North Rude / North Ryde

Ansbert Ngurumo, the Tanzanian science journalist currently studying at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, says he will spend "the entire Saturday on safari to London where I will catch my flight the next day from Heathrow."
Christina Scott, the Africa news editor of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), flies out of Cape Town on Sunday to catch a connecting flight from Johannesburg. Once she's survived the strict rules required when flying to Australia (no moisturiser? sies!) she's planning to have a party on board: the same Qantas flight will carry Wandera Ojanji (Kenya), Gladys Gama Gandali (Malawi), Tamar Kahn and Olivia Rose-Innes (South Africa), Joseph Bainemigisha Hilary and Esther Nakkazi (Uganda), Mugove Hamadziripi and Robert Mukondiwa (Zimbabwe) and Alvin Chiinga (Zambia).
Around the time the southern Africa crew departs, Padma Tata will already have arrived in Sydney. Padma, the New Delhi-based Asia coordinator for SciDev.Net, seen here making friends with a kangaroo during an earlier visit this year to Melbourne for the World Conference of Science Journalists, has somehow managed to persuade the Australians to let her back into the country. And Imelda Abano, the Philipino journalist, who was also with Christina and Padma at the WCSJ, comes in on Monday via Singapore Airlines. They're all going to Dunmore Lang College in North Ryde, much to Christina's disappointment (in an earlier email, it was spelt North Rude, and she was looking forward to flourishing in her natural habitat).
Why? Because the National Press Foundation of the USA is holding a journalist-to-journalist training programme in the week ahead of the Fourth International AIDS Society conference in Sydney, Australia, from July 22 to 25 2007.
It's a great idea. And we've come prepared. We have lots and lots of abstracts (great website, IAS). We also have a copy of the New York Times' travel section's advice on what to do when you have 36 hours in Sydney. But we have to get there first ....