Year: 2017
Ending Our Silo Tour Along the Murray River
We headed home from our overnight stay, and wonderful dinner, in Mildura planning to take a couple of days to meander along the Murray Valley Highway through Swan Hill and Echuca. The Murray is Australia’s longest river, at 2,508 kilometres in length. It rises in the Australian Alps, and drains the western side of Australia’s highest […]
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Silos Tour – Part Two
Heading north from Warracknabeal, we first stopped at the little town of Brim. I have a friend who plays senior cricket and one of his compatriots is the owner of the Brim General Store. Wavel MacPherson is over eighty years age and plays in a national over-seventies cricket competition. I found him in his office […]
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Silos Tour – Part One
Today, we started our real tour of the silos. We began our day with n extended look around the town of Stawell and then visited the silos at Rupunyap, Sheep Hills and Brim. We are staying overnight in Warracknabeal. Before leaving Stawell, we stopped in the main street to see if we could find the […]
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Beginning Our Silo Art Trail Tour
We are taking this week off to visit half a dozen tiny entrepreneurial towns in the Wimmera and Mallee Regions of Western Victoria that have decorated their old grain silos with murals to form a giant outdoor art gallery. We will combine our visit into a circular tour that includes the Grampians the Murray River […]
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Valparaiso – My Final Day in South America
In many ways, I made a fortuitous decision to take a day tour to the port city of Valparaiso when I stayed over in Santiago for a final day on my way home from the Galapagos islands. I’m going back a week, or so, in time with this post but a lot has happened over […]
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A Review of My Time on the MV Daphne – Galapagos Islands
The Daphne is a mid-range Motor Yacht. She is owned by an Ecuadorian family and leased to Intrepid Tours who market cruises of various lengths around the Galapagos Archipelago.The trip on which I travelled was the ‘Ultimate Galapagos Cruise. The boat’s schedule is regulated and agreed with the National Parks Service so as to avoid […]
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Galapagos – 8
This was the final morning of our Galapagos Cruise on the MV Daphne. We had an early start with breakfast at 5.00 am and then we and our bags went ashore in zodiacs at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. This is the biggest town in the Galapagos with a population of about 12,000 people. […]
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Galapagos – 7
It’s been a very easy today physically. We again, had a rough night of sailing so that we were in position at Dragon Bay on Santa Cruz Island in the morning. Travelling around each of the islands is generally quite smooth. However, It can get rather rough when cruising between the islands. Fortunately, our trip […]
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Galapagos – 6
Last night, we had eight hours of navigation in open water. It was very rough and choppy and the Daphne was tossed around a lot. It was difficult to sleep. Eventually we arrived at Puerto Vallamil in the south of Isabela Island at about 5.00 am. I think I slept the most soundly for the […]
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Galapagos – 5
It was overcast and cool when had breakfast but the cloud had burnt off by mid morning and it was much warmer. We seem to have eggs in one form or another every morning along with cereal, toast and fresh fruit. This morning. It was fried eggs and bacon. Yesterday it was an omelet with […]
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Galapagos – 4
After a few hours of rough seas last night, we found ourselves anchored this morning in Tagus Cove at Isabela Island One of the youngest islands, Isabela is located on the western edge of the archipelago near the Galápagos hotspot. Because it is the newest island, this is also the highest island in the Galapos […]
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Galapagos – 3
This is my third day in the Galapagos and it’s been another good one. It was fairly hot today. I think the weather was forecast to be around 22C but it felt much hotter. There was little cloud and the sun was strong. Overnight, our boat repositioned to Santiago Island and I woke up at […]
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