Day 70 Monday 20 March. Overcast with showers and sunny intervals. We are up early for departure from the Ponderosa (as I have taken to calling it) and our course south to the coast. It was a long, long drive to Warrnambool from Halls Gap: three to four hours on long, mostly straight, mostly emptyContinue reading “Blog 16. Australia. Warrnambool and Port Campbell”
Author Archives: Commander Shacklepin
Blog15. Australia. Halls Gap
Day 67 Friday 17 March and it is freezing. Well, 15 degrees at any rate. There is a bitter southerly wind blowing, though the sun is shining in a bright blue sky. We are off to the Australian Grampians today, to stay at a place called Halls Gap, which sounds even colder than where weContinue reading “Blog15. Australia. Halls Gap”
Blog 14. Australia. Kyneton and Daylesford
BLOG 14 Day 64 Tuesday 14 March. Bright sunshine, 30ºC. A gentle start today (we are sleeping in a lot, partly because the curtains in the room are so thick that you can’t tell it’s daylight), then a drive into Kyneton to stroll around and explore the town. It is hard to describe Kyneton –Continue reading “Blog 14. Australia. Kyneton and Daylesford”
Blog 13. Australia. Ballarat
Day 59 Thursday 9 March and we are off to the former gold mining town of Ballarat, about two hours’ drive away. We are staying at Sovereign Hill, a suburb of Ballarat and site of one of the old diggings, now converted into a theme township. It was a fairly straightforward drive there, on long,Continue reading “Blog 13. Australia. Ballarat”
Blog 12. Australia. Queenscliff and Lorne
Day 53 Friday 3 March. Sunny intervals, 24ºC, cool breeze. Today was a somewhat lazy day, with a late start after a very long sleep. After lunch we visited Geelong Library, an amazing modern building on five levels with clear views to the north and set in a very pleasant park. The park is usedContinue reading “Blog 12. Australia. Queenscliff and Lorne”
Blog 11. Australia. Sydney
Day 48 Sunday 26 February. Sydney, Australia. 24ºC, mainly sunny. We awoke to a grey, murky day but we resolved to put on a happy face (and a fleece) for the day and set off in search of breakfast. The day outside proved to be better than the view from our top floor (tinted) windowContinue reading “Blog 11. Australia. Sydney”
Blog 10. Australia. Adelaide and Geelong
Day 38 Thursday 16 February and we secured starboard side to in Port Adelaide (about 45 minutes from Adelaide) at 0900. It was warm and sunny, which has to be worth something. The queue to get off stretched once round the main circular lobby, along two long corridors and back to the main lobby again. Continue reading “Blog 10. Australia. Adelaide and Geelong”
Blog 9. Australia. Fremantle and Busselton
Day 34 Sunday 12 February and we are in Fremantle, Western Australia. The temperatures are back to ‘normal’, that is to say it made it up to 27ºC today, partially cloudy. It was a rum old passage across the Indian Ocean from Mauritius, as you will have gathered from the previous blogs: it wasContinue reading “Blog 9. Australia. Fremantle and Busselton”
Blog 8. Passage to Australia. Indian Ocean
Day 30 Wednesday 8 February dawns with a grey sky and a battleship grey sea flecked with catspaws. If I didn’t have the chart display in front of me I would have said we were off Flamborough Head on a Bank Holiday. It is 24ºC with wind Force 5. The journey continues (the sun didContinue reading “Blog 8. Passage to Australia. Indian Ocean”
Blog 7. Passage to Australia. La Réunion and Mauritius
Day 25 Friday 3 February and we are in France, or rather part of it: La Réunion. As mentioned in the last blog, we are in the port with the original name, Le Port. It is a very small commercial harbour (think Seaham Harbour with sunshine) which we only just managed to squeeze into andContinue reading “Blog 7. Passage to Australia. La Réunion and Mauritius”
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 