlands Antilles, they studied it long and hard and decided that "Nee – this is impossible," and went home.

Unfazed the entrepreneurial Sabans who lived on this jumbled collection of rugged peaks and deep valleys, agreed that they would not take No for an answer, and that they would build their road themselves.

They were led by a remarkable 40-year old carpenter, Joseph Hassel who knew nothing of road making, and so enrolled in a five year course in the subject… by correspondence.

While he was studying, he and Saba's just-1000 other residents planned out  their road to villages, isolated farms and communities on the tiny eight square kilometre island, and decided that every able-bodied man woman and child would contribute set hours of voluntary road-work every week

Then armed with little more than picks, shovels, rakes, buckets and spades they took twenty-five years to build their concrete masterpiece that some of Holland's top engineers said "was impossible."

In most places the tortuous artery rises and falls at up to 35-degrees and U-turns zippered to the craggy mountains almost double back over themselves – so that from the sea or air it cuts a similar line to China's Great Wall, and thus is dubbed The Great Road of Saba.

Forty-odd years after it was opened, the road – that's never been given an official name beyond The Road – links the little port of Fort Bay with its diesel power station, souvenir shop and a couple of dive shops, with The Bottom (the village at the base of the largest mountain,) picturesque Windwardside, Hell's Gate and the airport.

There are still just 1600 people live here in delightful gingerbread houses that all have white-washed walls, red tile roofs and green window shutters – enforced by law.

And old-timers will recall how, before The Road was built, to get from their wharf to their homes they had constructed a series of ladders with over 900 steps from sea level to link with mountain walking tracks and trails to their farms, homes, shops and businesses.

Everything from groceries to furniture and farm goods was hauled-in (and out) via these ladders and tracks, including with the help of dozens of locals, an enthusiastic local musician's full-size grand piano.

Saba gets around 25,000 visitors a year who either come by ferry, a few small cruise-ships, or by air… with the airstrip another marvel of local ingenuity: once again when told it would be impossible to build an airport on the island, the Sabans simply said "No" to "Nee," and carved the top off one of their many hills, pushed it into the sea and laid a runway across it.

You've got to have a stout stomach to fly-in, and no fear of heights to take one of the handful of taxi-vans around the island, as The Road in places clings precariously to cliff-sides that fall hundreds of metres directly into lush valleys below.

The Sabans don't encourage large cruise ships for fear of damaging their environment and being "over-run" by gawkers, and happily point out that, anyway, that they've no beaches, no duty-free shops, no discount electronics or photographic shops, and virtually no transport beyond the few taxi-vans.

But they do have spectacular diving, extraordinary scenery, wonderful little stores selling hand-made souvenirs and exceptional lace goods, a couple of interesting museums including one in a 160-year old house, little cafés with delightful island/Dutch cuisine including superb local lobsters and "Dutch Tea" (Heineken Beer)… and the opportunity to climb 1064 steps to take-in the spectacular vista from the highest peak.    

There are also a few small hotels and guest houses – and if they're all booked out, because Saba Police Station's two cells have never housed a prisoner, the entrepreneurial police officers have turned these into an emergency peak-season Bed and Breakfast.

See travel agents about Caribbean Island ferry services to Saba and small holiday vessels like the 100-passenger SeaDream I and SeaDream II (www.seadream.com) that visit the island as part of Caribbean itineraries from November to March.    

                                                          ………………

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

. GREAT Road of Saba: the experts said it was "impossible to build," so islanders did it themselves.

. DREAM location for mega-motor cruiser SeaDream II moored off Caribbean's spectacularly beautiful Saba Island.

. EASY cell: Saba police officers have turned unused cells into a peak-season B&B.

(PHOTOS:  David Ellis)

Kangaroo Island & Murray Princess Combo

Enjoy three or four nights cruising the Murray River aboard Captain Cook Cruises P.S Murray Princess, one night in Adelaide staying at the four star Rockford Hotel and two days on Kangaroo Island with the value packed Murray Princess and Kangaroo Island Combo on sale now until March 2009.

Passengers will spend the first part of the trip cruising the Murray River and exploring the big river gorges, the bio-diverse Murray wetlands, the unique flora and fauna of the outback and the rich legacy of old riverside ports on the romantic paddle-wheeler PS Murray Princess.

On-board they will enjoy outside cabin accommodation, all meals, the use of two spas, two saunas, a sun deck, two bars, two lounges, a single sitting dining saloon and great entertainment.

Following the cruise passengers will then be transferred by complimentary scenic coach to the newly refurbished Rockford Hotel in Adelaide. Here guests will enjoy one night's accommodation. The Rockford hotel is situated in the vibrant West End and is in walking distance to all of Adelaide's main tourist attractions including Rundle Mall, Skycity Casino, museums and art galleries.

The next morning guests will be transferred by coach to Cape Jervis where they will join the Sealink Ferry to Kangaroo Island.

Day one on Kangaroo Island will be filled with a Seal Bay Discovery Tour including a delicious lunch, followed by a Nocturnal Penguin Tour. After a busy day guests will then settle into their choice of overnight accommodation on the island.

Guests will enjoy by a Remarkably Wild tour which also includes lunch on day two on Kangaroo Island, before returning to Penneshaw for the return ferry and coach to Adelaide. For a few dollars more guests can upgrade to the late afternoon flight from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide.

Prices for the five nights package starts as low as AU$1442 per person, twin share and includes three nights on the Murray Princess, one night at the Rockford Hotel and one night on Kangaroo Island. The six night combination starts at only AU$1698 per person, twin share and includes four nights on the Murray Princess, one night at the Rockford Hotel and one night on Kangaroo Island.

This offer is valid for sale and for travel to March 2009.