Well, time flies when you are at sea! Busy, busy, busy. No Internet, no phone etc. So this is the first entry for a while. I finally got over the cold and was able to spend a few days with Cynthia and Bill, also Bill’s brother and sister-in-law who were on a bus trip through the former Yugoslavia two years ago. We went to Ocean City and a few different places before I flew out to Ft. Lauderdale. I have been to Mark and Warren’s place in Ft. Lauderdale a number of times, so it was just a pleasure to catch up with them and spend Easter with them. Yes!, the Easter Bunny found me. Then it was off to St Maarten for the beginning of the sailing trip. St Maarten is divided into two sections, ... read more

January 1st 2012, a new year, hopefully a much better one than the last! I was off for a week in Bremen. Phillip and Nadine dropped me of in the Schnoor (I wrote about this in the first blog). I was staying for 3 nights in one of the original houses in the Schnoor. It is one room wide and 4 floors up and my room was in the attic. I was the only guest of Birgitte, a lovely lady who opens her house to one or two guests at a time. The stairs were something! They were tiny, Phillip worried I would break my neck going to the bathroom - well I am still here to tell the tale!! I wasn’t quite sure if I was a character out of Virginia Andrew’s ‘Flowers in the ... read more

We arrived in Lapland around 5pm, of course it was so dark, it was like midnight. We finally arrived at our hotel after a mixup and being taken to the wrong hotel, where of course they new nothing of us arriving! It was a quite pleasant -5c. There was quite a bit of snow, but more icy - rather like the Australian snow fields. We walked around the town of Rovaniemi -Since Rovaniemi is the capital of the Province of Lapland, many government institutions have their offices there. About 10,000 of the inhabitants are students. Rovaniemi is home to the university of lapland and the Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences. Over 70% of Finnish people are tertiary educated, which is the highest percentage in the world. Rovaniemi's most prominent landmarks include the Jätkänkynttilä bridge with its ... read more

Early morning start, booked into see Orang Utans feeding at orphanage in ShangriLa Rasa Ria at 10am. This meant an 8.15 start. Where it was very poor on the way to see the monkeys the other day, this side of the island is very beautiful. There is so much development going on, there must be some growth in the economy. There is great emphasis on sport and education. The KK university is HUGE, and almost resort like. We arrived at Rasa Ria, next to the wildlife sanctuary is this deluxe resort. This sanctuary is a feeder to the Sepilok sanctuary - babies stay here until they are 4 or 5 before being transferred to Sepilok. This centre was developed to bring the 'man of the forest' back from extinction (by the way, they have 96% of ... read more

After my trip to Cap's place, it was time to sort out the clothes, pack the bags, have a farewell dinner with Mark and Warren and off to LA. I spent two days just relaxing in LA, went on a trolley ride to the beach and shops and nothing much else. Home was via the A380, a big plane which took off and landed with ease. Although it was a good plane, I had wanted to upgrade to have one comfortable trip, but alas, the plane was full and no chance of an upgrade. Back home, the grass was 'as high as an elephants eye', ants had invaded everything, the back patio had collapsed due to lots of rain - so, back to the real world, hmm, where can I go next?... read more