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Queen Anne, our return to England Part 1: 10th March – 7th April 2025
Read more: Queen Anne, our return to England Part 1: 10th March – 7th April 2025Life on cruise ships can be uneventful, especially when stops are far and few between. Sometimes the weather can bring a moment of excitement… And sometimes the interest is something completely unanticipated, the threat of being captured by pirates… This latter event caused great excitement on board, despite the minimal actual risk, as we were…
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Rockhampton, Byfield National Park, Great Keppel and The Top End: 1st March – 10th March 2025
Read more: Rockhampton, Byfield National Park, Great Keppel and The Top End: 1st March – 10th March 2025A whistle-stop tour of the northern part of Australia. We dropped in to see Tali on our way to Darwin. In those few days she took us to a fantastically rustic cabin in Byfield National Park, an hour or so north of Rocky. Problems caused by Queen Anne arriving late into Sydney meant we arrived…
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Back east. Melbourne, Victoria and returning to Sydney 9th Feb – 26th Feb 2025
Read more: Back east. Melbourne, Victoria and returning to Sydney 9th Feb – 26th Feb 2025We chose to have a couple of days in Melbourne after flying in from Perth but once we got there we wondered why as after Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, Melbourne is our 4th Australian city on this trip and they’re all beginning to look the same! Day 1 we spent wandering around the central business…
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Hamilton Island: 20th Dec 2024 – 3rd Jan 2025
Read more: Hamilton Island: 20th Dec 2024 – 3rd Jan 2025Hamilton Island is one of 74 islands comprising the Whitsunday Islands, off Airlie Beach, some 5 hours drive north of Rockhampton. As a holiday destination for those wanting to stay by the ocean and explore the Great Barrier Reef, it is a superb place to stay as much of it is uninhabited and only a…
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Brisbane, Tali’s graduation and the beach: 4th December – 17th December 2024
Read more: Brisbane, Tali’s graduation and the beach: 4th December – 17th December 2024Brisbane was hot and humid. Tali had people to see and things to do for her big day but we managed a visit to the cinema to see Wicked the movie and the two of us thoroughly enjoyed it. Graduation day started at 10am with a trip to have our nails done. Something neither mother…
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Crossing the equator, Indonesia, Darwin, Papua New Guinea and back to Sydney: 16th November – 2nd December 2024
Read more: Crossing the equator, Indonesia, Darwin, Papua New Guinea and back to Sydney: 16th November – 2nd December 2024Regatta had its inaugural Pollywog and Shellback ceremony for crossing the equator. It was much tamer than other ones we’ve previously seen or been involved in. The ceremony consists of seafarers (or, in this case, cruise ship passengers and crew) asking King Neptune to be allowed to sail over the equator. To qualify, you have…
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The sea-route to Singapore: 6th – 14th November 2024
Read more: The sea-route to Singapore: 6th – 14th November 2024Weather issues have been instrumental in a couple of changes to our route and may yet play more of a role as we head west towards Singapore. Our first unanticipated stop was in Kaohsiung in Taiwan, a surprisingly sunny part of the world with 300 days of sunshine a year. We took an Oceania tour…
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Leaving Japan the slow way: 29th October – 4th November 2024
Read more: Leaving Japan the slow way: 29th October – 4th November 2024There are pluses and minuses to travelling on a cruise ship. The biggest plus for us was seeing some previously unvisited parts of the world prior to arriving in Sydney on the 2nd Dec. The biggest minus is often having just a few hours to get out and see or do something memorable, if indeed…
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Japan: 20th October – 28th October 2024
Read more: Japan: 20th October – 28th October 2024Released from the group into the Japanese wilderness we left Iruka by bus, caught the 4 hour train to Osaka and said our goodbyes. Our temporary new home was a 30+ storey hotel over the station but our early arrival meant we could catch a bullet train to Kyoto for some sightseeing. However, being a…
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Japan: 8th Oct – 20th Oct 2024
Read more: Japan: 8th Oct – 20th Oct 2024The flight from Manchester was uneventful except for a frenetic change in Dubai plus, on both flights the legroom was a little tight…. We arrived in Tokyo in a rainstorm early evening although it was already dark. Felt like home! Our first interaction with the Japanese was with our very young driver who picked us…