Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Our round the world trip (19): around Rotorua
March 24th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Another day – Day 20 (Sunday) – and another tour and another hotel. Again it was an early start: alarm at 6 am and departure at 7.45 am. Leaving behind Auckland, we drove south through the rolling green countryside and we had our first break at the “River Haven Cafe” in the town of Huntly. […]
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Our round the world trip (18): Auckland
March 23rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 19 (Saturday) was spent in Auckland – the morning in a group tour of the city and the afternoon free to explore as individuals. The group tour took just over three hours and our NZ tour director Mark greeted us in Maori with “Kia ora” (“Good morning”). He explained that Auckland used to be […]
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Our round the world trip (17): from Sydney to Auckland
March 22nd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Just how early can an early start be on this amazing round the world trip of ours? On what is probably Day 18 (Friday) – the days and dates are starting to merge into one another – the hotel gave us an alarm call at 3 am for our 4 am departure to Sydney Airport. […]
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Our round the world trip (16): Sydney from above
March 21st, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 17 (Thursday) was our second day in Sydney and “a day at leisure” in the official programme, so all members of the group did different things with Roger & Vee ascending two of the city’s iconic locations. The main event of the day was climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This construction was completed in […]
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Our round the world trip (15): Sydney
March 20th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 16 (Wednesday) was the first of two in Sydney and it was another early start. We were up at 6 am and had a tour of the city from 7.30 am – 3 pm. At first, the sky was overcast and the temperature much lower and then we had a quick shower, but soon […]
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Our round the world trip (14): from Cairns to Sydney
March 19th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Today was not just Day 15 (Tuesday) but Roger and Vee’s 31st wedding anniversary. Roger gave Vee a card with a list inside headed “31 Reasons Why I Love You” – but Vee had not managed to organise anything. We were leaving Cairns after three nights to fly down to Sydney – our third and […]
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Our round the world trip (13): the Daintree
March 18th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
It was a free day on our tour of Australia – Day 14 (Monday) for Roger & Vee – but, on this type of holiday, there are no truly free days, only days with no group activities but all sorts of optional activities for individuals. Today some of our group took an excursion to Kuranda, […]
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Our round the world trip (12): the Great Barrier Reef
March 17th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 13 (Sunday) was very, very lucky. It was our visit to the Great Barrier Reef. This extends for 2,300 kms along the north-eastern coast of Australia and is not one large reef but a network of about 2,900 individual coral reefs. Corals are animals in the same family as jellyfish and there are around […]
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Our round the world trip (11): two very different flights
March 16th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 12 (Saturday) was a tale of two contrasting flights from the same airport, the first for Roger & Vee and the second for us all. The first one was a helicopter trip to Uluru and the Olgas departing from a corner of the local airport. It only lasted 30 minutes and cost a stiff […]
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Our round the world trip (10): Ayers Rock
March 15th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Having seen Uluru by sunset, naturally we had to observe it by sunrise too, so Day 11 (Friday) was our earliest start so far with an alarm call at 5 am. Three quarters of an hour later, we were off – to the music of Dido – to the observation area for the sunrise and […]
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