Travels with Cathy and Steve

Our last couple of days were quiet, mainly because the weather turned to warm, very windy and cloudy. Also because Steve had a problem with his foot (suspected Gout - very painful) and that put the kibosh on a planned rainforest walk. Still we were able to get some interesting things done: Friday night is street party night in Gros Islet, with lots of street food, street bars and VERY LOUD music. We travelled by local bus, had a cocktail, surveyEd the long queues for food and, as we had done previously at Shirley Heights, decided to go elsewhere to eat. The elsewhere was Rodney Bay Marina, only a walk from our hotel and home to several very attractive restaurants. We have eaten well in St Lucia but English Harbour was better.... On Saturday we had ... read more

Our last night in Antigua involved a return visit to Restaurant Incanto....fabulous food in a delightful setting, although it was a bit blowy that night. Our hostess in Antigua let us check out late which was great as we were able to have a full day before our evening flight to St. Lucia. This was interesting on a small 50 seater aircraft. We flew at about 18:00 heading south and looking west. As we flew the sky turned redder and redder finally fading to black as we landed. Spectacular but not really photographable. So, all good except that the taxi we ordered to pick us up failed to materialise so we had to find a cab and got into our new hotel later than planned. We’ve moved from a small B&B in the Antiguan hills to ... read more

Sunday evenings in Antigua mean one thing: Shirley Heights. Tourists from all over the island gravitate to this old military post with fabulous views out over English Harbour. There’s a fantastic (and huge!) steel band, a reggae band, bars and BBQ. Party time! All great fun but we skipped the BBQ. Since then we’ve explored gently east and west, looking at beaches and towns. More on beaches later. Yesterday we headed to the capital St. John’s. Somewhat run down but pretty lively. However the most significant thing we found were the TWO enormous cruise ships in harbour. The area around the cruise ship terminal was tourist central with a weird mix of tat and high end shopping...who buys diamonds when on a cruise? We’re convinced that not much of the tourist dollars coming in off the ... read more

The weather finally turned on Monday...it was glorious! Melbourne has the largest and longest tram network in the world. The network is comprehensive but slow. Nevertheless we used the good weather and the trams to explore the wider environs .. places like Fitzroy, North Melbourne and the like. You never know what you find and we found all sorts of quirky shops. E.g a great lighting store that had me thinking about my lounge lighting again... also a fine fabrics shop which enticed Cathy into buying ..... ooh err that luggage is looking a bit stuffed. In the evening we explored Chinatown. There are times in Melbourne when it feels like an Asian city. At least 50% of the guests in our hotel are Chinese and there are masses of tourists from China, Korea, Japan everywhere. ... read more

Cathy & I are in Australia although we’ve not been together that much. Cathy came out on 1st October and has spent 4 weeks with daughter Nik and Granddaughter Solli doing all sorts of home improvement projects. I did my share too... but we’ll spare you the details.. I then went off to do a Railway Study tour, organised by the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (where I’ve been a member for over 40 years...good grief). We did a week in Sydney when I commuted into the City but stayed at Nik’s, and then a week in Melbourne. There is no need to reherse the various seminars, visits to tram depots and construction sites etc., but we did do a few very worthwhile touristic things which I’ll summarise here and include a few photos. A ... read more