We are travelling again, this time on a road trip from Cairns to Melbourne and back again. The first part of our journey was to the Flinders Region of outback Queensland. Tens of millions of years ago the area was a large, shallow sea with a multitude of islands forming an archipelago and hundreds of kilometres of sandy shores. The […]
Category: Travel News
On the (literal) road again….
To celebrate our newfound status as fully-retired pensioners, we are hitting the road again, this time literally. We are just about to begin a winter road trip from our home in Palm Cove, through central Queensland, central and western New South Wales, then down through Victoria to Melbourne to catch up with friends and family. After a couple of weeks […]
A Short Stopover in Hong Kong
After leaving London and family behind we flew to Hong Kong where we had a one-night stopover. Neither of us had been to Hong Kong for decades. Last time we were there it was still a British colony, and flights threaded their way through apartment towers to land at Kai Tak airport. Although we were only there for a short […]
Our Final Week in London
London January 2026 We had one final week in London before our UK trip came to an end. Jan used the time to be Nanna, while Chris became a London tourist for a week. Jan got some quality time with Patrick, Chris saw the sights of London and took a day trip to the coast, and together they took in […]
Cold and Windy Shetland
One place that we felt we had missed during our long adventure in 2022/23 was Shetland, the northernmost part of the British Isles. We spent some time in The Orkneys, just of the north coast of Scotland, but didn’t venture further to Shetland. This was our chance to fill that gap. Of course, we were in The Orkneys in summer, […]
Meandering Around Mediaeval York
After our snowy visit to Schliersee in Bavaria, we took the train north to York. But not before an important celebration in London before we left. Click on the photo to read about our visit to York, where we experienced its long heritage through Roman, Viking, and Christian eras. York, England January 2026 If you want to follow our travels […]
A Week in the Bavarian Snow
After the stay in London over Christmas and New Year Jan and Chris took to the air to fly to Munich. They met their friends before travelling with them on the train to Schliersee in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Click on the photo at right to read the story of their week there. Bavaria, Germany January 2026 If […]
Coda – A few last things to see in Delhi
We had an afternoon and most of the next day to fill in Delhi. We booked a single night in South Delhi, about halfway between the airport and Connaught Place, the commercial centre of New Delhi. Using the new, and very impressive, metro system, we did some final exploring. There were a couple of popular attractions within a couple of […]
Close Encounters of the Tiger Kind
After the closure of airports in the north-west of the country we had to make last minute changes to our plans, adding days in Goa and cancelling our visit to Chandigarth and Amristsar. But we were very relived when we were able to juggle dates and flights so we could still get to Nagpur for our much-anticipated visit to Tadoba-Andhari […]
Relaxing at the beach – North and South Goa
This would be our third visit to the west-coast state of Goa. Karma has four resorts along the coast of the smallest Indian state. Previously we had stayed a week at the southernmost property, Haathi Matal, and then another at Monterio in the north of the state. On this trip, we had booked a week back at Monterio at Baga […]
Puducherry – A Touch of France
Our Indian travels continue, moving southwards from Chennai to the lovely former French colony of Puducherry. Following almost 300 years of French rule, Puducherry was only transferred back to Indian control in the mid-20th century. Today, it retains much of its European heritage. This is being strengthened due to a great deal of restoration work underway in the French Quarter. […]
A week in the Himalayas
This is the first post from our current trip to India. We left home in Cairns to travel to Darjeeling in the Himalayas, where we spent a couple of days. We then completed a six-day trek along Singalila Ridge on the India-Nepal border. The ridge gave us views across Nepal to the highest peaks in the world. The weather wasn’t […]
A Birthday Weekend in Cooktown
So, what’s this? You thought that because we got back home after the Grand European Adventure we wouldn’t have any travelling to post about? Well, they may not be coming out as often as they were last year, but we have been out and about a bit since we got back. One of our weekends away was to Cooktown in […]
Our Last Waltz – The Antrim Coast
The final story from our Grand Adventure before starting the long journey home is from County Antrim, the area to the north of Belfast. Our last stay was in the coastal town of Cushendall, in the Antrim Coast and Glens Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Two of Northern Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions were close by, and we did day […]
The Confronting Political Face of Belfast
By the time we’ve posted the story of this part of our adventure we are already back home in Cairns, with the whole island of Ireland to tell you about. We spent three weeks there, in both Northern Ireland and The Republic in the south. The first instalment is from Belfast, the scene of so much political upheaval in the […]
Lake of Menteith, a Karma Resort
We spent the final week of our time in Scotland back in the south, at one of our Karma resorts. The Lake of Menteith is about an hour’s drive from Glasgow, near the Trossachs National Park. It is close to some of the larger cities in the south of Scotland, like Stirling and Edinburgh, so it was a good base […]
A Few Rainy Days On The Isle of Skye
It took a full day of driving to get from The Orkneys to The Isle of Skye, the biggest island in the Inner Hebrides group off the west coast of Scotland. The mid-morning ferry took us back to the mainland, then we drove back through some of the country we had seen around Inverness before arriving at our cottage in […]
A Lesson in Ancient History in The Orkneys
We left The Highlands behind to take a short trip across the water to the islands off the northern Scottish mainland, The Orkneys. These low windswept isles have a lot to offer, from some great walks, military history, and layer upon layer of archaeological sites. We explored ancient Pictish settlements that were older than The Pyramids of Giza, Viking towns […]
A Week in the Northern Highlands of Scotland
Our adventure continues along the North Coast 500 route, northwards and westwards from Mellon Charles. This part of the journey brings more of the spectacular coastal scenery around the northwest corner of Scotland, and then leaving the mountains for the low, windswept hills and headlands of the northeast. There are castles, and walks to windy headlands, historic fishing ports, and […]
Where on Earth is Mellon Charles?
Heading westwards from Invergordon, the next part of our journey took us back into the towering hills and deep valleys of The Highlands. This time, the scenery was even better because we hugged the magnificent coastline of the northwest of Scotland. To say that the scenery in this part of Scotland is breathtaking would be a serious understatement. The narrow […]