This is where you can find all the day-by-day diary entries for all my trips.
2026 Africa
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Africa – Kruger and a wrap –
Our last stop on this trip is Amaya Lodge in the Timbivati region of the Kruger National Park. Unfortunately the weather has turned bad, but we’ve still managed a couple of game drives. The lodges in South Africa are far more regulated than Botswana or Namibia. This means they limit any viewing to two vehicles…
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Africa – Khwai – Day 32 and 33
We are travelling most of tomorrow, so I decided to wrap up our time in Khwai in a single post. The Okavango Delta is a unique landscape and given we’d seen it from the air, so our next option was to experience it from the water. The local people traditionally travel in a ‘mokoro’ which…
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Africa – Khwai and the delta – Day 31
We were on safari around sunrise after a light breakfast of fresh fruit, yoghurt. In the Khwai Reserve there are less rules about where the vehicles can go and our driver, Africa was very skilled at getting the vehicle into great places for photos off the actual roads. He manoeuvres sometimes surprised me. There was…
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Africa – Chobe and Khwai – Day 30
We had time one more game drive left before leaving Chobe. The lodge has been excellent and our guide has worked hard to find us the things we wanted to see and those things that nature thought we should see as well. Our guide was of the view that many elephants will die over the…
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Africa – Chobe – Day 29
Safari in Botswana is quite tiring with thw early starts at our Chobe lodge. The way things are run in these parts is that everyone wants to be at the gates of the national park at sunrise. We counted seventeen other safari vehicles as we went in. There is also a lodge inside the park…
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Africa – Botswana – Day 28
Following on from yesterday’s game drive we had an early start for our next game drive. In the mornings in the National Park it is more likely to find some big cats. The main attraction here is the elephants though. Many of the elephants that now live in this district originally came from Angola that…
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Africa – Zambia to Botswana – Day 25-27
Sometimes you have days on a holiday that don’t quite go right. Today was one of those days. We were told to be at reception at 6 AM and we were promptly greeted by a tour guide who said he was here to take us to the rhinos. This was expected, but ten minutes down…
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Africa – Victoria Falls – Days 24-25
After a 540 km drive back to Windhoek from Etosha, we had a morning flight to Victoria Falls. There were only 7 passengers on the plane, so we boarded and took off 30 minutes early. The safety briefing purposely omitted the life jacket demonstration because we weren’t flying over any water. I’m looking forward to…
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Africa – Days 21-22 – Etosha (2)
The Etosha National park is centred around a large salt pan left by a lake drying up. It is about 4,800 square kilometres in size and can actually be seen from space. Some years it becomes a shallow lake for a short time if the summer rains are sufficient and the the flamingoes come here…
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Africa – Days 19-20 – Etosha (1)
We had our 90 minute trip back to the pick-up point that left promptly just after 8 AM. It was a cool morning and we weren’t looking forward to the trip in an open safari vehicle. As usual, Orlando had thought ahead and provided fluffy ponchos and hot water bottles. Once back at the pick…
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Travel Journals
We didn’t rush out this morning as Brisbane woke up under a low grey sky. Our normal view of the city buildings from Camelia Avenue was almost completely swallowed in fog with only the tips of the tallest buildings poking through.
2026 Stanthorpe in Winter (3 posts)
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July 2026 – Day 3 -Stanthorpe in Winter
The narrative describes a day spent exploring the Granite Belt, beginning with a visit to a Farmers Market before touring local wineries and tasting distinctive wines. Highlights include dining at Essen and indulging in gin tastings. The experience concludes with a sense of satisfaction in discovering quality food and wine in the region.
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July 2026 – Day 2 -Stanthorpe in Winter
The day began with a challenging wake-up in cold weather, leading to a quick breakfast of microwave scrambled eggs. The journey included visits to a winery, local shops, and a unique lunch at Josie’s, where local ingredients starred. Despite some mediocre experiences at tastings, the day ended cosily with photo sessions of wildlife and a…
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July 2026 – Day 1 -Stanthorpe in Winter
The journey begins in foggy Brisbane, heading towards Stanthorpe. Stopping at Warwick, to visit an art gallery featuring a textile exhibition. Next, the famous apple pie at Sutton’s Juice Factory before checking into Whiskey Gully Cottages. The day concludes with a farm-to-table dinner and stargazing, capturing the serene countryside.
2025 Central Europe (26 Posts)
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2025 Europe – Day 7- Cologne
The boat sailed all night as we made our way to Cologne in Germany. The flat land of Holland, based mainly around rural production changed quickly to a much more industrial feel once we crossed into Germany. There seemed to be lots of petro-chemical and power generation plants. The terrain was still flat as our…
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2025 Europe – Day 8 – Rudesheim
This morning was all about criusing through the Rhine Gorge. The weather was about as perfect as it could be, cool early, warming up to a sunny day. This was one of the parts of this trip I was really looking forward to. When I woke up I realised that the camera had not charged…
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2025 Europe – Day 9 – Miltenberg
It a short blog tonight because we didn’t have that far to go overnight, but the locks do slow things down. Sometimes we had to wait for another ship or barge coming the other way to clear before we could go in. Most of the locks so far have been 2 or 3 metres, so…
2024 Sri Lanka (20 Posts)
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2024 Sri Lanka – Day 1 – Exploring Negombo
Finally, the days have rolled around again and it’s time for holidays. With a scheduled 10:30 flight out of Brisbane it was pretty much ‘get up and go’. It all started out pretty well, the Uber driver was on time, but that was about where the on-time part of the day ended. We were taking…
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2024 Sri Lanka – Day2 – Negombo Fish Markets
After a solid night’s sleep we were up and had breakfast at the hotel. They did ring the room at about 8:30 to ‘politely’ remind us that they close at 9:30. Today’s main activity was to visit the Negombo Fish Markets which are recognised as one of the larger fish markets in Asia. The local…
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2024 Sri Lanka – Day 3 – Negombo Lagoon
Today is the last day doing our own thing, so we left the hotel after breakfast, firstly to drop our clothes off at a local laundry and then to find a tour to Negombo Lagoon. This is achieved by supporting Sri Lanka’s cash economy – a tour agent, a tuk tuk driver and a boat…
2024 Central Australia (5 Posts)
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2024 Uluru – Day 1
I have always felt decidedly un-australian for not having visited the next most famous Australian thing after the Sydney Opera House, so after finishing up my last job having given 3 months notice and our 25th wedding anniversary creeping up on us, we decided it was time to visit Uluru (formerly known as Ayres Rock).…
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2024 Uluru – Day 2
I think I mentioned yesterday that sunrise here is quite late. Neither of us slept particularly well, which for me is a common experience on the first night away. We decided we head Kata Tjuta for some sunrise photos. We arrived at the park entrance a little early, so had to wait in a queue…
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2024 Uluru – Day 3
With the outside temperature forecast for about 2 degrees, we decided that a sleep in was in order for this morning. We eventually went to get some breakfast at the cafe and then went to the IGA to stock up on some lunch goods. Our plan today was to do the walk around the base…
2023 Canada (26 Posts)
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2023 Canada – Rocky Mountaineer (1)
We had an early start this morning, as we had been given clear instructions from the Rocky Mountaineer desk that our luggage would be picked up at 6:15 and we were to be ready to get on a bus at 7:00 to take us to the train. We had a slight panic when at 6:30…
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2023 Canada – Rocky Mountaineer (2)
Today was our second day on the Rocky Mountaineer, so the routine was similar to yesterday. The Rocky Mountaineer folks include overnight accomodation and transfers. They also check you in to the hotel and transport your baggage directly to and from the hotel, so it is always waiting for you. My mind does boggle at…
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2023 Canada – Anchorage
So I just realised I’ve called this whole blog post series Canada when I am now actually in Alaska (USA) and will be for most of this week. I guess I didn’t really think that through. Anyway it won’t be a huge blog post today, because the three hour flight to Anchorage took a pretty…
2022 South Australia (14 Posts)
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2022 South Aust – Day 1
Like everyone else the last couple of years have been a bit ‘hit and miss’ for holidays. While some have ventured overseas, we’d decided to leave that until next year. You may recall in 2020 we did some travelling around southern Queensland, mainly because we weren’t allowed to go interstate. It proved to be an…
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2022 South Aust – Day 2
With plenty on the agenda we were didn’t linger too long before getting up and on with our day. The first order of business was picking up our rental car. In a major contribution to our step count, we walked to Hindley Street to the car rental office. We stopped off for coffee and a…
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2022 South Aust – Day 3
We had a bit less on the agenda today, with the main object being to start our trip to the Yorke Peninsula. We left our apartment in the Adelaide CBD hoping to visit the Adelaide Central Market, but unfortunately these were closed, so we went to the Showgrounds for the weekend farmers markets instead, which…
2020 Holidaying at Home (6 Posts)
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The Journey Begins!
Finally, holidays have rolled around again. With a busy football season for me and a successful art exhibition behind both of us, we are off to Cuba and Costa Rica, with a few days in Mexico to break the two touring parts of the trip. We’ll be starting the main part of the trip in…
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Mexico City to Cuba
Where I left yesterday was where we were planning to get some hours of sleep in real beds after a long day of travelling and sleeping in aeroplanes as the mood arose. Our hotel room had two beds which were clearly designed for little Mexicans to share and as it turned out both of us…
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Exploring Old Havana
It was a bit of a confusing start to the day today. We knew we wanted to get up at 7 am, but as we went to bed last night we realised that we’d skipped ahead 2 hours as part of our travels. Neither of us was 100% convinced as our phones don’t work here…
2018 New Zealand New Year (15 Posts)
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Taking off to New Zealand (again)
So finally, Christmas holidays are upon us. I tried hard to sleep in until 8 o’clock, but I alway love a holiday escape, so I woke up around 7:45 and Deb graciously said I was allowed to get going. So with the final items packed, and Scott (our house-sitter) all instructed we caught our cab…
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Feilding, Levin and Christmas Lights
As we adapt to the timezone and fitting in all the activities a late start was required this morning. We dragged ourselves out out of bed and drove up to the main centre of town to find some breakfast. With Feilding being a smaller town and no guarantee about what would be open on a…
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Christmas Day in Feilding
Having stayed up rather late, or early as the case may be to complete last night’s blog, I had another sleep-in this morning. Being Christmas morning, we organised our usual Christmas breakfast of croissants and champagne… oops a Methode Champenoise, which means sparkling wine made like the French make it, but arguably not as good.…
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And we’re off again!
Well… It’s that time again… Our next holiday is upon us. This time we are heading up to Asia to take in 3 great cities and a little bit of countryside as well. The plan was that September / October would be a fairly quiet time for us both, however I did send out my last…
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Hot Springs, Cats and a tall building …
After some much needed sleep, we woke up this morning around eight. I was feeling well rested and ready to explore. Our first order of business was breakfast, so we took the quieter option of a light breakfast in the Club Room of the hotel. We then went to the Taipei Main Railway station a…
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Temples, shops and night markets
We had another slow start to the morning after a pretty busy day yesterday. I registered my second consecutive day of 17,000 steps, which means Debbie topped 20,000 (short steps). We had the buffet breakfast at the hotel, which offers lots of choices including omelettes and waffles, so I had both. Our first stop today…
2017 Family Wedding (8 Posts)
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Watch out Melbourne!
It’s not often that I look forward to heading to Melbourne to find some better weather, but it is indeed a miserable day here in Brisbane. it’s looking like a warm week down south…. As opposed to a wet one here… Of course, the journey to Melbourne is not about the weather, but for Amy…
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In Transit and …
I was a little excited to finally be getting away for our week in Melbourne, so didn’t sleep as long as Debbie would have liked. We finished our packing and headed to the airport. Interestingly, the taxi company was offering a fixed fare of $38. So I wonder if they’ve worked out that competing with…
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Shop till you drop!
Today was my designated shopping day. Due to the wardrobe in our new house having an unfortunate tendency to shrink my clothes, I’d decided before this trip that I would buy a shrink-proof shirt while down here. This decision resulted from a 15 minute battle with another of my favourite shirts to get the top…
2016 New Zealand New Year (17 Posts)
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Small correction to the Day 2 blog… the exhibition was made with help from Weta Workshops (Richard Taylor gifted it), not Sir PJ. The LOTR director has his own exhibition at the National War Memorial which is up Tory St and is also very amazing.
Thanks… removed the reference to PJ
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Day 6 – On the road to Feilding
Breakfast this morning was the rest of the croissants from yesterday with Raspberry Jam and Philliy cheese as per yesterday. In the name of variety we also picked up some home-made lemon butter from one of the local stores yesterday, as well as some delicious fresh strawberries. I have to say taht I haven’t had…
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Day 7 – Christmas Day!
I took the opportunity for another sleep in as we weren’t due to join the Bairds until 10 o’clock for brunch – the start of a day of constant eating. There was a selection of croissants (surprise!) and fruit salad for the more health conscious. We took a bottle of Palliser Estate Sparkling Wine (formerly…
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Welcome to the new home!
Hi Everyone After some challenges with my former blogging platform I decided to move the Travel Blog that you have all come to expect to a new home on WordPress. I’ve resisted this move for quite a long time, mainly due to my distrust of all things WordPress, given their record in the Cyber Security…
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And we’re off again!
So the countdown finally reached zero. I was well and truly ready, having decided a few weeks ago that I would leave my current job prior to going on holidays. This meant that my lead-up week was fairly quiet except for some farewell social events with my former valued colleagues. Deb, on the other hand, had a…
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Getting around New Delhi
A sleep and a shower since my last post, and we were ready to start exploring. We stuck with the ‘western’ breakfast – I had an omelette and Deb found the pancake station. A few pastries to complete the healthy options and then it was time to meet our driver for the next few days.…
2015 New Zealand Winter (20 Posts)
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Firing up the blog … again
Two weeks to go and we’ll be travelling again. It won’t be as lavish as last year… and not as long. This time we will be spending a bit of time in Central Otago. The rough plan is to start with a few days in Deb’s home town – Dunedin … prior to heading up…
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Excitement builds!
A quiet day today, to get ourselves organised. After a hard week, the work is as done as its going to be and is now left to my highly esteemed colleagues. Mum and Dad dropped in for their usual pre-trip coffee visit en-route to have lunch with Aaron and Emily. Deb, Jess and I decided…
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Day 1 – Up and away
An early start was in order to get us out the the airport in plenty of time. With our arrival achieved, it was on with the formalities. With my Velocity membership about to revert to Silver, I was hoping to squeeze the last little bit of value out of my Gold membership. Why does all…
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Count Down is over!
Wow! … So after counting down from over 200 Days… (longest count down EVER!) … Finally, it’s down to one more sleep! That means one more day to get all the work stuff in a fit enough state to leave to others…. not perfect … but will have to do. So for those of you…
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Arrived! Updated!
So just a quick post today to let everyone know that we have arrived in Paris safely without incident… however not so sure I’d embrace the 2:30Am start again after a working day… we both really started to feel it today on the last segment… The A380 from Dubai to Paris had a little more…
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Getting lost in Paris …
We started today at the Ibis Hotel at the airport (where we stayed last night to avoid the difficulties of trying to navigate trains and taxis after being awake for 24 hrs) … and having woken up a tad early … due to the circadian rhythms… It was dark and rainy… not Queensland rain… just…
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Travel Journals
We didn’t rush out this morning as Brisbane woke up under a low grey sky. Our normal view of the city buildings from Camelia Avenue was almost completely swallowed in fog with only the tips of the tallest buildings poking through.
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Africa – Kruger and a wrap –
Our last stop on this trip is Amaya Lodge in the Timbivati region of the Kruger National Park. Unfortunately the weather has turned bad, but we’ve still managed a couple of game drives. The lodges in South Africa are far more regulated than Botswana or Namibia. This means they limit any viewing to two vehicles…
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Africa – Khwai – Day 32 and 33
We are travelling most of tomorrow, so I decided to wrap up our time in Khwai in a single post. The Okavango Delta is a unique landscape and given we’d seen it from the air, so our next option was to experience it from the water. The local people traditionally travel in a ‘mokoro’ which…
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Africa – Khwai and the delta – Day 31
We were on safari around sunrise after a light breakfast of fresh fruit, yoghurt. In the Khwai Reserve there are less rules about where the vehicles can go and our driver, Africa was very skilled at getting the vehicle into great places for photos off the actual roads. He manoeuvres sometimes surprised me. There was…
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Africa – Chobe and Khwai – Day 30
We had time one more game drive left before leaving Chobe. The lodge has been excellent and our guide has worked hard to find us the things we wanted to see and those things that nature thought we should see as well. Our guide was of the view that many elephants will die over the…
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Africa – Chobe – Day 29
Safari in Botswana is quite tiring with thw early starts at our Chobe lodge. The way things are run in these parts is that everyone wants to be at the gates of the national park at sunrise. We counted seventeen other safari vehicles as we went in. There is also a lodge inside the park…
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Africa – Botswana – Day 28
Following on from yesterday’s game drive we had an early start for our next game drive. In the mornings in the National Park it is more likely to find some big cats. The main attraction here is the elephants though. Many of the elephants that now live in this district originally came from Angola that…
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Africa – Zambia to Botswana – Day 25-27
Sometimes you have days on a holiday that don’t quite go right. Today was one of those days. We were told to be at reception at 6 AM and we were promptly greeted by a tour guide who said he was here to take us to the rhinos. This was expected, but ten minutes down…
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Africa – Victoria Falls – Days 24-25
After a 540 km drive back to Windhoek from Etosha, we had a morning flight to Victoria Falls. There were only 7 passengers on the plane, so we boarded and took off 30 minutes early. The safety briefing purposely omitted the life jacket demonstration because we weren’t flying over any water. I’m looking forward to…
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Africa – Days 21-22 – Etosha (2)
The Etosha National park is centred around a large salt pan left by a lake drying up. It is about 4,800 square kilometres in size and can actually be seen from space. Some years it becomes a shallow lake for a short time if the summer rains are sufficient and the the flamingoes come here…
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Africa – Days 19-20 – Etosha (1)
We had our 90 minute trip back to the pick-up point that left promptly just after 8 AM. It was a cool morning and we weren’t looking forward to the trip in an open safari vehicle. As usual, Orlando had thought ahead and provided fluffy ponchos and hot water bottles. Once back at the pick…