Scottish Highlands Roadtrip
A dream come true: a trip through the Scottish Highlands, land of several of my ancestors, on both sides of the family. The journey began from Toward, on the Cowal Peninsula. The area is peaceful and windswept, with beautiful views of passing boats over the Firth of Forth to Ayrshire, and across to Rothesay on […]
How Now, Glasgow
Welcome to Glasgow Maybe it’s the city’s edgy, somewhat radical reputation, maybe it’s the friendly people we met, the history, or maybe all the free museums, but Glasgow was a very welcoming first stop in Scotland was Glasgow. While Edinburgh has a flashier reputation, we found once-notorious Glasgow to be just our style. Glasgow is a true, international […]
Family Meeting
“Hello, cousin. It’s lovely to meet you.” The goal of this last leg of our journey is to get an introduction to the UK, connecting with family and friends along the way. A few years ago, I embarked on a family history project that included tracing my roots back as far as I could. My […]
Bangkok Revisited
Returning to Bangkok after a month in Vietnam (and several more in Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos) was a bit of a shock. Everything seemed so modern and cosmopolitan, fashionable and brightly-lit. We spent Christmas eve (thanks to more points) in the Renaissance executive lounge, drinking wine and singing carols with Thai Santa and some pretty […]
Family Spirit Phuket
Phuket is known as a beach paradise, a place to get away from it all, relax and enjoy. After almost five months on the road, that sounded ideal, and what better way than in the company of family? For the first time on one of our extended travels, someone paid us a visit! Greta (Donny’s […]
Home
The following day, my former homestay sister picked us up to spend a few days with her family. On the way, we took a long, relaxing detour to Sankeien, an expansive park with lots of trees flowers and a small lake, opened to the public in 1906. There are also a few relocated buildings, including […]
Farewell
We leave for Darwin, in the Northern Territory tomorrow! It’s a two-night, three-day train ride on the Ghan we got on a SuperSaver low-priced special that means we’ll be travelling in reclining seats the whole time. We’ve purchased a bunch of snacks and things so we don’t have to buy everything from the Kangaroo Diner […]
Raraku
We set off with Captain John and Cousin Veronica for an overnight sail from Port Adelaide to near Torrens Island. The weather was cool but comfortable, and we had smooth sailing across the bay. There were seals lounging in the sun on the way out and the way back, and we were accompanied from time to […]