Lapland

For years (and long before it was a permanent fixture on any social media bucket-list) I've wanted to visit Finnish Lapland. And so on the 18th of December (after nearly a year of scheming and planning), just three days shy of the shortest day of the year, we found ourselves disembarking at Ivalo Airport. At 11am the sky had a few streaks of the light (the sun would not come above the horizon for another month at least). It was -22 degrees and we were 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

After a beautiful drive through snow-covered forest we arrived and checked into our glass igloo for the night. It was toasty and warm and being completely horizontal for the first time in over 24 hours felt pretty amazing. Even in the afternoon gloaming with a few snow-drenched pines leaning just into our field of vision the view was stunning.

After a few adult beverages, snug in our igloo we focused on the sky above us and did see some pale flickering. Jet-lag in full swing, we (predictably) fell asleep and apparently slept through a rather stunning display of the northern lights. 

Never mind. We had  plenty more planned over the next few days of our stay. 

We kicked off our Arctic adventure with a reindeer safari led by a Sami (Lappish) reindeer herder from a nearby village. 

We bundled into a 2-person sleigh, lined with reindeer skins and set off through the forest towed by our trusty reindeer. It was a clear day, so the sky was fairly bright despite the fact that the sun had never fully risen. Every inch of every tree, bush, plant, shrub, was perfectly and completely coated and groaning under the weight of ice and snow. Even for someone who grew up with snowy winters, it was positively magical.

We all associate reindeer with the Arctic, but I had never really seen one properly up close or paused to think about how important they are to the people of the far north. 

At first glance, they don't look like hearty enough creatures for the climate. Their spindly legs look quite exposed and their fur completely lacks the length and lushness that you expect from an animal that survives in such a harsh environment. But try and run your fingers through reindeer fur and it is virtually impossible. It is so dense that you can't get your fingers through it and each individual hair is hollow and filled with air, essentially rendering reindeer completely waterproof. They are quite literally made of nature's own Goretex. 

They survive almost entirely on lichen, a sort of dry moss that hangs from the trees. Again, an unlikely food source that looks like a painfully meagre in the face of such an unforgiving environment. 

After our safari as we warmed up over hot-chocolate, in a smoke-filled lavvu (the Lappish equivalent of tepees used by Native Americans) our Sami guide told us about life north of the Arctic Circle.

Reindeer are essential to the Sami people - and to this day, the Sami are predominately reindeer herders. Collectively his village manages a herd of about 8000 - and they lose about 500 a year to bears, wolves and lynx. And while he now tracks the herd with his snowmobile - his father used to do so by cross-country skis - very little has changed.

 He still herds in his traditional Sami-reindeer skin boots that his mother made for him in the 80's. They are made of 3 layers of reindeer skin - and having experienced the warmth of reindeer hide gloves myself, I am fairly certain that his 30-year-old hide boots are as good as the best Goretex winter boots money can buy.

The Sami people are spread across the Arctic regions of Finland, Sweden and Norway - and would consider themselves Sami first, and Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian a distant second. Until the 1960's many Sami herders still lived in lavvus and the high north of Finland didn't have electricity until the 1980's.

It was a genuinely remarkable experience. It felt exotic, which for all the idyllic villages, crumbling castles, and towering cathedrals that dot the continent, exotic is not a term I often use to describe a European holiday, but this felt exactly that.

PS I began this post not long after we returned to Australia in January, it's only taken me five months to complete. 

Visiting Trump's America

I boarded DL 41 from Los Angeles to Sydney late on Monday 7 November - just hours before polls opened on the East Coast for the 2016 US Presidential Election. I recall thinking with a touch of nostalgia as I passed through exit immigration, that no matter what the outcome - it would be the last time I would see a photo of a smiling Barack Obama on the wall behind the un-smiling immigration agent.

Twelve years I've been living abroad now, and I've been coming and going from USA at fairly regular intervals ever since. And for the first time ever, I'll admit I had some anxiety about my trip home - my first trip to Trump's America.

In all these years, I have only ever observed relatively modest changes between visits - better beer (or maybe I just have better taste now), the proliferation the of gluten-free industrial complex and toddlers with personal cell phones.

But when I visited in July of this year, I really did expect America to feel much different. And if I'm completely honest, it felt mostly like the America that I know so well: security guards dressed like storm troopers at suburban supermarkets, everything (that wasn't furniture) in my hotel room was for sale, and lots of neon-orange plastic cheese (for which I have a secret soft-spot).

It has taken me awhile to process this trip and my thoughts change daily alongside the breaking news. When I arrived back in Australia in mid-July, I had come to the conclusion that I was both relieved and a little impressed that people seemed to be bravely soldiering on despite the fact that Donald Trump occupies the White House.

But, there was also a tiny part of me that was a little appalled that it seemed to be business as usual - I mean Donald Trump is POTUS. I live 9,852 miles and 14 time zones from Washington DC and I'm freaking out. Daily.

Then Charlottesville happened.

And worse than being appalled, I was utterly un-surprised.

And that was when the unsettled feeling I had about how 'normal' America had felt came creeping back.

Now, Donald Trump is not personally responsible for Charlottesville.

If we are passing around blame, and let's face it, there is a lot to go around. The Republican Party takes the lion's share. The Republican Party has undeniably made the current situation 'normal'. They have been building towards this moment for years. Aiding and abetting the worst instincts of white America, every single step of the way. Voter fraud. Gerrymandering. Birther-ism. The list goes on.

Donald Trump is nothing more than a startlingly accurate caricature of everything they have embraced and who has turned out to be far more than they bargained for.

And don't start lecturing me on the plight of the white working class. I've heard it. I get it. I really do. I am a product of rural, white, middle America. This is just so much bigger. Quite literally according to Mother Jones:

Based on preelection polling data, if you tallied the popular vote of only white America to derive 2016 electoral votes, Trump would have defeated Clinton 389 to 81, with the remaining 68 votes either a toss-up or unknown.

So.

Do I think that everyone who voted for Trump is a dyed-in-wool racist? Of course not.

Do I think everyone who voted for Trump advocates sexual assault? Of course not.

But do I think if you voted for Trump, you did exactly as the Republican Party has been doing for years, and say: I have no fucks to give about anyone but myself? You're goddamn right I do.

White America, we fucked up. We fucked up bad. And we've been fucking up for a very long time. In his recent article, The First WhitePresident, Ta-Nehisi Coates, sums it up better than I ever could:

And so the most powerful country in the world has handed over all its affairs—the prosperity of its entire economy; the security of its 300 million citizens; the purity of its water, the viability of its air, the safety of its food; the future of its vast system of education; the soundness of its national highways, airways, and railways; the apocalyptic potential of its nuclear arsenal—to a carnival barker who introduced the phrase grab ’em by the pussy into the national lexicon. It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a black man can be president, then any white man—no matter how fallen—can be president.”

And before you puff yourself up into righteous indignation, I'm not schilling for the Democratic Party or even the left. I was never crazy-go-nuts for Hillary and liberals (real ones, not these safe-space, anti-free-speech pretenders) need to get their shit together. I'm looking at you, Southern Poverty Law Center.  But let's save that for another time.

So back to my original point. I've been to Trump's America and I will return to Trump's America, but next time I really hope it feels different. The right kind of different.

Or even better, let there be a new smiling face behind the un-smiling immigration officer.

Please just don't let it be Mike Pence.

Now, go grab ’em by the pussy America, and sort this shit out.

The Red Centre

Just because I've been on a long hiatus doesn't mean that we haven't been up to loads of exciting stuff. It's just that adulting really gets in the way.

Excuses made, one of our favorite recent-ish adventures was a three-day jaunt to the desert to get a good look at that giant rock that everybody goes on about.

I can see how visiting Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) is one of those destinations that give people pause. It's expensive, it's a big rock, it's in the middle of nowhere. I was once such a sceptic, but if you asked me now, 'Is it really worth it?' I would give you a resounding, 'yes'.

We took gamble and visited in December, the hottest and wettest time of the year. The average daily temperature in summer is 38C/100F and 47C/116F is not unusual. There is almost literally no shade and most hiking trails close at 10am this time of year. The well-posted warnings about heatstroke/water/sunscreen are truly dire. The Australian outback is an inhospitable place, even if you're barely venturing 30 miles from the hotel pool.

However, braving the heat has its rewards, not only is it less crowded (Uluru receives about 250,000 visitors annually) but during this time the waterfalls streaming down the sides of Uluru are in full-flow and the sunsets are beyond spectacular.

The fun begins upon arrival at the tin shed that passes for an airport, where you are greeted with this:

Unfortunately, we did not encounter any dingoes

It's a short ride from the airport to the resort and from a distance the resort resembles a semi-permanent refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. This is not the kind of attraction where you pull up, toss your keys to the valet and find yourself just a few steps from the rock.

Uluru is a very sacred place for the Anangu, the local aboriginal people, and to have any man-made structures interfering with the landscape would be a tremendous affront. As a result, the resort is a nearly 20 minute drive from the National Park so there is no disruption to the landscape. Whoever came up with/instituted this policy is a national treasure.

Uluru has been a National Park since the late 1950s but control of the land was given back to the aboriginal community in 1985. Since then the Anangu have leased the lands back to the National Park Service and it is currently jointly managed between these two groups.

Back to our adventure.  So Uluru is big. Really, really big. The circumference is nearly 6 miles around and the only way to really take it in is to walk or cycle the base (we cycled, 10/10 would do again). From a distance you'd never see the waterfalls and 5000 year-old ancient rock art (no photographs please). Pardon the analogy, but Uluru is a bit like looking at an impressionist painting. From a distance, it appears quite uniform and coherent, up-close, it's a total mess.

If that isn't enough to convince you it's worth the trip, perhaps a trek down the road to the lesser-known, less crowded, but (controversially) in my opinion, even better Kata Tjuta (formerly The Olgas) will do the trick.

More big, old (like 550 million year-old), red rocks, yes - but due to weather patterns Kata Tjuta has endured more wind erosion, hence the greater variation in size and shape. Also, if you're itching to get your hiking boots on, this is the place to do it.

While you can technically climb Uluru, it is not only dangerous but extremely disrespectful to the aboriginal owners and these days very few people attempt to do it. Kata Tjuta, on the other hand, has a fully-sanctioned 7.4km circuit hike that takes you into the heart of the landscape and is handily one of the best hikes I've ever done.

While the rocks in and of themselves are staggeringly impressive, it's the overall landscape that completes the experience. As anyone who has spent anytime in the American Southwest will know, there is something almost intoxicating about the sheer space of it all. In a space like this it is dangerously tempting to load up a 4WD and carry on until you run out of road.

Just don't forget your fly net, the flies really are far worse than you can imagine.

Tales from the South Pacific: Part II

It never ceases to amaze me how many people go on fabulous holidays to exotic destinations and then never venture further than a 10 mile radius from the airport.  People will happily spend nearly an entire day and hundreds if not thousands of dollars to transport themselves to this wonderful place - and then barely venture beyond the confines of their resort. They return home and tell everyone that they've 'done' (insert Bali, Thailand etc. here) and ramble on about the authentic, trans-formative cultural experience they had without ever leaving the confines of the local Hilton. This experience usually involves the trials and tribulations endured whilst explaining to the completely non-plussed local waiter that they are 'like, totally gluten-free'.

I get it, sometimes you just need room service and a good concierge, but on the whole I find this a bit perplexing, I can get those things without the hassle of leaving Sydney.  Anyway, those less adventurous than ourselves do us a great favor by leaving us in peace to ditch the crowds and get off the beaten track. Vanuatu is primed for this sort of travel - the tourists come in droves and never make it beyond greater Port Vila. This is a missed opportunity.

With the pilot who safely got us from Tanna back to Port Vila

Lured by the promise of an active volcano, cargo cults and remote island paradise we set our sights on Tanna. There is at least one flight a day from Port Vila down to Tanna, sometimes two. If you're lucky Air Vanuatu will be running the 'big' plane an old French ATR turbo-prop which carries about 50 crew and passengers.  If you're unlucky, like we were, you'll get downgraded to an 8-seater prop plane that to my horror was roughly the size of our car and looked significantly less sturdy. 

The day before our departure I dragged Ian to the local Air Vanuatu office to see if there was a larger plane operating and if we could change our flight. The man at the Air Vanuatu office snickered at my request, but dutifully looked up the flights and let out a soft chuckle. 

No, there most certainly was not a larger aircraft operating that day, the only other plane on the route was smaller still. I asked him how old the plane was, he said it was probably from the 1960s. Seeing the horror on my face he assured me that the engine was quite new and the pilot knew the way. We left and I congratulated myself for packing a small stash of Valium.

I've seen some pretty sorry airports in my day, but the airport at Tanna almost certainly takes the top prize. 

The immediate area around the airport and main village at Lenakel have mains power and running water - venture much beyond and you are plunged into total and complete darkness after sunset. We arrived just as the sun was starting to fade and despite having re-confirmed with our 'accommodation' our flight number and arrival time just the day before; there was no one at the airport to greet us. Our fellow passengers dispersed quickly and it was clear the airport was about to shut for the evening and we had nowhere to go. 

Sensing our dilemma a local man approached us and we explained the situation. Without batting an eye (or asking is friend), he assured us that his friend would take us where we needed to be and if we stayed much longer we'd be sleeping on the tarmac. 

Now there may not be much in the way indoor plumbing or electricity on Tanna, but there is a damn good mobile phone signal and by this time Ian had managed to get ahold of our accommodation who were (rightly) hugely embarrassed that they had forgotten to collect us.  We put our saviour on the phone with the proprietor and lacking any alternative option we hopped into the well-worn pick-up truck and were on our way.

Tanna is tiny, just 25 miles long and 12 miles across yet the drive from the airport to the other side of the island takes nearly 2 hours. This is true 4-wheel drive territory, rarely going more than 10 miles an hour it is a stunning, if bone-rattling journey to the other side.

Not ten minutes into our journey the truck pulls over and our saviour jumps out, assuring us that his mute friend would get us to our destination. Ten minutes later we pull over again and pick-up a band of rag-tag locals, most of them settling into the back of the truck with our gear and a rather alarming-looking man with ashy skin and horribly blood-shot eyes slid into the front seat and began chatting away to us. (We later learned that these are the tell-tale signs of a serious kava addiction).

After several more phone calls, a few scary reversals down steep tracks, fording a small stream, and driving across the ash plain of an active volcano we turned down a nearly invisible path in the pitch black, our junkie friend announced our arrival.

Now, I'm not going to lie, it did briefly cross my mind that this might be a sticky end to an adventure gone horribly wrong. We were certainly about to be robbed and hacked to pieces with blunt, tetanus-riddled machetes never to be heard from or seen again. 

No sooner had this horror story crossed my mind than a few flashlights came bobbing through the darkness. I had a few choice words that I'd been rehearsing on the drive for the manager but he was so apologetic and kind that my irritation quickly melted and I chalked the whole mishap up to an 'experience.'

We were shown to our room, a tiny bungalow with just a bed and mosquito net. Ian fished out our flashlights and battery packs, I fished out the bottle of wine that we had so wisely stuffed in the suitcase and we sat on the stoop of our bungalow, sipping wine out of plastic cups enjoying a crystal clear view of the Southern Cross without the slightest idea of what might lie ahead.

Tales from the South Pacific: Part I

Back by popular demand, an introduction to our completely bonkers trip to Vanuatu.

One of the most exciting things about living in Australia, is that it puts a little-known, little-visited, corner of the world within relatively easy reach; the tiny and remote island nations of the Southwest Pacific Ocean.

This was our first foray into the South Pacific, and we have been positively smitten. 

Now, I pride myself on my geographic prowess but even I had to get out a map to pinpoint just exactly where Vanuatu is - the Pacific Ocean is a big place. Here's a map of the region to put into context just where it is in relation to Australia and surrounding island nations:

Vanuatu was in the international spotlight briefly last year after the capital city Port Vila and many surrounding islands were hit hard - very hard by Cyclone Pam (more on that later). After this brief burst of international attention Vanuatu faded back into it's usual state of international anonymity.

Vanuatu has only been an independent nation since 1980, and has a long history of colonization and foreign visitors - from Captain Cook himself to the US military in WWII. Vanuatu's importance during the War as an American military base is a footnote in most chronicles of the South Pacific campaigns and lacks the name recognition of other famous places like Midway, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal

In fact, Vanuatu played a key role in the battle of Guadalcanal.  Vanuatu's only international airport (at Port Vila) is called Bauerfield Airport and is named for the American Lieutenant Colonel Harold Bauer, who worked with locals to oversee the creation of the landing strip that was a major base for air operations during the battle. Guadalcanal is just 600 or so miles north of Vanuatu in the southern Solomon Islands. Lieutenant Colonel Bauer was later shot down by the Japanese about 100 miles off the coast of Guadalcanal in late 1942 and never found.

No longer required for military use, the now paved runway brings flocks of tourists to Vanuatu from Australia and New Zealand. There is a small memorial to Lieutenant Colonel Bauer in a dusty, neglected corner of the international terminal at the airport.

John Frum followers raise the American flag in as part of their daily ritual

Meanwhile, south of Port Vila on the island of Tanna, the American soldiers were a particularly big hit with the locals and gave rise to the Cargo Cults that still exist to this day. John Frum (as in John From America) is the largest and most famous and still raises the American flag at dawn each day. Awed by the sudden appearance of previously unseen and completely incomprehensible modern toys - from airplanes to Coca-cola the locals understood this to be some form of divine intervention.

After the war and the foreigners returned home the cults built and maintained airstrips, control towers (complete with coconut shell headphones) and thought if they were just patient enough and if they could get the spells right, the foreigners would return with all of their goodies. (More on our Tanna adventure in the next installment).

After the War the Brits and the French hung around as the colonial administrators until 1980, as a result French and English are widely spoken today. The tribal dialects are vast and diverse but there is a national language - perhaps more accurately described as a patois, it is essentially a pidgin English called Bislama. If I ever decide to take up a foreign language, this will be it - we had great fun attempting (often successfully) to translate for ourselves.

Vanuatu is tiny. The CIA lists 230 nations and territories in the World Factbook, and when ranking by physical size little Vanuatu comes in at #164. Vanuatu comprises roughly 80 islands (65 of them inhabited) and the total area is just larger than the US state of Connecticut.

Check out the Bislama slogan.

The total population of these islands barely makes up a small city - with the total population sitting at just over 270,000 people - approximately 53,000 people live in the capital Port Vila, which is by far the biggest city. If ranking world countries by population, Vanuatu comes in at  a lowly 183.

Given its tiny size, tiny population and remote location - it's not surprising that Vanuatu is a relatively poor nation, with an average annual income of around USD $2,600 per person. Despite it's general poverty, there is virtually no  evidence of homelessness, starvation or outright destitution. It is without question one of the safest and friendliest places I have ever visited.

It's not a culinary destination as the food available is largely confined to what can be grown locally or pulled from the sea. There is a national beer - Tusker - which I can testify goes down very nicely just about anywhere or anytime.

More on our actual adventures next time.

Ode to Tasmania

It wasn't a trip that I thought I'd squeeze in this year, but a combination of cheap flights and the prospect of a lonely week home alone conspired to make it happen. Jittery with anticipation, I returned to Tasmania for the first time in just over 15 years.

But first, let me back up a bit. I caught the travel bug at an inappropriately young age. My sister and I were carted around on a lot of lengthy domestic roadtrips, usually to to visit one of my mother's seven siblings. A few of my uncles had the good grace to live outside the geographical confines of the Midwest, but unfortunately no one lived in Florida. 

In retrospect, I owe my mother a hearty thanks for bypassing Disney World and Florida altogether. I was in Orlando for a conference last year and it was hell on earth. I've been put out with Florida since the 2000 election anyway and the cross-section of humanity at the Orlando airport did little to raise my opinion of the place. In lieu of Disney, it was the likes of Mount Rushmore, the Alamo and countless day trips to Chicago. I am eternally thankful.

At age 16, I somehow managed to convince my mother that it would be an excellent idea to let me go to Australia for a summer and live with complete strangers. (I seem to remember pushing for Africa, but she put her foot down - as a nurse I think she was more willing to risk a tango with the wildlife in Oz than disease in Africa.)

Fifteen years later, it's still one of the best and most formative experiences of my life. Those complete strangers I lived with are five of my favorite people on the planet - all five of them hauled from around the world to attend our wedding in Chicago in 2011. Their car (Nia, Adrienne, just in case you are reading - I haven't crashed) is currently residing on our street Sydney. I'm so lucky to have been placed with such a generous and special family - so a huge part of my trip back last week was to catch up with some of the wonderful people I met 15 years ago. (Insert here massive thanks to Tanya and Shaylyn - tour guides and chauffeurs extraordinare!)

Okay, enough of the soppy stuff. Tasmania is seriously beautiful. Of course I remembered it as beautiful, but I had forgotten just how truly stunning it is. This is a special place. In fact, it's tempting to just quit writing and let my photos do the talking. For real.

My memories of Tasmania were a bit fragmented, there were things I remembered distinctly and other things I had no recollection of; but on the whole I am delighted to report that Tasmania seems (to me anyway) to have changed remarkably little. It is a working class island, dominated by forestry, fishing, mining and tourism. The buildings are tidy and utilitarian and to a city dweller even the larger towns feel distinctly rural. As someone who grew up in small-town, middle-America, this is a place where I feel very much at home.

Life moves a bit slower in Tassie and although distances are short, the roads are windy and narrow. It takes time to get around; but with virtually every hairpin turn offering another stunning vista across the sea, forest, rolling pasture or mountains - the long car rides don't bother me in the least (motion sickness aside).

Suffice it to say that this is a place worth making time for. I can't guarantee that you'll get four glorious days of unrelenting sunshine like I did, but it's still well-worth the trip. 

Baby (erm Scotland), Please Don't Go

Hiking in Glencoe, 2009

I'm just returned from a glorious 4-day stint in Tasmania, but more about that later. The upcoming Scottish independence referendum has been much on my mind lately. I lived in Scotland for four wet, windy, wonderful years and while in Tasmania this week, I was seeing Scotland at every turn.

Tasmania and Scotland share more in common than just good looks. Both are occasionally forgotten outposts of a larger nation. Tasmanians talk about the 'mainland' and 'mainlanders' much the way Scots frequently talk about their southern neighbors - with mingled disdain and reverence.

Both are places where it is truly possible to leave the hubbub of modern life behind. You can still hear snatches of Gaelic in the highlands and islands of Scotland and Tasmania has no international airport; it is the kind of place where you can still rock up to the airport just 15 minutes before departure.

These are all wonderful things; and Tasmanians and Scots alike are justifiably proud of the beautiful, unique and quirky place that they get to call home. But they are also an integral, and I dare say essential, part of a larger collective. Australia would not be Australia without Tasmania, much as I find a United Kingdom without Scotland unfathomable.

I find it upsetting enough that England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland maintain separate teams in the World Cup and Commonwealth Games (but not the Olympics - please someone explain?!?) And that is just sports that I don't even care about; I can't imagine how upset I'd be by an actual divorce.

I have sympathy for the independence movement - I don't like the Tories much either. But I can't help but feel that this is largely what this vote is about or has become about; it's an anti-Tory referendum. It feels a bit petulant, a lot of people south of the border don't like Cameron & Co. and still bear the same scars of Thatcherism.  The vision of an independent Scotland spun by the left-leaning, socially-minded Scottish intelligentsia (see wonderful article by Irvine Welsh) is alluring, if hopelessly romantic, overly optimistic and disconcertingly quiet on the issue of currency and economy.

St Andrews

And further, the values, hopes and ambitions espoused by the gentle left are hardly those of Alex Salmond and his cronies who will, in fact, inherit the throne (so to speak). The political difference between the entrenched Labour elite and Alex Salmond's SNP is nothing more than the location of an office in Westminster versus Edinburgh. In an independent Scotland the new politics will quickly become the old politics; Alex Salmond is already taking Rupert Murdoch's phone calls.

I'm not an economist (by any stretch) and I want to keep this light, but suffice it to say that the economic nirvana envisioned by the Yes Campaign will be difficult (impossible?) to achieve whilst tethered to the her majesty's pound and their Bank of England overlords.  Paul Krugman put it rather more eloquently (and in far more detail), but the gist of it was, currency control is everything, just think about the state of the Spanish economy . . .

We left Scotland just as Alex Salmond was becoming a household name - North and South of the border. I think he is smart, sly and has masterfully manipulated the unpopularity of a Tory government for his own political ends. I have no personal stake in this vote and we left Scotland nearly five years ago now; but aside from my home town, it is the place I've called home the longest.

My husband is a half-caste (firmly in the 'No' Camp and proud of his Scottish heritage) and we're both graduates of the University of St Andrews. At 601 years it is third oldest university in the English-speaking world and pre-dates the Union of the Crowns by nearly 200 years - clearly Scotland was doing pretty well before they wedded England and I see no reason to think that an independent Scotland would not eventually succeed. But, I do think the post-independence road will be much harder than many are prepared to admit.

Regardless of which way Scotland goes next week, I wish Scotland nothing but success and prosperity, but I do hope they decide to stay.