Blogs from Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Normally a visit to the Gold Coast translates to visiting the many theme parks, swimming at the world famous beaches or shopping at the vast array of malls. This Gold Coast stopover, however, was primarily about visiting Kim’s nephew Adam, who has recently been diagnosed with another brain tumour, having spent the last three years undergoing chemo and radiation in order to successfully eliminate his initial brain tumour. We wanted to encourage and support him as he commences treatment this week. After visiting and staying overnight with Adam’s sister, Melissa, and her family, we travelled to Yarrabilba and spent the morning with Adam and his wife Trish. Phone messaging is no substitute for face to face catch up. After visiting Adam, it was a short drive to Tamborine Mountain, which lies just west of and above ... read more

Our second Oz adventure took us along Australian's Eastern Coast from Port Douglas in the north all the way down to Sydney. What better way to kick it off than by exploring the Great Barrier Reef! We decided to go all out and treated ourselves to a luxury snorkeling and scuba diving boat trip. After all, how often does one visit the Great Barrier Reef?! The visibility was only mediocre but we did manage to spot some white tipped reef sharks and lots of beautifully colored coral and fish! The snorkelling gave some of the better views and while we were willing to plunge straight down to 18 metres for the scuba dive, we needed the comfort of noodles to aid our buoyancy on the surface!! Collecting our second campervan (Skippy) in Cairns, we navigated along ... read more

Next stop, we are few days on the Gold Coast. Tanya has a very close friend celebrating a milestone birthday, so it's party time! Diving was over by 1pm in South West Rocks, and we were going to sleep that night next in Surfers Paradise...and I don't push it when it comes to driving hundred of kilometers. On the way down, we did not had the time to stop in Byron Bay. So I had to show the gorgeous lighthouse to Tanya. We made it, but we made it just few minutes before they were going to close the gate to access the light house. We were there just few minutes after sunset...but the sky was still an amazing pink to red colors. The lighthouse was actually pink. I believe it would be great to access ... read more

Well we are all ready for our bug road trip, all the hotels are booked, cars are booked, Disney tickets bought. even got the Airport Parking sorted this week. All that is left to do is pack and go. Flying out of Gold Coast Airport on Sunday 4th Sept (Fathers Day) 4 of us, Joanna, Brianna, Liam, and Myself (Ian), My Brother Andrew and his wife Suzanne, along with the Flori Family, Steve, Gil, Emma & Tess. Yep 6 adults, 2 teens and 2 preteens. 2 really big cars (Chevy Suburbans) to fit us and all our gear into. Hopefully we will have WiFi in a lot of places so we can update our blog, and share some photos as well. We are hoping to see a lot of the natural beauty of the Mountains, deserts, ... read more

Hello Friends,The siren call of rubber on bitumen has sounded again, and come early August, I am off to ride from Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Istanbul, Turkey, hopefully completing the Silk Road ride, started in 2014, from near where I finished the ride in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. My commencing point is approximately 200 kms west of my finishing point. The benefit is one less visa and a difficult connection point. Uzbekistan was the country I most wanted to see on my last ride, and I am looking forward to it, despite the high temperatures forecast. Whilst this part of the world is a hotbed of discontent, it seems to me that this will likely continue, and as I am ageing, I feel I must tick it off now rather than later. Merilyn has reminded of my 'rant' not ... read more

Day 8 – Sea World – 14th of June For my final day in Gold Coast I was undecided at first what to do, I had found a birding location that I wanted to visit, however my aunt completely refused because she was scared that we would get lost. So instead I had to choose between two half-zoo half-theme park places, either Dream World or Sea World. In the end we went for Sea World. We had arranged for the same taxi driver to come and pick us up, but he didn’t show up so we got a different taxi driver instead who agreed to charge us the same cheap price. It seems like there are way more taxi drivers around than there is demand for, there were loads just lining up outside the hotel and ... read more