NewsNews From Sri Lanka

A true citizen of the World, John Medcalf has a wealth of travel experience. He began at an early age as an international flight attendant with Qantas progressing eventually to cabin crew line manager. After 26 years with Qantas John logged another 25 years as a Tour Manager leading tours in Australia and overseas. His list of countries visited now exceeds 70. The list continues to grow.

John says “It’s hard to define a favourite destination, as I still get a buzz out of visiting new destinations. Travel has been my life and shall continue to be. I get great satisfaction being able to share my broad range of experience with my tour clients.

Once John visits Taiwan, he can say he say he has been to every country in Asia. He has extensive knowledge of Japan, Vietnam and India.

Born and raised in Sydney John settled in the Mudgee area and has resided there for 25 years. He and his wife live on a property near Kandos where for 12 years they ran a B&B located in the old homestead house, established circa 1845. They spent 4 years building their dream home, a stone yurt set on the edge of the escarpment at 820 mts. Here they enjoy the blissful serenity of the wildlife and bushland that surrounds them.

CHRIS HARDING is President of the Australian Railway Historical Society, NSW Division.
He was employed for many years in the banking sector, working in international finance, lending, and administration in Sydney, Wollongong and London. In his spare time, Chris continued an active interest in railway history as a tour guide and office bearer at the NSW Rail Transport Museum, Thirlmere. Eventually, he had the opportunity to leave the world of banking and work for 3801 Limited, the operating company of the famous steam locomotive 3801. Later, he managed the ARHS Railway Bookshop at Sydney’s Central Station. He became the media contact for commentary on historic and current railway events, frequently appearing on talkback radio and television. Although retired, Chris still enjoys working with his mate, Scott, hosting many railway adventures in Australia and Europe, including the always popular Switzerland tour.

ROBERT KINGSFORD SMITH has had a passion for Railways since he was a child, and so began a quest to record on film the world’s disappearing steam locomotives. His often adventurous travels have taken him to over forty countries. The resulting photographs and articles have appeared in numerous Australian and overseas publications. Robert has led groups of like-minded enthusiasts on tours to places as diverse as South America, Pakistan and South Africa and more recently has been the celebrated tour leader on many Railway Adventure tours through Outback Queensland, Sri Lanka and India. A passion for history and wildlife is well served on his travels and he combines his many interests with regular and extensive train travel.

HAYLEY ANDERSON has had a lot of experience in the travel industry, living and working in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia and Africa, and touring Canada. She has worked for Scenic Tours as a tour director, for nine years taking passengers all around Australia, extensively touring NZ and taking tours to Africa, Indochina and Canada. She is currently tour leading for Odysseys. Hayley works casually for several companies, taking passengers from visiting cruise ships around Sydney and beyond (including QLD). Hayley has worked with people of all ages and nationalities and understands how important holidays are to her passengers – she is passionate about not only justifying the financial outlay but their high expectations and dreams.

MIKE CONDON was born into a railway family with connections to Queensland Rail stretching back to the 1890’s, and so was destined to share this passion of railways. Surrounded by railway books and antiquities as well as being immersed in a household operational life of Queensland Rail, Mike soon found opportunities to travel with his father on locomotives. A career in media as a producer and director afforded Mike the professional skills to record railways by photographing and more prominently filming railways. For over 30 years, Mike has been trackside and on board trains capturing unique scenes of railways. Mike has also worked in production of educational content, corporate marketing and information programs, training materials for the Australian Army’s Aviation Corps, news gathering and training and operational reporting for Queensland Fire and Rescue Service. Mike has a wide range of interests including history, arts and travel. His career has gifted him the opportunity to meet a very wide range of people from diverse backgrounds and he thoroughly enjoys engaging with new people.

ALAN COLTMAN is a retired English police officer, having served for 30 years, and considers this a perfect training ground for his current role as a professional tour leader. Alan has had an interest in railways since he was a young child, having grown up living next to the Great Central Railway (GCR) in Leicestershire until its closure in 1969, when he joined the GCR Main Line Preservation Group (MLPG). Over the years he has travelled extensively around the UK and most of Western Europe and has been leading groups for over 12 years on scores of railway-themed tours around the world, including the UK, Germany, India and Switzerland.