R: Friday was all about the transport. You may already know that the Metro system in Moscow is prized as a jewel of the city. The stations are intricately decorated with chandeliers, statues and embossed detail. Lonely Planet had a "Metro tourism" tour, so Cate led us around as we criss crossed the network looking at the finest underground system in the world. After my initial difficulties moving around, we had now found our feet. We headed around through Arbatskaya, to Plotschad Revoluski, Kievskaya to Mayaskaya. Each station had its own specific theme and statues, many of which appeared to be lucky as areas of them were shinier than others where they had been rubbed clean. The Russians have decided to leave the evidence of communist past in the relevant places - there were plenty of ... read more

R: The next day brought spaghetti and sticky pastries on the hotel breakfast. We decided to split up this day, Cate and myself going to look at a royal palace outside of town, while Clare and Richard took a boat trip on the river. Our trip started with a subway journey to Moscovskaya metro station. Most people have heard about the Moscow metro system but I can confirm that parts of the St. Petersburg metro are just as pretty, though maybe not on quite as grand a scale. St. Petersburg, and in specific, the station we got on at, had recently had a terrorist attack just before we visited. There was no sign of this, however the level of policing was fairly high. This turned out to be the norm in Russia, as I will comment ... read more

C: So as our time in the Whitsundays came to an end so did our 6 months adventure together. We flew back to Brisbane together and then Roger left for Home via Abu Dhabi. I had a night in an airport hotel before my flight to Cairns the next day. Brisbane had felt fairly cool but on arrival in Cairns I was hit once again by the warmth and humidity of northern Queensland. It had been a nice flight and I was lucky enough to see Whitehaven beach again from my window seat. I only had a couple of days to spend in Cairns so I headed out from my accommodation quickly to explore and to book the next two days' activities. My principal purpose in coming to Cairns was to go out to the reef ... read more

R : Our flight from Brisbane landed on a beautiful sunny Monday afternoon at Proserpine, which is the industrial city near the Whitsunday coast. Around the airport were Wallabies, everywhere, hopping about enjoying the sunshine. We headed into town on a shuttle that took a huge amount of time, so by the time we got to our accomodation it was nearly dark. We chatted at length with reception about the tour possibilities, knowing that the weather forecast for the week was looking a bit bleak! Being a public holiday, a large proportion of the shops and restaurants were shut, so we headed to a pub for a semi-decent and vastly overpriced meal. Australia is hugely expensive to us now, given the gradual slump in the AUD v GBP rate - both Cate and I remember a ... read more

R: We went to Dargaville. Well, someone has to, I suppose. After Mangonui, we headed into the Karikari peninsula. All around the Northland we had been seeing flocks of wild turkeys. I never would have expected that. Many end up as roadkill and I'm not that surprised. Several stumbled out in to the road in front of me as I drove on. All the beaches up here are just stunning and some have bright, white, silica sand. After pottering about on a few, we headed to Karikari estate, which is a winery on one of the highest points of the peninsula that has extensive views across and to the bays. Naturally, there was some tasting to be done, but as the day's driving had just started, I confined my tasting to a Pinotage and a Long ... read more