Blogs from Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 14

GOR Day5 This is one of the days on this trip with some spectacular coastline. That is after we have breakfasted in the Alcove cafe, sung Happy Birthday to Kay, a young girl on our trip, and then mended Tony’s 2 punctures. The first detour down a rough track took us to the coast to see the most spectacular rock formations and caves which in my view to equal the 12 Apostles. The Loch Ard unfolded more scenes of delight and the Razorback island before we eventually arrived at the 12 Apostles, which now number 8 due to erosion and falling into the sea. The coastal rocks all have horizontal multi coloured strata exposed by wind and rain over hundreds and thousands of years. Quite amazing. Drinks and biscuits were available at the 12 Apostles visitor ... read more

Turning 50 in 2020, we wanted to have a really special holiday. Looking back, it was probably 18months ago that I started throwing ideas around of places I’d love to visit - Madagascar, Galapagos Islands or Antarctica. My love of photography, animals and nature were big factors when deciding where to travel to but price has to come into it, unfortunately. We ruled out Madagascar and Galapagos Islands because in 2015 we had the most amazing wildlife experience in Borneo and although not the same, decided to give these two a miss for this trip. Antarctica was a dream for both of us, but once we started doing the research, ruled this out too for several reasons which I won’t get into. Luckily, there was another destination which would offer not only spectacular scenery, wildlife and ... read more

Great Ocean Road. 2020 Day 1. Here we are off on another adventure to the other end of the earth. Hopefully not into the bushfires which have been raging for two months now in Australia’s worst fire season in modern history. We are going to ride from Warrnambool east to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road built by the First World War soldiers on their return and completed in 1935 using pick, shovel and hard graft. After a gruelling 22 hour flight and 28 hrs door to door and with dodgy sleep, if any, we arrive in Melbourne ready to build up our bicycles ready for a steady ride around the cycleways of the city on Friday the 7th of February. Please find me a bed to rest this weary body. I don’t care what time ... read more

For some time, we have been planning a protracted trip to Australia and New Zealand. Jennie and I came to Oz in 2003, but were unable to see some things, with only two weeks to tour around (one week of our trip was spent on a dive boat trip to the Coral Sea). We have never been to New Zealand. Since Chuck and Lucie had never been to either one, and given the length of the journey, we decided to spend an unprecedented 5 weeks seeing both countries as best we could in that time. We made some choices with an eye on the length of the trip. First, although we had wanted to visit the Ningaloo Reef to see whale sharks and see the oldest living things on Earth, the stromatolites of Shark Bay, we ... read more

Well The Times They Are A Changin' as Bob Dylan told us in 1964!! With Christmas 2018 spent in Copenhagen, Christmas 2019 saw us in Melbourne while Christmas 2020 saw us Home Alone in Sydney! Since I wrote a travelblog about our wonderful Copenhagen Christmas adventures I won't repeat them here. For Christmas 2019 Kev and I drove from Sydney to Melbourne, a journey of 880kms which we took two days to do with an overnight stay in Albury. Once in Melbourne we headed to Nic's place where we were staying. Meanwhile Andrea flew from Armidale, staying with Kerrii, Seb, Grace and Rupert and with the two apartments about a ten minute walk from each other it was easy for us all to go from one to the other. So on Christmas Eve we enjoyed a ... read more