Two Drifters

                                                                    ^Dinner in Darlinghurst, Sydney Wow! What a month February has been! What a whirlwind! What a lot of opportunities I had and, after a Conference in Sydney, I now have. But I’ll get to that… Three trips, eight flights (nine if you count sitting on the plane at Learmonth [Exmouth] as we refuelled), five different accommodations, some time at home and some time at Rye. I think I am getting to the stage of having a travel bag permanently packed!! First up was the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Words do not do justice to the beauty of this place. But it was a trek to get there from Melbourne – fly to Perth and overnight there then fly to West Island (part of the Cocos group) via Learmonth. Also, wind back 4.5 hours (3.5 hours if ...

Another year has started and, with it, we kicked off our first trip – a cruise on the Viking Orion from Sydney to Auckland. My Dad had booked this cruise but was not well enough to go and asked us to go in his place. We didn’t need to be asked twice! We missed our eldest’s birthday (he turned 28) but he and his fiancée were holidaying in Singapore anyway so I didn’t need to feel badly about that! Their wedding is at the end of the year so I will have a married child this time next year. Wow – when did I get that old??! The cruise was fun. The timing wasn’t great as it coincided with the other 3 kids and partners being on holidays. We ordinarily would have had lots of family time at Rye but, instead, we were sailing the High Seas! Also, we would not have chosen to cruise so soon after the cruise to Antarctica. Having said all that, we enjoyed it. We flew to Sydney (an adventure in itself as wild storms closed Melbourne airport twice whilst we were there!) By the time we arrived at the V...

  Euro Adventure Chapter 5 – Viking River Cruise : The Viking River Cruise was 18 July to 1 August so I really should have discussed it in July but, honestly, I didn’t have enough time to write!! The trip was called “The Grand European” and it was two weeks from Budapest to Amsterdam via the Danube, Main and Rhine Rivers. It was our treat to ourselves for our 30th wedding anniversary but we delayed it a year as the Covid restrictions last year were too tough. We were very much looking forward to unpacking properly and once after being on the go for 5 weeks. We were also looking forward to some luxury. We were rewarded with all of this but we did have to pack and unpack once mid journey as we swapped from the Viking Gefjon to the Viking Ve. This was because the water level in the Main Danube canal was too low. Who knew that this happened??? We didn’t but it was actually the third trip in a row for the Gefjon where this had happened. It was a small inconvenience and the logistics wer...

Before I start on April, let’s recap the last few days of March. We rented a wonderful pet friendly house through AirBNB in Angaston (the Barossa Valley, South Australia) and we had two full days there. We also found a fantastic dog park in Nuriootpa (a few kilometres from where we were staying). We sought out a few dog parks on the S.A. trip but the Nuriootpa one took the cake as there were dog toys there for the dogs to enjoy! Anyway, the Barossa is not famous for dog parks but for wine. Shiraz grapes in particular. We used MadPaws again for doggie day care and we spent a day wining and dining ourselves! We started at Penfolds then journeyed to Seppeltsfield. We didn’t go to the Penfolds Winery (that’s in another part of S.A. and for next time) but we went to their Barossa shop. There, we had a pre-booked Luxury Wine Experience and we tasted wines which sell for hundreds of dollars a bottle including the famous ‘Grange.’ It was a great start to the day! Next stop was a wonderful lunc...