Our World Adventure 2018 - by land and sea

Wow! Africa While we’ve been really close to Africa, we had never actually stopped here. We’ve seen Morocco from the Straits of Gibraltar and have been through the Suez Canal but no Egypt stops. Plus – this time it’s safari oriented. Our first stop in South Africa was in Port Elizabeth. Since we were planning more time in the National Parks, we thought we’d go out to the park closest to the city – either 30 or 60 minutes depending on the gate entrance you use. We had been advised by breakfast table mates to go directly to the main gate. This was a good choice and also took us along a fairly long stretch of road along the townships which was interesting to see and wonder about. At the park we showed our Wild Card (kind of an annual pass) that we had such hard time getting (just needed to plan 3 months out instead of two to allow for mailing from South Africa). We had a great day at Addo Elephant National Park – came across a zebra within a mile of the gate, then more – t...

Islands of the Indian Ocean After leaving Malaysia, we had over a week of island hopping around the Indian Ocean, starting with Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylan). We booked a walking tour in Colombo for the morning. It was a bit confusing finding our guide at the port gate – the confusion was where the port gate actually was. We went through two checkpoints but with not English spoken, they’d just point. It doesn’t help that there are a couple of different gates where cruise ships might dock. At any rate, after actually walking past our gate, we managed to connect. Our tour company arranged a small bus (we had 12 participants) to pick us up at the port gate rather than having to get ourselves to a point in the city. This was very helpful though a few of our group stayed in town and walked back to the ship. We had a very informative tour through the early part of the city, settled by the Dutch, including tea and cookies high in a hotel looking over the city and waterfront construction p...

Back on Board – on toward Malaysia After a wonderful three days in Singapore, it was time to get settled again on the Queen Elizabeth. Unexpectedly we were assigned back to the same stateroom. Since we vacated it for a month, we figured we could be anywhere. It was a bit like coming back home, though our tablemates for our early dinner have changed rather dramatically – not quite as lively and so soft spoken that I am challenged to hear any conversation. Finding a different place at the table has helped – nice people, though. We had planned to use UBER to get to the ship but found that a company called GRAB has bought UBER in Singapore (they cover most of southeast Asia). The changeover was to happen in just a few days. Anyway, with that unknown (and no cash for a regular taxi), we thought we should get started with time to spare. Then, of course, our UBER driver was there in 5 minutes and off we went. He gave us a bit of a verbal tour as we went straight through the city cen...

Singapore We had chosen to fly to Singapore in the evening rather than catching a 6:00 a.m. flight via Kuala Lumpur, with the early, early morning. So, instead, we took Scoot Airlines (a budget airline associated with Singapore Airlines). It actually was fine, though I booked the ticket at rather the wrong time, so paid a bit more than I should have. It was still a cheap price for us – didn’t include anything – booked a ticket with 2 bags and bit extra weight for one of them which we didn’t end up needing *. So off we went on a late afternoon flight to arrive at our Singapore Airbnb home in the wee hours of Sunday morning. So, Singapore. Our Airbnb hostess had sent specific directions to give the taxi driver since most people stay in hotels. I had it printed out and he read it and off we went. I knew that while Singapore has relatively inexpensive taxis (metered), there’s a surcharge after midnight. However, since there was almost no traffic, it was only $30 Singapore dollars...

Perth and Western Australia We had a wonderful time with friends who live just north of Perth, Western Australia – a four-hour flight from Melbourne. We loved their home just up from the beach – beautiful sea views from their wrap-around balcony in the mornings. First thing the next morning was a dip in the ocean before it got too hot. The water was not nearly as warm as expected but a great glimpse of their seaside life. A beautiful sunset walk along the promenade was a great way to end that first day. They had strongly suggested a visit to Rottnest Island (named after the native marsupial called a Quokka that appeared to be a large rat to the German’s who named the island). It has been a Western Australia island resort for a very long time and was fun to see this family resort community. We had booked one of the least expensive options other than camping or a hostel, but our friends said “heritage” actually just means “old”. The front of the cottage was, in fact, tented, an...

We did a quick drive around some of the little historic streets in Port Fairy before heading north (along the north edge of the Tower Hill Reserve as it turned out). It’s a bit of a long drive to Hall’s Gap, but through farm and ranch land. At some point along the drive we realized that we could see the silhouette of some of the Grampian ranges in the distance. They were quite striking. We stopped in a small town, Dunfeld, just at the southern edge of the park and went to the visitor center to get some maps and suggestions. They recommended an arboretum just out of town – we stopped at the bakery and got a meat pie and sausage roll for lunch. Unfortunately, the meat pie was mostly potatoes – different than all the others during our time in Australia.   We had lunch and wandered around a small lake before continuing north. We got into Hall’s Gap a little early, but the room at the hostel was ready for us – a family room with ensuite bathroom. It was a bit crowded with two ...

The Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. We took a 10:30 train from Melbourne to Geelong, which is a beach playground for Melbourne. It was the first day of a three-day weekend, so very lively along the promenade with lots of kids in the water and a wooden boat show, which we glanced at. We had to walk about half a mile from the train station to our lodging, Gatehouse on Ryrie, just 4 blocks from the promenade. It was a slight uphill and we are not doing really well with our relatively heavy rolling bags. We came upon a shopping cart near a bus stop fairly soon and used it to get the rest of the way across town. The Gatehouse was built in the late 1890s, so very historic. The current owner has had it 15 years and runs it as a B&B – 7 rooms with 2 shared bathrooms. It had great character (in a good way), beautiful dark wood trim and banisters, a nice lounge/sitting room and breakfast room. The kitchen was available for us to cook if we chose (we had kebabs down the stree...