Category: Uncategorized

I fear that we are about to have a crisis. A clean underwear crisis.

When we booked our accommodation in advance, we tried to ensure that we booked somewhere every 3 or 4 nights that had a washing machine so that we could – you know – wash our clothes.

We have stayed at a couple of places already where we have been able to do a few loads, but sometimes we get caught out.

Like here at Mickael’s place in Lyon.

All indications were that there was a washer, and also a dryer available in the building for a fee.

But it appears that neither of those things is true or correct. Or maybe they were correct in the original listing in French, but the AirBNB translation engine wasn’t as accurate as we could have hoped for.

And to make matters worse, Mickael neglected to mention that he also has a hot water system hanging from the ceiling, right above the toilet.

Sigh. I’m going to have to hang on now until Nimes and hope for the best.

In any case, we are running out of clean clothes and clean underwear.

First world problems.

We are staying here in Mickael’s AirBNB in Lyon for just the 2 nights. While a 5 week driving holiday seems like a long time, the fact is that we have lots of places that we want to go to and see, so we are a little bit limited in how long we can stay in any one place.

Some places where we want to stay a little longer and enjoy the township – or do some driving to nearby townships – we are staying 3 or 4 nights.

But only 2 nights in Lyon. We are staying in a small apartment at 15 Rue du Professeur Pierre Victor Galtier, Villeurbanne, which is one heck of a return address to have to write when you are posting a letter.

After a bit of a stressful day on the roads around Lyon yesterday, it was nice to leave Claude in the basement 2 garage and play bus ninjas for the day today.

We had a walking tour booked for today at 10.30, starting at the Place des Terreaux. It was some way away from where we are staying – maybe 4 or 5 km as the crow flies, so way too far to walk.

We downloaded the local public transportation app – TCL – and tried to figure out how best we could get from home to the Place des Terreaux. Bus with a little bit of walking seemed to be the answer, and we elected to get the 24 hour unlimited ticket for €6.90, even though we figured that we really only needed to buy a ticket there and a ticket return (2 x €2.50).

One of the things that is good about getting older is the stuff that you learn along the way. Experience.

And experience tells me that while we only need a ticket there and a ticket back, we are going to find ourselves on a wrong bus somewhere and need to do a come-around.

I mean, it happened on the toll road coming into Lyon, so it will probably happen on the bus as well.

So we splurged and bought the all day tickets. And I’m glad that we did.

We bought our tickets, loaded them onto the app, then walked down to the local bus stop to catch the C3 bus. We confirmed with the bus driver that we were in fact heading in the correct direction to get to the Place des Thereaux, and that this was the correct bus.

After a couple of stops, he beckoned us forward and pointed around the corner saying “cinq huit”, which I seem to recall is a couple of numbers, but I can’t remember which ones.

In any case, after a bit of bus ninja-ing, we found ourselves at the desired location, 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

Mickael – bless his cotton socks – has provided us with a coffee machine in the apartment, but the coffee tastes like no coffee I’ve ever had in my life.

It’s pretty bad, and I have a fairly high tolerance for bad coffee.

So we needed to get a decent brew. MBW refuses to get coffee at any establishment that has less than 4.5 stars on Google, so there was a bit of walking around trying to find a coffee shop.

We eventually found a boulangerie – have I mentioned how much we love boulangeries? – and got two coffees and an almond croissant because … well, because you just never know.

My mate Jack Reacher will tell you that you should always eat when you can … so we ate.

Coffee was good, and the almond croissant was fabulous. God bless the French.

We were still early for our walking tour, so we made a video call to one of our Daughters-in-law, Alicia.

Hugo – our walking tour guide – arrived and we set off with a group of about 10 to see the sights and hear the history of Lyon.

I confess to being a bit confused by Hugo. His English was much better than my French, but he was very hard to understand. I confess that I paid way too much attention to his moustache which he appears to dye orange to hide the grey, so perhaps I wasn’t listening as closely as I could (or should) have been.

For the first 30 minutes of the tour he took us up more and more staircases towards the top of a hill, which is good practice for when we get to Italy and climb the 400+ steps of some dome that we were told was a “must do”. And we have to pay for that experience too.

He kept talking about the “walking classes”. The walking classes moved their machines, and the walking classes did whatever … and I wasn’t sure if that had something to do with a walking tour.

And it finally occurred to me that the “walking classes” were in fact the “working classes”, and it all suddenly made sense.

We saw some Roman ruins that dated back to the 3rd century, and we saw buildings that had painted windows because – back in the day – you were taxed for each window that you had, so people wanted to appear to have more windows than they really did.

And they wanted to pay less tax than they had to.

We crossed the Rhone (river) into the old town (Vieux Lyon) and did a wander around there. I’m not even going to try to recall all of the things and places that we saw, but the photos below show the story.

We also learned about traboules. These are public/private passageways between buildings that were often used to move horses between buildings. Sometimes the rich used them so that they wouldn’t need to see the peasants.

Editor’s note: MBW tells me that she thought Hugo said that the original purpose of a traboule was to assist the owners to transport water to their home. If you have an opinion on this topic, please feel free to share it.

It’s not always obvious where to find a traboule, because they are just a plain door that looks like a regular building front door – but isn’t.

After the walking tour, Hugo gave us some suggestions for further things that we could do by ourselves, and some recommendations for what/where to eat.

It was close to 12.30pm by this time and we were getting peckish, so we found a little restaurant that met our criteria (ie it had lots of customers in it), and we went in and ordered.

It isn’t uncommon here that you can order anything from a set menu (cheaper, but you don’t get any options), a set menu with limited options (a bit more expensive, but more choice), or a la carte menu.

We chose the 2nd option because we got to choose from the things that we wanted to try anyway, and it was cheaper than buying the items individually off the a la carte menu.

We both had the Salad Lyonaise for starters and it was really good. Like a Caeser salad, but with chuncks of pork and croutons over a salad with a soft boiled egg.

For mains, MBW had a quenelle ( a type of souffle with lobster bisque – a traditional meal here in Lyon), while I had a chicken surpreme. To be honest, I was half expecting a Domino’s pizza to come out, but I was pleasantly surprised with a quarter roast chicken in a mushroom sauce, with gratin dauphinois (like a potato gratin).

So, so good.

And for desert MBW had a praline tart, while I had the chocolate mousse.

A really yummy, and a really filling meal that will keep us going for the day and means that we won’t need dinner tonight.

After lunch we needed to walk, so we headed up the road to the finicular so we could go up the hill to see the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière, a beautiful old bassilica that sits at the top of the hill and provides breathtaking views over Lyon.

We caught the finicular half way up so that we could stop and look at some Roman ruins which dated back to 20BC. I find that quite mind-boggling.

We walked the rest of the way up the hill to the basillica and admired the views, and went inside and were astonished by the intricate detail of the interior.

We took the finicular back down to the old town (Vieux Lyon) and wandered around some more. As you would expect, the roads and laneways of the old town are all cobblestone, and while I am sure that they were the latest tech several hundred years ago, they are just hard work for us softies walking on them all day – they really take a toll on your feet and legs.

Lucky I wasn’t wearing high heels!

By now it was mid-afternoon and we played bus ninjas again, catching a bus to the local markets just to have a poke around. We looked (and taste-tested) various products from a patisserie, plus we looked at a selection of cheeses and wines.

We bought some fruit to ensure we stay regular and don’t get scurvy.

Back on the bus towards home, and we were back by 6.00pm.

My impression of Lyon is that it is a very pretty city with some amazing history and gastromony, and some really spectacular buildings and monuments.

According to Wikipedia – the source of all truth and knowledge – Lyon has a population something above 500,000, yet the city is also very smoggy and quite dirty – lots of graffiti and rubbish lying around … which is a shame because it is such a lovely place with such a rich history.

I can see why they have a low emission requirement in place.

But we have had a great time here in Lyon.

Tomorrow we are off to Nimes.

That trip will be one of our “toll road” days. Google Maps suggests that the trip of approximately 250km is 2.5 hours with toll roads, and almost 5 hours without tolls. Plus there are lots of things that we want to drive and see around Nimes so we want to get there sooner rather than later.

Kate (our host for the next few nights) has messaged to say that we can get in from 2.00pm, so we will get up and get going early, find somewhere pretty to stop on the way for lunch, and get into Nimes as early as we can.

That will be tomorrow’s adventure.

Now, which pair of undies can I get another day out of … ?

Ciao

#Europe2025

It’s a slow news day today. Just letting you know. But Claude proved his worth today, which was good.

This morning we checked out of Les Bories en Champagne, which was a bit sad. The AirBNB was a bit quirky, but I guess you have to expect that with a building that was likely built before Captain Cook discovered Australia.

But it was such a beautiful and relaxing location. Simpy amazing to behold.

We had packed most of our stuff last night, so today we just needed to get up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, pack the car and go. We still had leftover baguettes from yesterday so that was breakfast, with butter and strawberry jam. Yum.

We’ve only done about 125km in Claude so far, and today we will be travelling about another 200km or so, so that will be interesting.

We are very happy with Claude so far, though. Very comfortable, very fuel efficient.

Driving a left-hand drive is still a bit weird, but it is getting better all of the time.

We wanted to see more of the countryside, so we made a conscious decision to avoid toll roads when we can.

We drove through some very pretty little villages on our way out of Montlevon, although I’m sure that they will become boring after a while. All of these villages are very quaint but they all have one thing in common – none of them have public toilets.

So if you need a comfort stop, you are hard pressed to find somewhere suitable. That is the thing that the toll roads have though – fuel, food and toilet stops.

The roads and surrounds are so green, and scenic, and pretty.

We were getting peckish around 10.30am, and MBW found a highly rated place called Boulangerie Mousset, Les Miettes de Pain (which I think means “Breadcrumbs”). We found a parking space and went in, only to queue up behind about 20 people ahead of us.

A popular place is usually a good place, in our experience!

And the majority of people simply go in and buy a baguette or three. When in Rome … so we bought a baguette, plus some pastries for smoko.

We fired up Google Maps again and headed off … only to find ourselves at the start of a motorway where you take your ticket. While we had made a conscious decision to select a non toll road earlier in the day, we didn’t do that after stopping to buy smoko … so we found ourselves confronted with the start of the toll road.

Not exactly what we had intended, but …

They have a parking area at the end of the toll gates, so we pulled over and had smoko, and asked someone else there about the process for using the toll booths and for paying at the other end.

Once on the toll road, we set Claude’s phasers to warp speed and we were off – at 130km/h. That is the “A” road speed limit, unless it is raining, so the limit drops down to 110km/h.

The toll roads are a lot of things. Certainly fast, although not particularly scenic.

The speed limits here are quite confusing. They will often have a speed sign with a picture of a car and caravan, so – the assumption is that – the new limit applies only to vans.

Ditto with a speed sign and an arrow – indicating that the new speed is applicable to a side street or an exit ramp.

And then you will see the name of a township or village on a street sign with a red border (like the red circle for speed signs), and the assumption is that means you are expected to slow down to 50km/h for the built up area, although it doesn’t actally state that fact.

It started to rain, and so two things happened – I slowed down to 110km/h as required under the road rules (even though nobody else seemed to do so), and Claude’s automatic windscreen wipers kicked into action.

We arrived into Dijon at a bit before 2.00pm and met our host waiting for us. All of the messages have come through from “Laurence and Guy”, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Their profile photo shows a man and a woman, so we figured that Guy is a lady’s French name.

What I actually didn’t expect was that the gentleman in his 70s who met us, wearing a beret, and who introduced himself as “Ghee” (the correct French pronunciation of Guy, apparently) and he didn’t speak a word of English.

Seriously, why can’t these people just make a little bit more effort to speak the Queen’s English 🙂

Google Translate saved the day, and with much laughter we figured it all out. Unfortunately this apartment is on the second floor of an apartment building with no elevators, so I got my workout hauling our bags up some stairs.

MBW and I went for a short orientation walk, and especially after Les Bories en Champagne, Dijon seems very industrial and dirty and busy. Cars everywhere, so there is no way that we are taking Claude out of his warm parking spot at the back of the apartment to battle the traffic.

We bought some groceries and headed back home for a quiet afternoon rest.

We couldn’t organise a walking tour of Dijon, so we will do something self-guided tomorrow. It’s been a bit rainy this afternoon but is forecast to be fine tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Sunday, then on Monday we head off again towards Annecy (pronounced “Anna-see”, as far as we can tell.

And that’s about it. A quite day but we are well and truly on our way towards the south of France.

I’ve mentioned previously about the bedding situation here in Europe. In France, our observation is that you get a double doona on a double bed, but in Norway and Finland, you get two doonas – a single one on each side of the bed.

And that’s a double edged sword.

On the upside, you can’t be accused of stealing your sleeping partner’s share of the doona during the night, but the downside is that if you lose your own doona, you are on your own.

Last night, it seems that I lost my doona. I woke in the middle of the night cold (we had turned the room temperature down low before hitting the sack), and MBW was still sleeping loudly, and quite unaffected by my situation.

I finally found a few working braincells and figured out what was going on. But I didn’t sleep so well.

We only have one thing planned for today – a walking tour of Helsinki. We needed to be at the Alexander II statue at 9.45, so we had plenty of time for a lazy breakfast.

It was a cracker of a day. Perfect blue skies. The forecast for today was sunny, with a high of about 8 or 9 degrees.

While I wasn’t quite ready to go shopping for coconut oil, I certainly wasn’t going to waste time with thermals. Wearing thermals when the temperature is above 0 degrees is a sign of weakness.

Short sleeved tee, flanny, jeans, jacket, and a beanie and gloves just in case, and we were ready to hit the breakfast bar.

Breakfast was … interesting. Any kind of juice you want so long as it is coloured green (spinach smoothy), blue (berries), or orange (carrot).

We found some things we recognised and filled our tanks. They had a coffee machine so we helped ourselves – not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but not the worst either.

We decided to use the bathrooms at the hotel after breakfast before setting out, but we couldn’t find them. Eventually we did though, but it’s a shame they can’t use common and consistent signs to identify toilets.

We were a bit early for the walking tour, but we headed up towards the meeting point which was about 10 minutes walk away.

We hadn’t gone far and I was already having buyers remorse about not wearing thermals. It was already 7 degrees, but the wind was pretty nasty.

Funny the shops you see in other countries – Bastard Burgers. I’m not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.

We got to the meeting point about 30 minutes early so had a bit of a poke around. There seemed to be several bus loads of tourists nearby, although they turned out to be army personnel, not tourists. And they were spreading out and lining the streets.

And there was an unusual number of police cars – marked and unmarked – circling.

And an army armoured vehicle … and helicopters circling overhead.

We learned that President Zelensky from Ukraine is in town on an unscheduled visit.

We were standing around in front of the statue of Alexander II – still waiting for our walking tour to start in 15 minutes – but also enjoying watching the quickly increasing Poliisi (Police) presence when a Ukrainian guy wearing a funny hat, but holding a sword, suggested that it would be better if we waited over there (he pointed to a spot about 30m away).

Now I did note that it was only a suggestion, but the guy was holding a sword, so we took it as an instruction.

As my mate Jack Reacher says, “if a guy in a funny hat and carrying a sword …” Nope, that wasn’t something Jack would say, sorry.

And then out they came. Row after row of Ukrainian soldiers in silly hats, but carrying machine guns, and they all lined up. Then came the marching band and the bugler … and they all marched off around the streets while the Poliisi stopped traffic.

It was all very exciting. Probably the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

At around the same time – when our walking tour was due to start, our guide sent us a message to say it was all too hard with all of the Poliisi in the city today, so the tour was cancelled.

Thanks. Very. Much.

So we decided to hang around and see what happened next.

At 10.00am, Mr Zelensky’s motorcade came rolling through. About 6-8 cars in the motorcade with Poliisi escorts. Lots of sirens and flashing lights.

Very exciting … but it set the tone for the rest of the day. Poliisi everywhere, army everywhere, Poliisi on roofs watching, roads closed. Helicopters circling.

We decided to do a “create your own adventure”. We asked ChatGPT what are the 5 best things to see if you are staying at the Grand Central Hotel in Helsinki. And that’s what we did.

There are many beautiful, architectural buildings in Helsinki. Some stunning buildings that must be hundreds of years old.

For the last few days we have put on our snow shoes before we leave home, so it seemed a bit funny to have no snow lying on the ground here. And no need to walk carefully in case you slip on the ice and land on your back. It almost happened to me once in Rovaniemi.

The other interesting thing about different cities and cultures is what you can buy for lunch. It has been quite cold here and there are lots of bakeries, and all I want is a hot sausage roll or pie … but you can’t seem to buy hot food like that for lunch.

Sure, you can get a sit down meal in a restaurant, and you can get something greasy from Burger King, but not a hot sausage roll 🙁

What is wrong with these people?

There is a store here called Tokmanni, and it appears to be similar to Target with a similar range of similar quality items.

There is one across the road from our hotel so we popped in to buy stuff we don’t need, and will have to carry for the next 5 weeks or more.

But I learned that MBW has a superpower i didn’t know about … she can spot a “clearance” sign at 20 paces, even when it is written in another language!

We visited a Lutheran church called “The Rock Church” because it is built into a rock. Pretty amazing, really.

Late in the afternoon the city was gridlocked again because Mr Zelensky must have been getting ready to go somewhere, and the Poliisi had many city streets closed off again.

We hung around for a while but got bored with the cold and the wait, so we headed to the food market to get some dinner.

MBW had salmon soup, while I had tempura prawns and chips.

By the time we got back to the hotel around 6.00pm it was getting really cold and I just wanted my thermals.

Home for a coffee, hot shower, and to pack up our stuff to fly to CDG airport tomorrow and pick up our car.

That will be tomorrow’s news, though.

Ciao

#Europe2025

I mentioned yesterday that our room in Singapore was pocket-handkerchief sized, and I wasn’t kidding!

Not only was it tiny, but it felt like the walls were made of paper, the bed was made of bricks, and I’m not convinced that the air-conditioning was working.

Oh, and the shower head was broken in the bathroom.

And – oddly – there were no windows.

I think we paid about $150 to be in that room for about 10 hours occupancy. That’s … nope, don’t think about it 🙁

I finally got to sleep and then woke again at about 2.00am in the dark, and feeling a little bit confused about where I was. MBW also woke and there was this glow in the room, so naturally I thought that she must have been adjusting her halo.

But she was checking her phone – obviously to figure out exactly what time it was.

If I was inclined to gamble, I’d be betting on somewhere between 2.00am and 3.00am … you know, that period where you are at your deepest sleep, and most disoriented. Not my best time of the day.

It turns out I was completely wrong. It was just after 8.00am. Sleeping in a room with no windows will mess with you like that 🙁

Obviously we’d slept for around 8 hours.

There was no coffee in our room. OK, so there was a packet of Nescafe Blend 43 and a packet of creamer left over from last night, but that doesn’t really qualify.

Up, showered, and we repacked our bags so that all of the important stuff was in our carry-on luggage for the trip home, and all of the stuff that we wouldn’t need again until we got home to Brisbane was packed in our checked luggage.

We also kept out toiletries and a change of clothes for the plane ride home. Our flight home was Qantas QF52, departing Singapore 8.30pm, so we had about 12 hours to kill. Another day exploring Singapore.

We had asked at the front desk when we arrived if there was any possibility that we could have a quick shower – even just a freshen up would be OK – after a day in Singapore. We double-checked that with the hotel manager (Joshua) when we checked out, and all we got was a non-committal “let’s wait and see …”

We got directions to a good coffee shop down the road, left all of our worldly possessions with the hotel staff, and headed off into the heat.

I may have mentioned previously that Singapore is not cheap. The taxi ride from Changi to our hotel last night cost us about AUD$31.00, which I thought was OK.

Breakfast at the “Common Man Coffee Roasters” just down the road – for 2 coffees and 2 croissants – was about AUD$32.00.

Don’t judge us for eating croissants for breakfast. Or spending $32.00.

So, over coffee, we planned our day. The Intergoogle gave us a number of suggestions for “the top 5 free things to do in Singapore in a day”.

Our unlimited MRT/bus passes had expired (to be fair, we only bought a 2 day pass that we had already used for 2 days, and that was over a week ago), so no surprises there. That means that we would be tapping on and off with our credit card(s) today. We understood that transport is quite cheap in Singapore, despite everything else being expensive.

We found the bus stop, and climbed aboard, headed for Fort Canning Park and the BattleBox – an historical WW11 underground bunker.

Fort Canning Park. Try saying that quickly when you’ve had one too many Mojitos!

Port Fanning? Fort Panning? Argh!

Here is a fun fact – when the Japanese rode into Singapore, they came on bicycles. Their bicycle tyres often burst (or went flat) but they kept riding them anyway, and with the rims running along the bitumen road, they (apparently) sounded like tanks rolling into town.

There is also a tree tunnel at the park, which is really pretty … except that there is the usual assortment of locals all pimping and pruning to get the ideal photo.

It was really hot in Singapore, and we were starting to feel it. The bunker was all air-conditioned, and the neighbouring park was shady and kind of cool(er), but it was still very hot and humid.

Plus we were carrying water and snacks and all of our important stuff (passports, papers, etc).

It turns out that the Fort Canning Park was just around the corner from Bencoolan, where we stayed in Singapore at the start of this trip.

Google Maps is a wonderful thing, right? You ask it how to get from where you are to where you want to go, and how you want to get there (walk, drive, bus), and it does the rest. Even tells you how long until the next bus arrives, and when to get off.

So we figured out what bus to catch and we headed off towards the Helix Bridge and views of the city.

The Singapore Formula 1 (F1) is being held in September 2024 – about 1 month from now – so there is a great deal of pre-work going on. Barriers being put into place, grandstands being erected, and a bit of disruption.

The final thing that we really wanted to see on the “free things to do in Singapore” list was Haji Lane – a quirky little lane with lots of colour, shops, and eateries. It seems to be in the Arab part of Singapore. We got there via the MRT (trains) again this time, and once again we were blown away by the size, scale, cleanliness and efficiency of the Singapore system.

And the fact that their trains are completely driverless.

We grabbed some lunch, then some gelato, then jumped back on the bus towards our Hotel to collect our stuff and get to the airport.

We had planned to be back at the Hotel Classic around 4.30pm to get freshened up and away to the airport by 5.00pm, but it was just so hot and humid, and we were so tired that we bought some local goodies from a supermarket across the street from the hotel, and were back at the hotel by about 3.00pm.

Joshua is the manager of the Hotel Classic, and he had kindly arranged for a room not to be serviced after the guests from the night before … so they gave us a couple of clean towels and we had access to room 311 to have quick showers and get changed ready for our flight home.

Thanks Joshua!!

Uber doesn’t exist any longer in Singapore as it has been bought out by Grab. We installed the app, booked a car and got collected (Grabbed?) and taken to Changi Airport.

Changi Airport is such a big airport. There are at least 4 terminals and we were dropped off at Terminal 2 Departures, only to find that we were actually departing from Terminal 1 … so we hopped onto the Skytrain and got to the right place.

And there is not much more to say. We checked in our luggage, bought coffee, and found some comfy seats to wait out the 2 or 3 hours before we were due to board for the flight home.

Because the airport is so large with so many arrival/departure gates, they use travellators extensively.

We were on one travellator heading to our gate, and there was an airline pilot/captain ahead of us. He got to the end of the travellator, looked around, shrugged, and got back on again to go back to where he came from.

Crikey, with that sense of direction, I home he’s not flying us home because we could end up in the Caribbean … which wouldn’t be altogether a bad thing, but not where we specifically wanted to go.

It’s about 7.5 hours back from Singapore to Brisbane, but you lose another couple of hours flying from west to east, thanks to crossing time zones.

MBW dozed for a few hours on the plane, and I think I dozed for maybe an hour … so by the time we landed in Brisbane at 5.41am Friday 23 August, we were feeling pretty ratty – we had gone about 18 hours without sleep and faced another full day before we could get to bed.

But we were home 🙂

Zach collected us from the airport and dropped us home before he went off to work for the day.

We managed to avoid Bali Belly for the whole trip, and also managed to avoid picking up COVID (or any other nasties) off any of the many surfaces we came in contact with – taxis, busses, hotel rooms, MRT trains, Skytrain, departure/waiting lounges, travellators, airplane seats and armrests, and so on.

I mentioned earlier that we used our credit cards for catching public transport around Singapore. It turns out that I used our credit card, but MBW mistakenly used her BoQ Debit card.

I know that it takes a few days for overseas charges to catch-up with our Aussie accounts, but at the time of writing this, MBW’s trips on Singapore public transport cost AUD$5.45 for the day on the BoQ Debit card, while mine – don’t forget that we did identical trips – cost AUD$0.11 (11 cents) on our Westpac Mastercard.

That’s confusing.

Maybe it’s just time to start planning the next trip …

Ciao

#Thailand2024

Last night – Thursday night – we went to the Dark Sky Serenade at the Age of Dinosaurs museum, our last night of opera festivities.

Not for them though. All of the opera peeps are now heading towards Longreach while MBW and I are heading towards Darwin.

Now firstly I need to get something off my chest. As luck would have it, I was seated behind a guy with an unusually large head.

Abnormally large.

While that was useful for blocking out the setting sun that was in my eyes, he kinda got in the way of my vision of the stage and the performers.

Which was a shame. But not the end of the world, right?

Well … as luck would also have it, his device of choice for taking photos was an iPad.

A full sized iPad … which he constantly held up above his head to try to figure out how to point and position it so that he could take multiple photos.

Anyhow, being the opera buff that I am, the experience was an auditory one, not necessarily a visual one. And I could still hear perfectly, even though I couldn’t see much.

It was a spectacular experience. The dark hauntingness (is that a word?) of the desert, with the amazing sounds of world famous opera singers, backed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) was astonishing.

Surreal.

Now I have to confess that I don’t know much opera, and I don’t have a great deal of it on my Spotify playlist. Plus they kept singing it in Italian, with no subtitles, which really just made it difficult to follow along.

The conductor – some guy who could have been Tom Gleeson’s doppelgänger (with a sense of humour to match) – was the Head of Artistic Something-Or-Other from Opera West Australia. He tended to get a bit too excited about operas in 6/8 time and quivering quavers for my liking. But then he probably doesn’t understand amateur radio.

And he did dumb down the plot of one particular piece that they performed.

“Boy falls in love with girl. Girl dies. Boy cries.”

The final piece that they performed was Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, which I’m sure that you will recognise, even if you are as much of an uneducated Philistine as I am.

It was performed by some guy – a tenor – who apparently is world famous, even though I confess that I’ve never heard of him.

There were people there who (apparently) came out on a charter flight, plus people on bus tours, and of course all of the giants of Opera Queensland were there hobnobbing with the Minister for Whatever and the Arts. Probably 500 people in all.

Jason Two-Dads was there again, and he sang a couple of pieces.

Of course they all got a standing ovation at the end, so they graciously and spontaneously performed “something that was written around here”, namely Waltzing Matilda.

And we were all invited to sing along. So …

… technically, I can honestly say that I have sung Waltzing Matilda, accompanied by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and backed up by some world-famous opera singers … and at the end of that performance, the audience erupted into wild and rapturous applause.

Beat that!

It was a great night. Beautiful music, and beautiful voices, all performed in a stunning desert environment.

We were home by 8.00pm, caffeinated by 8.30pm, and in bed by 10.00pm.

I think I mentioned yesterday that I have finished the Tattooist, and now I am looking for something else to read. And having trouble finding something that I can get into. I’m thinking that I might try Faye Kellerman, but happy to hear your suggestions.

I currently enjoy Lee Child (Jack Reacher) and Nelson DeMille (John Covey). But I’m happy to try something new. Leave me a comment with suggestions. The best suggestion wins 🙂

I feel bad that I am being lazy sleeping in until 7.30 or later each morning, but I have an excuse.

I’m sure that you all know that we were in Winton the last few days, and Winton is waaaay over there where the sun sets. Yes, in the west.

But while we are much further west, we are still in the same timezone as home. Home’s sunrise is currently 6.21am (in the east of Queensland), while Winton’s sunrise is 6.53 (in the west of Queensland). That’s more than 30 minutes later!

That’s my excuse, anyway.

It was a cool start to the day again today. Our neighbours – who we have spoken to, but not exchanged names with – come from Townsville and were walking around this morning dressed as though they were ready to commence an assault on Mt Everest.

Personally, while I acknowledge that it was cool, I didn’t think that it was THAT cold, so we settled for our regular shorts and T-shirts.

Toast and coffee for breakfast this morning. (Can you tell that I’m running out of content for the blog?)

MBW tidied the house, while I went out to capture a tiger or two to put in Elsie’s tank. She only took $125 worth this morning, and it concerns me that I can say “only” and “$125” in the same sentence.

We rolled out of the Winton Wanderers CP around 9.00am and headed west to Kynuna. A road that we have never travelled before.

Never.

Today we are travelling towards Julia Creek. We will be travelling the road towards Cloncurry (north west) and turning off just before Kynuna, to the north.

Good roads, fast, smooth, and wide.

And every-so-often you see an unusual land formation that breaks the monotony.

I continue to be astonished by the variety of levels of helpfulness that you see in other road users. One minute we were sitting behind a van, when the driver calls us on the CB radio and offers to slow down and pull over so that we could pass.

20 minutes later we were sitting behind another numpty who was doing 25km/h under the speed limit, wandering all over his lane, hogging the centre line, blocking all forward view of oncoming traffic, providing no clue whether it was safe to pass, and was entirely and completely unhelpful.

Seriously, you can understand how accidents happen.

We had previously picked up the local tourist guide for the area, and it gave us several compelling reasons why Kynuna is not a place to “just drive through”, but a place to stop and visit, and enjoy.

So we drove past the turnoff and kept going a further 5km or so to Kynuna to stop and visit. And enjoy.

They lied.

Kynuna has a population of 20, and I’m certain that we didn’t see a single, solitary one of them. Not one.

So we turned around, drove the 5km back to the turnoff to Julia Creek, and kept on going.

They are seriously lacking in imagination out in these parts. Guess what the Kynuna to Julia Creek road is called?

Kynuna-Julia Creek Road.

Guess what the Winton to Richmond road is called?

Winton-Richmond Road.

And if they include the word “Developmental” into the road name – eg Winton-Richmond Developmental Road, that is generally code for “unsealed road, drive at your peril”.

The road from Kynuna to JC (aka the Kynuna-JC Road) was a single lane, sealed road that was smooth and fast, and I needed to set the cruise control so that my speed didn’t keep creeping up to 110km/h.

We did need to slow down or stop a couple of times, and they were because of road trains coming the other way9 (there simply wasn’t enough space on the road for us AND a road train), or because of these cattle grids that were really rough and threatened to either cause your suspension to bottom out, or to cause you to become airborne.

We rolled into Julia Creek (population 511) around 12.30pm, and went looking for the Visitor Information Centre. We are planning to stop at a free RV park just outside town, but we needed to get a permit first.

Free to stay here, but a permit is required. And you cannot drop anything on the ground. No grey water, nothing.

I said to the lady at the Visitor Information Centre that I had always wanted to visit Julia Creek. Her response probably summed up everything you need to know about Julia Creek and the level of excitement that you can expect here.

“Why?”

Well, that is a very good question, and I’ll have to give some though to why I have always wanted to visit JC.

So we got our permit and decided to have a pub lunch for a change. 2 x Parmys with salad and chips, followed by a walk through town.

We went for a quick walk up one side of the main street and back the other, and that was about it. I saw a guy getting a gas bottle filled at the local hardware store, and asked how much … because I also have an empty bottle on the van.

Remember Augathella?

$49.95 for a 9kg gas bottle. $24.95 at home.

Sigh 🙁

Maybe I can wait until we get to Mt Isa?

We found the RV park, found a spot by the water and have had a bit of a rest waiting for sunset to arrive.

We have a few feathered friends turned up to say hello. Ducks and chickens, although one of the chickens has been crowing, which means two things:

• He’s not a chicken, and
• He has no idea what time it is.

That’s about it. I think that we are all caught up now.

Tonight we stay here in the Julia Creek RV park, and tomorrow we travel through Cloncurry (population 3,167) and stay at the Mary Kathleen Abandoned township.

Well, that’s the plan, anyway. And you know what they say about a plan …

A plan is only good until the first punch is thrown. Hopefully there will be no punching tonight!

One final thing: I know that you have all been worried sick that I have forgotten to give you the answer on a cup of Winton (smelly) water being allowed to decant all night in the fridge. Is it the best water you’ve ever tasted, or was the lady at the shop having a go at us?

Well, we tried it. It wasn’t smelly any longer and it was nice water. Not necessarily the best water that I’ve ever tasted, but not the worst either.

Cold, wet and refreshing.

What more can I say?

Ciao

#Retirement2024

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