Hanoi

Well, we were lucky! Half an hour before we were due to land in Bangkok, our plane was diverted to Singapore owing to riots in Bangkok. As you probably know, Bangkok airport was closed by anti-government protesters and has still not opened. On arriving in Singapore, we were able to organise a night in a top-class hotel and a direct flight to Hanoi the next day, all courtesy of British Airways!

Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, was a culture shock after the wide open spaces of Australia. There are over 80 million people living in a country the size of Norway, and a lot of them seem to be here. The roads are packed with cars, scooters, mopeds, bicycles, women carrying baskets on yokes and people everywhere. You take your life into your hands every time you cross the road dodging the traffic. Amazingly enough there are few accidents, they seem to have perfected the art of weaving in and out of the traffic around them in the most nonchalant way. The pollution is such that your airways notice it almost immediately, and many people wear masks covering their nose and mouth. Having said all that, it is also a fascinating place once you get used to it. There's so much going on. People preparing meals on the pavement that smell wonderful, others sitting around chatting, a constant racket from tooting horns and calls from street vendors.

After a good night's sleep we met up with another of our nephews, Lawrence, who is travelling through Asia at the moment. We spent the day feeding him up and giving him some culture, as well as organizing tours to Halong Bay. We visited the Temple of Literature and wandered through the fascinating back streets in the old quarter of Hanoi. There are streets which just sell shoes, others which sell only hardware, toiletries, clothes, spices etc. and of course those selling silk and lacquer ware. We ended the day watching a performance of the Water Puppets. This is an amazing puppet show conducted in a pool of water beside which a traditional Vietnamese orchestra plays.

The next two days were spent in Halong Bay, a 3 hour drive from Hanoi. The bay has almost 2000 small islands and islets like wooded mountains rising straight out of the sea. Legend has it that a dragon came down from the mountains and ended in the bay, and the islands are the spines on his tail. It is a magical place despite the amount of tourists that insisted on accompanying us! We spent the rest of the first day on a junk sailing round the islands, kayaking and watching the sunset from Titop Island. We also spent a chilly night on board the junk. After breakfast our lovely little guide Nga took us to Hang Sung Sot cave, an amazing series of limestone caves with among other things a rock called "the penis rock" - it looked just like one too! Then it was back to the shore and the bus to Hanoi.

I started today early at Hoan Kiem lake, which is in the centre of Hanoi. It was just after sunrise and the park area around the lake was full of people walking, running, sitting and meditating or playing badminton on any available paved area. There was a group of old ladies in their winter coats and hats doing Tai Chi, old men flexing their joints and a whole crowd of younger women dancing to Boney M. And for once there was almost no noise of traffic on the streets. After breakfast we went to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and the Presidential palace. Many of the people queueing up to see Uncle Ho were Vietnamese, he very obviously plays an important role in their national identity.


Tonight we take the night train to Lao Chai and Sa Pa where we are going to do some trekking in the mountains. It'll be the first time we have to put on our winter woolies! After that we head south.

The red centre - Alice and Uluru

Alice Springs is situated pretty much in the centre of Australia, surrounded by mountains and deserts. Flying there from Adelaide and then back to Sydney, you see vast areas of red nothingness crossed by the occasional track and creek. However, we were in for a surprise when we landed as "the red centre" had turned green! Alice Springs has been experiencing a series of rainstorms, the first rain for 2 years, causing the rivers to flood and everything to spring into life. It was amazing to see the speed at which things can grow and the variety of flowering plants, desperate to produce seed while they have the chance.

Alice was built originally as a telegraph station linking Adelaide to the far north, but has grown into a sizeable town. It is the first place we have been since Cairns where the Aboriginal people have been so apparent around the town and though the two communities seem to live parallel lives, we saw several signs of cooperation. Among other things, a lot of the art work produced by local indigenous communities is sold in Alice Springs in cooperatives as well as in more upmarket galleries. We spent our first day wandering round town looking at the art work, booking a trip to Uluru and then wading back through the river to our motel.

Next morning it was up early to start our trip. Having limited time and with unpredictable weather and road conditions we ended up with a two day tour, which was not what we would have chosen, but can't complain! We drove the first 250 km in a coach before transferring to a minibus with six other people and a very enthusiastic tour guide who drove us a further 200 km to King's Canyon in the George Gill range. There we spent the rest of the day walking the 6 km round the rim of the canyon. The temperature was in the low 30s and a clear blue sky, so it was hot climbing over the rocks.
However, the views were beautiful and we saw various lizards and loads of flowering plants, such as the desert tomato and the chocolate acacia.

We spent that night at a roadhouse owned by the Aborigines but run by white Australians. It was the only building for miles, but had all we needed - most importantly a hot shower to wash off the dust!

We were picked up next morning by the coach which was chauffered by two extremely knowledgeable and amusing guides. We were taken first to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), four humps pushed up out of the ground millions of years ago, and then on to Uluru (Ayer's rock). Both places are sacred to the local Aborigine tribes and the national park is run by a group of indigenous and non-indigenous people. Uluru means meeting place and the caves and waterholes around the base provided food and shelter and a place where they could come together and celebrate.
It is a place that has its own mystique and significance for all who come there, though I have to admit that it was lessened for me by having to trail after 40 other people and having it portioned out by someone else. We ended up at the sunset viewing place where our guides provided us with champagne and a barbecue. There we sat together with hundreds of other people waiting for the setting sun to shine on the Rock - how bizarre? However, the champagne helped us to see the funny side, particularly as there was no sunset - the sky was covered in clouds! After a 5 hour coach trip back to Alice we sank gratefully into bed.

Our last day in Alice we spent at the desert park, which shows the fauna and flora living and growing in desert sands, desert river and woodland areas - very interesting. Afterwards we happened on a posthumous exhibition of a well-known aboriginal painter who started painting in his 80s and lived to be 100 years old. His family, friends and art critics were gathered there to celebrate his work.

We are now back in Sydney for our last couple of days in Australia. We are staying with Kirstin, who has finished her masters with distinction. We've had a great time here, travelled over 18,000 km, seen lots of amazing things and met so many interesting people. I hope one day we can come back. Tomorrow we take the plane to Bangkok and then on to Hanoi and a new adventure!

Melbourne to Adelaide

We entered Victoria when we crossed the Murray river at Albury. The landscape changed from flat open fields to rolling hills with areas of forest. On our left we could see the Australian alps in the distance. We spent the night just north of Melbourne in the vine-growing Yarra valley and had a memorable meal at the Balgownie estate vineyard's restaurant.

Rain followed us down into Melbourne, but cleared up later to show the city in better colours. Melbourne has a more Victorian English feel to it than Sydney - it's where the old money is. The centre is full of trams and lovely old-fashioned alleyways with cafes, restaurants and shops, though there are plenty of more modern buildings too. We haven't quite made up our minds about the newly-built cultural centre by the Yarra river!

After Melbourne we headed for Torquay and the start of the Great Coast Road. The road which covers nearly 200 km of the coast between Melbourne and Adelaide was built after WWI by ex-soldiers in memory of all the Aussie soldiers who lost their lives.
Despite having seen endless pictures of it beforehand, it is a really spectacular coastline, and the pictures cannot convey the relentless force of the ocean. Particularly the Twelve Apostles and London Bridge - two areas where limestone stacks stick up through the sea - were stunningly beautiful. There was a bracing wind blowing from Antarctica most of the time and the temperature was only around 15 degrees so I was glad I'd brought a pair of jeans!


We spent a couple of days driving and stopping along the coast enjoying the views and walking in the Otway national park. One of the places we stopped the woods were full of koalas sleeping up in the Eucalyptus trees, waking occasionally to chew a leaf or two.




Then we turned north and drove up through the Grampians, an area of sandstone mountains. We stayed the night at Halls Gap, a pretty little village in the mountains and woke to the calls of parakeets, lorikeets and corellas. We spent the morning walking up to one of the peaks, which gave a stunning view over the mountains and down to the valley below. Kevin ran a good part of the way, past endless groups of very unfit Australian schoolkids who were being forced to take some exercise.

At one of the picnic spots in the area we sat for a while watching a mob of kangaroos lazing under the trees before bounding off to find better pastures.
And so on through the Wimmera and endless kilometers of wheatfields before crossing the border into South Australia, where everything was noticably yellow and drier until we neared the Adelaide Hills. The countryside here is much more lush, with wooded hills, the famous Barossa Valley wineries to the north and a pretty coastline. Adelaide itself is a city with a rather gracious but provincial feel to it - much smaller and quieter than either Melbourne or Sydney, except when there is a test match or festival on!

Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs and Uluru - our last week in Australia.

New South Wales

We spent the weekend in Sydney staying with our nephew Dan and his wife Kerrie in their apartment by Sydney harbour bridge - if you crane you neck you can see the bridge fom their window! The weather wasn't great, so we did city stuff - ate dinner at Darling harbour and went shopping in Bondi with Kirsty and friends.

On Sunday we picked up a rental car and took off to the Blue Mountains with Dan and Kirsty to do some walking. It was a beautiful sunny day, but the air was cooler than anything we have experienced here in Australia - more like spring in Norway. Just perfect for walking. The Blue mountains are spectacular and there really is a blue haze over them. Once you get away from the crowds they are still an almost untouched wilderness. However, it does feel like upside down walking - all the roads and settlements are at the top of the mountains and you have to walk downhill first! We spent the night in Katoomba having put the others on a train back to Sydney, and carried on exploring the area the next morning. The views around Blackheath, another small village in the area, were even more spectacular. It also has an enormous Rhododendron garden, which was in full bloom at the moment.

After that we drove inland though the mountains into sheep and cattle farming country to a farm near a small town called Dunedoo. The farm is owned by some friends of my family, and we were made welcome in true Aussie fashion by Gail and Ross. We spent a very interesting couple of days there being shown around the farm, herding sheep on motorbikes and generally learning a bit about farmlife in Australia. They primarily produce lambs, but also have cattle and crops. Harvest-time starts in the next couple of days, so they have plenty to keep them busy now. On our last night there we had one of their lambs roasted in a wood oven outside - mmm!

After leaving them we drove south through New South Wales and more heavily populated farming country (though not by English standards). The towns are larger and closer together, still with the distinctive Australian one-storey buildings. Lunch was in Cowra by the rose garden. Cowra had a massive Japanese breakout from its POW-camp during WWII and many prisoners died. They have since made great efforts to achieve a reconciliation with the Japanese people.

Then on through Cootamundra, the birthplace of the legendary Don Bradman (Australia's greatest cricketer), to Wagga Wagga, Austalia's largest inland city, which just happens to have the National Art Glass Gallery. Wagga is a pleasant town based around the Murrumbidgee river, where the trees are full of cockatoos.

Today we head on down though the Yarra valley vineyards to Melbourne and the state of Victoria.

Queensland coast: Cairns - Brisbane

Since leaving Cairns we have travelled 1700 km down the Queensland coast to Brisbane on the Greyhound bus. The bus journey takes about 30 hours if you do it all in one go, and is mostly used by backpackers half our age looking for the beaches and party scene! We quickly decided that we needed to break up the journey to make it as manageable as possible in the time we had.

The first stage was a short hop of two hours to Mission Beach, where we spent four days at The Sanctuary, a beautiful place at the top of a hill covered in rainforest and with its own private beach. The Sanctuary has small cabins set in the rainforest with walls made of screens so that you are surrounded by the sounds of the wildlife living there. The restaurant in the main building opens out on to a veranda with a breathtaking view of the coral sea. The walk down to the beach to the beach was an adventure every time, wondering whether you would meet a cassowary (enormous birds) or not. We spent our days there mostly relaxing on the beach, apart from the day we took the local ferry to Dunk island. There we did a 12 km walk in the rainforest round the island - a bit claustrophobic really, especially when we came face to face with a hand-sized spider hanging above the path, but with good views from the top of the mountain.

From Mission Beach we did a a 9 hour stint on the bus down to Airlie Beach. Airlie itself is very touristy and aimed at backpackers. However, it is the gateway to the beautiful Whitsunday islands, named by Captain Cook for the day on which he first saw them. Our lodgings this time were in a backpacker resort, but the kids were very friendly to a couple of oldies!



We took a day trip on a sailing boat out to a tiny island/reef in the Whitsundays with Reg, an interesting Dutch ex-colonial who has spent years sailing the Pacific ocean. There was only one other couple with us, and we had a fantastic relaxing day sailing the boat, snorkeling around the coral reef and swimming with turtles. Lunch on the beach was provided by Reg's wife.


From Airlie we took the bus down to Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia, situated where the Tropic of Capricorn crosses the coast. Most people don't stop here as it's not much of a tourist attraction, but rather like a midwest town in the States. The Criterion hotel that we stayed in is one of the oldest buildings in Rockhampton built on the site of the original Bush hotel.

The hotel still has a look of faded glory and though haphazard attempts have been made to modernise it, it hadn't lost any of its charm. We spent the day wandering in the botanical gardens and trying to find shade from the blistering heat. It was Melbourne cup day and most of Australia stopped up to watch the horse race and celebrate afterwards.



We did the last stage of the trip down to Brisbane overnight, arriving at 06 in the morning to the first real rain we've seen for weeks. Brisbane is the state capital and a very pleasant city which manages to keep the laid-back Queensland feel to it despite being a very modern shopping and cultural centre. We spent a couple of days looking around the city, shopping (OK, it was raining!), cycling along the river banks and visiting a koala sanctuary.


Despite being in the city again we still managed to come face to face with the local wildlife - a few possums playing in the park in the evening near our hotel, half meter long lizards wandering by our table as we ate lunch and birds everywhere.

And so on to Sydney by plane for the weekend before heading south again.