UFO Info Week-End

Fancy a sleepover? Book yourself into the luxuriously restored head lighthouse keeper’s homestead which accommodates only

Fancy a sleepover? Book yourself into the luxuriously restored head lighthouse keeper’s homestead, which accommodates only 12 guests at a time.By air: Cape Don Gurig Nature Experience (00 61 8 8978 5191; . au) offers flights and packages from Darwin; journey time approx 45 mins.Howard Springs Nature ParkTwitchers have a field day at the Howard Springs Nature Park. Dating from 1916, the lighthouse is still in use today and the area is reputed to be the best fishing location in Australia with mangrove-lined creeks, sandy island cays, rocky outcrops and a coral reef. Or try one of the many bush walks before cooling off in one of the pretty rock pools.By car: take the Stuart Highway via Batchelor and follow signs; journey time approx 1 hour plus.Cape DonCape Don is the site of a historic lighthouse, situated on the Cobourg Peninsula, which extends from the most northerly point of Arnhem Land into the Timor Sea. See the spectacular Tabletop Range, which is a wide sandstone plateau with four waterfalls running off the edge andtermite mounds that resemble rows of gravestones. Tiwi Tours (00 61 8 8924 1115) offers all-inclusive daily tours from Darwin airport, including flights, guiding and lunch.Litchfield National ParkGet back to nature in the pristine wilderness of Litchfield National Park. Admission is about £2.Further informationIn Taipei, the tourism bureau office (00 886 2 2439 1635; .tw) is at 280 Jungshiau E Road, 9th Floor.The Lonely Planet Guide to Taiwan (£12.99) is the main guide-book Visas are issued on arrival to visitors with UK passports..

Tiwi Islands

Tiwi Islands
Home to the Tiwi Aborigine people, the beautiful Tiwi Islands of Bathurst and Melville are 80km north of Darwin. Highlights of a day trip here include visiting dense rainforest, secluded waterfalls and traditional burial grounds. The islanders are famous for producing and selling their distinctive artwork. Look out for bark paintings, silk-screened clothing, woven bangles, painted conch shells and colourful pottery.By air: Airnorth (00 61 8 8920 4001) operates daily flights to Bathurst from Darwin airport; journey time approx 1 hour. Return flights cost from £684 in November.Being therePlaces to stay include the cheap but cheerful Queen Hotel (00 886 2 25590489) at Chang’an W Rd, 226, 2nd floor.

It is near the railway station and double rooms cost about £16 per night. Alternatively, the upmarket, central Far Eastern Plaza Hotel (00 886 2 2378 8888; http:// /eng/index.htm) at 201 Tunhua S Rd offers rooms from £150 per night.The National Palace Museum ( ) is open daily, 9am-5pm. And for that, the Mandate of Heaven will never rest easy.The FactsGetting thereJeremy Atiyah travelled to Hong Kong as a guest of British Airways (0870-850 9850; ), and from there to Taiwan with Cathay Pacific. But before I leave, he cannot help pointing out to me the bronze cauldron that stands in the courtyard at the front of the museum. “It is the ancient Chinese symbol of political power and legitimacy,” he says, with a modest smile I know what he means.

The Communists may have won China, but they have lost her treasures. So highly did the Chinese Nationalists regard these treasures, that when the National Palace Museum opened in Taipei in 1965 – finally putting an end to 35 years of peregrinations – the director of the museum was a post that had ministerial ranking.Dr Shih is anxious to remind me that he is more interested in the aesthetic aspect of the collection than in its political or symbolic aspect. I don’t complain.”He suggests that the mission to rescue the treasures from the Communists was a kind of Long March, comparable to Mao’s. “It was a very holy, special, symbolic mission,” Dr Shih says.

“Any regime’s legitimacy relies on a continuation of heritage. You also have to enrich your heritage, to prove you are a worthy heir.”Dr Shih tells me about the artists and professors – “the most important young intellects of China” – who believed, in the 1940s, that they could create a new future for the fledgling Republic by lugging crates full of cultural treasures round China They literally had 2,000 years of heritage in their hands. By this stage, the selection process had become random – the dockworkers just picked up the first boxes they could lay their hands on. In some cases, sets of objects were thus separated from each other for ever.Was Suo afraid? “No. The Kunlun was a military ship, and the Communists only had rifles.” But his confidence was to some extent misplaced.