How good to know that if one is wandering in Western Australia or the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, a book oasis is at the end of the road.

How far is the bookstore in Porthhyrhyd from you, Vee? Is it really "remote"?

reader, it isn't nearly as 'remote' as Alaska or W Aus.

After some searching around I found the general area and noted via google that as the crow flies it is about 70 miles away from us, but by road it is roughly 90 something miles. The information told me I should be able to cover the journey in 1 hour 35 minutes which is VERY ambitious. Maybe possible if there was NO other traffic about, but probably 2 1 /2 hours might be more do-able. The UK is one huge traffic snarl-up these days. Porthyrhyd is just off a road we used to take many years ago when the children were small and we made annual holiday trips to the seaside town of Tenby in Pembrokeshire.

It would be a beautiful spot to visit on a summer's day but must be very bleak in mid-winter, especially as it stands at some 750 feet above sea-level. I also found out at the 2011 census there was a population of 15 males and 14 females. There will be far more sheep and cattle than humans.

Isn't it amazing what one can find out from the computer?

Oh, I love that!

Charming indeed, Netla!

Netla, what a delightful bookshop! Iceland must be a spectacularly beautiful place! Thanks for posting.

Kellerberrin isn't really _that_ remote. It's on a major, well travelled highway and only an hour away from the much larger town of Northam, which has bookshops (and I'd bet that Tammin between them also has a bookshop). But if you measure its distance from Sydney I guess you could call it "remote".

Rockport, Massachusetts isn't remote either, a mere 43 miles from Boston, and a tourist town to boot, thronged with visitors in good weather (maybe in the New England winter it is off the beaten path). Part of the movie The Love Letter, based on the novel by Cathleen Schine, was filmed in Rockport.

This artist has painted beautiful views there:

http://www.urbansketchers.org/2014/06/when-crowds-leave-rockport.html

A faraway bookshop for me was in the far Northwest of Western Australia.

I spotted "X" by Sue Grafton which was on display although meant to be sold a couple of days later, on the publication date. Then I saw the same book in the supermarket at a cheaper price! No problems in getting an up to date book in the North although it is thousands of miles away from the capitol city of Perth!

reader, I loved the sketches of Rockport; especially the one with the 'wires'!

Ann I don't think many of us, even in the UK, have much idea of how far part cities/towns/states are in Australia. I remember reading in a Nevil Shute book how these vast 'distances' had to be explained to a visiting American.

Vee, we usually measure by time, like 24 hours drive to Adelaide from Perth, four hours by plane to Kununurra etc. It makes it more understandable.

It might be quicker to Adelaide these days. We drove over in the Sixties before the road was completed and a lot of the track was dirt. We also got held up returning from Melbourne as the track was too muddy after a heavy rain. We shared our water with someone who had a stove so we could make a drink of tea. Fun times!

Ann, as you know time/distance is an impossible comparison to make over here. Yesterday DH had to travel by car just over 30 miles and the journey took two hours, due to an accident several miles away that had caused all the traffic to snarl-up. These days the police close the road at the 'scene' of an accident and don't reopen it for several hours, which always causes chaos.

But that's the price we pay for living in a small densely populated island. ;-(

In the USA we also talk about distances in hours. If you ask: "How far is Walla Walla?", the aswer will most likely be: "It's a 4 and half to 5 hour drive", instead of "It is 261.1 miles away".

Even if you Google "distance between X and Y", it will give you first the estimated driving time, and then the distance between parenthesis. Of course, those estimates apply to conditions of light traffic, maybe even a bit of congestion, not to a jackknifed truck on the interstate.

Vee,

I'm glad you enjoyed the sketches. The one with the wires is so alive. Checking the artist's website, I realized she visits Rockport not infrequently. This is another one she sketched there more recently:

https://shariblaukopf.com/2016/08/20/the-town/