Isn't the world-wide web wonderful? It allows us to meet up with all sorts of people! My travelogue of my trip to Thursday Island attracted many readers: American and Australian servicemen who were stationed there during the war, fellow-travellers, and some former residents of the island.

One such former resident is Balfour Ross who had gone to Thursday Island in 1964 as a young man of 27 and, apart from a four-year stint in equally remote Normanton and another four years in New Zealand, had spent all his life on Thursday Island. What's even more remarkable, however, is the fact that Balfour and his wife June, after a lifetime on T.I., have recently retired to Malaysia under the Malaysia My Second Home Programme. Amazing what you can do when you start to think outside the square!

Balfour now lives in Terengganu on Malaysia's beautiful east coast on the fourteenth floor of a modern apartment building with sweeping views of the town, its river and beaches, and out to the sea. Malaysia is a country of startling beauty and great ethnic and cultural variety with a lovely tropical climate and what's more, it offers a very affordable lifestyle for someone on an Australian pension. Smart move, Balfour!

I have fond memories of Malaysia from my own time there when I worked as a consultant to the Penang Port Commission in 1978. It seems that Penang is a particularly popular place for those who make Malaysia their second home. Among them are friends of Balfour's, Alan and Pat Jones of Perth, who bought and renovated an old Chinese shophouse which they now run as a café.

Balfour also put me in touch again with David Richardson whom I had known on T.I. and whose holiday shack on Price of Wales Island I had sometimes visited.

David now lives in Babinda south of Cairns. By a strange twist of fate, Balfour and David are now related through Balfour's wife who is the daughter of David's wife. Don't we live in a small world?

The world is full of unconventional characters and you can meet many of them on T.I.