Home From Benalla Along the Silo Art Trail
We arrived home from our trip to Cobden late yesterday afternoon. We had a cool start in the morning with a temperature of around 4C but the sun was warm, especially in the car behind glass. We choose to drive home via Benalla and along the Silo Art Trail route via the towns of Tungamah, […]
Read More
Exploring Around Cobram
The weather up here was fine and sunny, although a little cool – much better than the day on Melbourne with cold weather and showers. It was a pleasant day for exploring around this area. Cobram is located in the Murray River, about half way between Yarrawonga and Tocumwal. Along this stretch river there are […]
Read More
We Are on a Short Road Trip to Cobram
I picked up my replacement car last Thursday. It is a very nice BMW X1. It’s a little smaller than the car that I sold back to the dealer but it’s very well equipped and nice to drive. It’s just about the right size for us and much easier for Jill to get into and […]
Read More
My Week of Ups and Downs
We all have highs and lows in our lives but this week they all seemed to come on top of each other for me. I had some wonderful events during the week along with some sad ond disappointing ones. THIS WEEK’S UPS Control Data reunion Back in my working days, I spent seven wonderful years […]
Read More
An Exhibition of Works by the World’s Top Selling Female Artist
The National Gallery of Victoria is currently holding an exhibition of the works of a famous Japanese artist. We gained a large dose of ‘culcha’ when we visited her exhibition today. It is so large that it takes up the whole ground floor of the gallery and is presented in two parts. Yayoi Kusama is […]
Read More
Coffee Encounters
One of my enduring memories of my service in Vietnam is that of being in a convoy way out in the boondocks resupplying a forward operation. There in the middle of nowhere, and in a potentially dangerous location, was an Australian Salvation Army Officer and his Landrover ready to serve us a cup of hot […]
Read More
My Milford Sound Photos are Recovered
I was extremely disappointed to find the my camera card was corrupt on the day that we drove to Milford Sound from Te Anau. This is one of the most scenic areas of New Zealand. However, patience has its virtues. When I discovered that there were no images on the memory card, I immediately removed […]
Read More
Christchurch – Our Last Days in New Zealand
On Tuesday 22 February 2011, Christchurch was badly damaged by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, which killed 185 people and injured several thousand. The earthquake epicentre was just 10 kilometres south-east of Christchurch’s central business district, only a few months after a previous quake in September 2010 . This was just a few months after our […]
Read More
Back to Christchurch
Saturday was the last of our long driving days as we returned to Christchurch. Our trip also completed the central loop of our ’figure eight’ tour of New Zealand’s south island – a driving trip of 4,250 kilometres. We started the day by driving down the west coast from Punakaiki through Greymouth to Kumera Junction […]
Read More
Back to the West Coast
On Friday, we headed west from Nelson through some forested country back towards Punakaiki where we had previously spent a night. This journey completed the top loop of our ‘figure eight’ drive around New Zealand. The country along the first part of the day was through mountainous pine forest. Many of the steep hills along […]
Read More
A Quiet Day in Nelson
Because we have two days here in Nelson, we deliberately kept our start to the day slow and relaxed. We were still in our hotel room at 10.30 am before leaving for a day of looking around this area of the northern South Island. We thought that we should put the car through a car […]
Read More
The Marlborough Area of New Zealand
Kaikōura where we have spent last night began as an isolated whaling location. Whalers first came to New Zealand waters in 1792, initially to hunt sperm whales from their ships. Shore whaling began in the 1820s. Southern right whales were killed and their blubber rended down. The oil produced from that process was used to […]
Read More