We started out day with breakfast on the Spey Restaurant balcony and then prepared for our departure from the Balmoral. After redistributing the weight in our suitcases to get as close as 20 kg per bag as possible we headed ashore to a blue line cab who whisked us away to the airport in light drizzle. We arrived more than 3 hours before our flight but caught up with some correspondence as there was no 4G reception in the North Sea crossing. Our Aer Lingus flight was a turbo prop plane which boarded from the rear so our first row seats gave us little advantage but within an hour, we were landing in Dublin At 2:00 pm. Renting a car at Dublin airport is not as efficient as many other places we have visited with a ... read more

We awoke to an overcast day in Hellesylt, a small village at the end of our last visited fiord. After 3 straight days hiking, today we are booked on a 3 hour bus tour along one of the valley’s to the town of Oye with a number of stops along the way. We learned that many of the farms between Hellesylt and Oye have been abandoned due to economic viability and that there is a 100 strong community group that undertakes maintenance on sheds and dwellings to preserve some agricultural heritage of the area. We also seen a number of summer houses, small stone buildings with peat & vegetated roofs which people stay in for short summer breaks (there is no power, water, sewer). The valley had many towering cliffs and beautiful lakes with a numerous ... read more

We woke up to an amazing scene from our cabin window - the town of Flam with its towering mountains on either side. Flam (pronounced Flom) is renowned for the famous Flam Railway, a 20 km section of mountainous track which rises 866 m making it the steepest section of railway in the world. The trip up to the top is as scenic as you will see anywhere, a winding river follows the track through mountainous ravines and waterfalls around every bend with the longest free fall waterfall around 140 metres. The town of Flam is quite small - only 400 people live there and on surrounding farms however there were several thousands tourists waiting to catch the train when we arrived at the station. The train stopped at a waterfall where we were entertained by ... read more

We spent all night and all day at sea travelling to our first destination in Norway. We took the time to organise our cabin and took long showers for the first time since Adelaide. Tish headed to the Atlantis Spa for a hairdressing appointment at 10:00 am while Andrew headed to the laundry to wash a weeks worth of clothes and iron the trendy gear in his wardrobe for tonight’s formal dinner requiring a suit and tie. We pretty much entered the entrance to our first fiord just before our 6:15 pm dinner sitting so we made our way to the back of the ship to take in the views which included passing the Fred Olsen sister ship ”The Braemar’ cruising out of the fiord as we were entering. There was some amazing scenery during our ... read more

We spent our last day in Scotland in Fife mostly visiting local places of Andrew’s family history. We started the day driving to Kirkcaldy where we visited Ravencraig Park and of course Ravenscraig Castle before travelling to the train station and then to the now closed Forth Park Hospital where Andrew drew his first ever breath here on Planet Earth. We then made orur way to Burntisland where a number of Andrew’s ancestors lived. Fist stop was the old Kirkton Church where Andrew’s great great great grandfather and grandmother (farm serve ts) died in the 1800’s. The partially restored church has some history with an association with the writing of the King James Version of the Bible. We then made our way up to the Burntisland golf course car park and climbed the hill to the ... read more