Wednesday 20th afternoon departed Detroit late overnight flight to Frankfurt, down there for two hours and then onto London, arrived in London pretty much on time but sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting for our gate to become free! Finally got out of the airport and caught a bus to hire car company. Wow!! are we shocked at the price of diesel here 2.08 pound a litre thats hitting up nearly $4.00AUD a litre, anyway it is what it is. Freeways are a mess everywhere with lots of just crawling along even right out in the middle of UK, first stop was 4 hours out of London at Llangollen in Wales, a beautiful little town on the Dee River, famous for its Pontcysyllte Aqueduct! We came to know about this because of our mate ... read more

Well we finally made it to Michigan, set off early Saturday 9th July, United Business, flight was over one and a half hours late, they made up some time but we missed our connection in San Francisco, downgraded to coach on the next two legs, San Fran to Chicago, Chicago to Detroit. Our gorgeous friends Tim and Deb picked us up and it was such a relief to see them. Spent the night with Tim and Deb and had a couple of night caps and a pizza and then could not sleep....awake 2am.. up and showered 6am and took off to meet Blake and Suzy in Traverse City which was about a 4 hour drive north from Detroit on the lakes, stunning drive through green forests, cherry orchards and vineyards, it really was a beautiful drive. ... read more

Well a whole week in Bali! Absolute bliss and we have survived! Lots of stories of phones and bag snatching going on but as always we are very vigilant. Let me start with the procedure to get out of Aus, if you are organised it is not difficult, we decided to go to the airport 2 days before travel, Sunday night and get our PCR test with histopath set up at each airport, very easy and quick got swabbed, said it may take 90minutes for result, ours back in 30 with stamped certificate, $79 each, then home to relax. If this is required ongoing I would suggest country people go to airport and stayover night before. Nothing worse than stressing re PCR especially if you have early morning flight. We had a very easy check in, ... read more

Well we got away on time from Phnom Penh 9.45am. for six and a half bus ride giving us an arrival time of 4.15pm Ho Chi Minh City, ended up being close to 5pm. Overall it was a great bus trip, Giant Ibis Bus company, they were brilliant. We had two drivers and a jockey....the jockey informed us and rounded us up when needed for a couple of toilet stops and also took great care of us at the border crossing, taking all our passports and visas to immigration and getting them all stamped whilst we had coffee and some had a bite to eat....all went very smoothly. Lovely airconditioned bus with free water and even a breaky croissant to start off the trip. Were very lucky the bus terminal in Ho Chi Minh was quite ... read more

Away we head on Tuesday 28.1.2020 heading straight from Melbourne to Canberra to catch up with our lovely Aunties....bit hesitant heading north with all the bush fires around....but after checking everything we should be OK. Arrived in Canberra mid afternoon and booked into the Mercure Hotel Belconnen which only just opened a few days before our arrival and what a lovely hotel it is. Very large rooms, stylishly decorated and lovely views over Lake Ginninderra. The added bonus is that there is a connecting door from the hotel into the Labour Club where we could stop off for dinner and drinks in between catching up with the Aunties and sightseeing. Canberra has had a bit of a rough summer surrounded by fires, smoke, dusty and truly parched. Our Aunties cooked us a lovely dinner the first ... read more