Year: 2007

Family

Audrey’s First Christmas

At Christmas (2007), our little granddaughter, Audrey, was just on 6 months old. She really enjoyed her first Christmas. She spent some time wondering what Santa would bring for her, and eventually had a lot fun with crinkly wrapping paper (almost better than the present itself)!     She enjoyed her first swim – even when […]

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Japan

More Day Touring in Tokyo

On our next day in Tokyo, we decided to hit the high spots and go to the Ginza. This is the most prestigious shopping area of all with some of the highest property prices in the world. As usual, we caught the subway to the station marked as the beginning of our walking tour and […]

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Japan

Japanese Innovation

We all know about  Japanese innovation, but some of the simplest of things stand out as being a great aid to the weary traveller. They are not the high technology ones such as the computer controlled monorail where trains travel over a 15 kilometre route and only 5 minutes apart – all without a driver […]

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Japan

A Quick Trip to Tokyo

We are in Tokyo after having found a discount airfare and the ability to buy one of our two tickets on frequent flier points. It’s autumn and the weather is fine and cool and there are gold and yellow autumn colours everywhere. We are staying at Shinjuku which makes it easy to get around as […]

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Local Getaways

Return to the Pickle Slicer Venue

Our final nights on our trip to Broken Hill, were spent at Halls Gap in the same cottages in which we stayed with Mary, Rob, Junene, Ken, Maureen & Dennis about 11 years ago. It was at the Kookaburra Restaurant in Halls Gap that I am accused (somewhat undeservedly, I think) of emptying the restaurant […]

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South Australia

Patriotic Peterborough

On our trip from Broken Hill to Adelaide today, we deviated off the highway for a few kilometres to visit the town of Peterborough – actually it just arrived on the GPS just in time for coffee. This town must take the award for being the patriotic capital of Australia. This fact became instantly clear […]

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New South Wales

To The Outback Mining City of Broken Hill

Saturday November 3 saw us taking advantage of the forthcoming Melbourne Cup Week to travel north to Broken Hill for a few days, followed by a plan to return via Adelaide. It was raining as we left home – which we didn’t mind as this weekend was only the occasion of the second major downpour […]

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Memories

Back To The Army

Over the weekend of October 21 & 22 2207, (and along with a few other Vietnam Veterans) I attended a two day celebration of my old army unit as it began to close down its operations at Moorebank NSW and prepared to move to Amberley in QLD. It was an interesting weekend and it bought […]

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Vietnam

Vietnam Trip Report

Between September 13 & September 29, 2007 we spent some time in Vietnam with our friends Rob & Mary Neal and Max Dong who is an old friend from my National Service days. Max served as a driver at 1 Field Hospital at Vung Tau. I was simply too busy to post any blogs during […]

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Trans Siberian Railway

The Long Trip Home

Leaving the baptism party was the beginning of my trip home to Melbourne. Birge kindly dropped me off at the local station where I caught a train to Hanover. From there I had a 2 1/2 hour trip on the Inter Clty Express(ICE) to Frankfurt. That was a pleasant trip and I enjoyed watching rural Germany […]

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Trans Siberian Railway

A Baptism in Barsingausen

We have enjoyed the final days of this trip in a very relaxed way at the home of David’s friends Stefan and Birge along with their two beautiful daughters Maiko & Suzuna. David first met Stefan at university in Japan. He and his family live in the town of Barsinghausen in Lower Saxony, Germany. Stefan […]

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Trans Siberian Railway

Riga

There was a young lady from Riga Who smiled as she rode on a tiger They returned from the ride With the lady inside And the smile on the face of the tiger. We haven’t seen a tiger yet, but after being in Russia for the past 19 days, the city of Riga seems much […]

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