Our Travels

Anne's father and his family came from Jersey, which gave us a great excuse to visit this lovely island. 

Jersey is a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom, with a mix of British and French cultures. It is known for its beaches, cliffside walking trails, inland valleys and historic castles. 

Our visit to Jersey was very rewarding from many points of view and specially the insights we gained into the Hubert family history. We were accompanied by various members of our respective families.

The second part of our European holiday was spent in Portugal, enjoying the many delights of the Douro River as we took a cruise on the Scenic Azure up the river to the Spanish border - plus a quick bus trip to the old Spanish town of Salamanca. 

The Douro became navigable on the completion of the 5 dams. These require skilful negotiation through the locks with only centimetres of clearance. The Douro valley is justly proud of its scenery, culture and of course great wines. 

We especially liked exploring the old city of Porto with its steep narrow streets and wonderful architecture. We could have done without Dave's fall and subsequent trip to emergency to fix a damaged little finger.

The third part of our European holiday was mainly spent in Spain. 

The first half was in Madrid, where we enjoyed an extension of the Scenic cruise with our wonderful and enthusiastic tour guide, who insisted that we see as much as possible in the time available. 

We then travelled by high-speed train to Barcelona, which we explored in the highly charged political environment of Catalan secessionist demonstrations. The bus tour north to France, through Andorra and then back to Barcelona was a long day but well worthwhile. 

We finished our wonderful European holiday, flying back to Australia with a short stopover in Dubai.

This was our second trip to Hamilton Island. 

We had been planning to go in the previous year, but Tropical Cyclone Debbie put paid to that idea. We finally managed to get there soon after the island was opened to visitors. There were signs of continued rebuilding, and some of the venues were not yet open. 

We did enjoy ourselves, however, with a trip over to Dent Island (golf buggies and terrific lunch), a Reef-Cruise-Fly to Hardy Reef, and generally pottering around the island.

The first part of this holiday was mainly by bus (with Grand Pacific Tours) exploring parts of the North Island that we had missed on previous visits. The weather was not great but we enjoyed our tour and the nice group of people. 

Before joining the tour, we met up with friends and explored Wellington, including the extraordinary WETA workshop of Lord of the Rings fame.

The second part of the holiday was along the northern edge of the South Island, again somewhere we had not seen on previous trips. We did this by ourselves in a hire car with Anne doing all the driving. We really enjoyed this part of New Zealand and we have promised ourselves to return as soon as possible.