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About this blog

An account of our travels and tribulations.

Entries in this blog

 

Day 3 on the Road to Cairns

Sunday, April 6, 2014. Our travels north continue. Leaving Mackay we drove on almost until noon. Our lunch stop was a park in a small town, Ayr. Louise fixed sandwiches while I went in search of a restroom. The restrooms were behind the information booth so I stopped in there to see the two ladies who were sitting outside in front of the building this sunny warm day. We talked, they inquired about our travels and then loaded me up with information both verbal and written. One of the ladie
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Darwin National Park and Aviation Museum

Our last day in Darwin was spent visiting two interesting sites. Darwin National Park lies to the south of the city and is located on Beagle Bay. There is a nice view of the city from across the bay. The park itself is relatively undeveloped. During WWII the land was used for ammunition bunkers which are still there in the park. They no longer contain ammunition but are used for other storage today. One of the bunkers was open and contained exhibits from WWII when Darwin was under Japanese
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Darwin

The capital city of Northern Territories is Darwin. It is the smallest of the capital cities in Australia. We are at a park just south of the airport, Hidden Valley Tourist Park. It is a well maintained park but the rates are among the highest we’ve paid anywhere at $45 per night for the en suite accommodations. The regular accommodations without the private bathroom were $44 per night. All this and only minimal free internet, a two day pass for 100 MB and then you have to buy internet star
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Countdown to the Total Solar Eclipse 2017

In a previous entry I described the total eclipse of the sun which is happening next month, August 21, 2017.  Total solar eclipses are rare.  How rare?  It has been 26 years (July 11, 1991) and that was only seen in only one state, Hawaii.  The next solar eclipse for the US will be April 8 2024.  This one enters from Mexico into Texas and slices northeastward through New England exiting the US in Maine, continuing on through New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.  There have been many partial eclipses
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Comments on Big Rig Facilities in Newfoundland

That is a place I have wanted to go. You have a 40' and I a 45', will there be a problem for me? On roads and campgrounds? Do you reserve ahead, before you go? Thanks Carl Carl asked a good question so I'm going to answer it with this post. I've seen a few 45's on the road here. We've been able to find places to stay without a problem though the number of places with full hookups is limited. The standard is 30 Amps with water and a dump station. There may or may not be wifi and signal s
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Christchurch – The Rebuild Tour

Our second day of touring Chirstchurch we chose to take a tour sponsored by the Canterbury Museum. Titled the Rebuild Tour, this bus trip through downtown Christchurch showed us much of the destruction of two earthquakes, September 4, 2010 Magnitude 7.1 and six months later on February 22, 2011 at Magnitude 6.3, which literally wrecked the city of Christchurch. The theme of the trip was the effort to rebuild the city with building codes that would help the city withstand further earthquakes.
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Christchurch – Gateway to Antarctica

Leaving Fairley on Monday morning we drove through farmlands with the first real crops we had seen in New Zealand. We had seen many hay fields but these were wheat and corn fields, cultivated crops. We stopped to enjoy the view from a high vantage point overlooking this agricultural land. Traveling along, we had a running debate on where to go next. The first 40 kilometers would get us back to the main roads and from there we had choices. We could take NZ 1 directly to Christchurch or we c
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Chasing Waterfalls

Monday, April 7, 2014. Looking over the information we picked up from the ladies in Ayr the day before, we decided to pursue a scenic drive into the Dividing Range to see some waterfalls. I love a good waterfall and the ones in the brochure looked inviting including one which we were told we could swim under the cascading water. We had about 70 kilometers to cover before leaving the Bruce Highway for the highlands. I put the town with the same name as the waterfall we wanted to visit, Millaa
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Celebrating National Parks

Happy birthday to our National Park Service.  One hundred years ago this week, Congress created the National Park Service.  There were national parks before the park service was created.  The park service became the agency that managed the national parks.  In the last few weeks we have visited four parks.  At each park we found amazing views, exciting experiences and crowds of people enjoying their heritage. Our first stop on the way west from Denver was the San Luis Valley of Colorado and
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Carnarvon Is a Surprise!

We left Exmouth headed for another sea adventure in Monkey Mia. South of Exmouth we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. In doing this we left the tropics for the last time in Australia. The distance from Exmouth to the Monkey Mia was too far to cover easily in one day so we decided to make it a two day trip. We needed to stop for groceries and figured that Carnarvon would be a good stop for that and give us an easy 2 day trip to Monkey Mia. As we pulled into Carnarvon, there was a huge dish an
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Canberra

Canberra is the national capital of Australia. It is located between Melbourne and Sydney which have a population of about 4 million people in each city. That is 8 million people in a nation of about 14 million. So most of the population of Australia is in these two cities and in the surrounding communities. Once we leave this area we’ll see very few large towns and as we head west, we’ll see fewer people. Canberra itself is not a huge city. The population of Canberra is just over 400,000.
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Camels at Sunset - Uluru

Our last evening at Uluru was spent on a camel ride with a sunset view of Uluru. We spent the earlier part of the day hiking in the domes of Kata Tjuta. Following that we returned to our camp to get showers and dressed for the evening. We were picked up at a bus stop just outside the entrance to the campground. It was a small, 30 person bus and we got the last two seats. After a short ride from the campground and we arrived at the camel stables. We were escorted into the office and given a
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California Girls

After our stay at the factory service center in Oregon, we are now in California staying with our daughters family in the Gold Hills south of Sacramento. We come here every fall to take care of the two girls, age 6 and 8. Their school is on a year-round schedule and they get a break this time of year. Mom works in another school district which has a different vacation schedule. Dad has a varied night work schedule. So we take care of the girls for a week. It saves them money for child care
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Cairns

Our first day in Cairns is dedicated to catching up with laundry and getting to know the town. While doing laundry we discussed our plans for our stay. The Great Barrier Reef is one of our prime objectives. One travel brochure we picked up in the park office has an item I was interested in learning more about. It was a an offering of the Down Under Dive company to certify for open water SCUBA in a four day course. The course involved two days of tests and preliminary training followed by tw
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Burning Diesel

In my notes, I titled this day as above. Unlike the curving road we found coming into Mount Isa, the road was straight for long stretches with little change in elevation and only one town with fuel. We started out on the Flinders Highway and then at Camooweal the name changed to the Barkly Highway. The other fuel stop we made was at the Barkly Homestead. This is a large homestead which has everything that someone on the road would need. There is a caravan park, hotel, restaurant, activities
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Broome

Broome is a small town on the northwest shore of Australia. The pearling industry has been a strength of the area along with tourism. Broome isn’t the only place where pearl farms are found here, it is the center of a large region that extends from Darwin in the north to Port Hedland to the southwest. The largest pearl oysters are found here and the pearls we saw in shops are enormous. The downtown of Broome has a dozen jewelry shops specializing in pearls. We browsed our way through all of
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Britz Comes Through

Without any definite word on the outcome of the refrigerator problem we decided to stay one more night at the Big 4 Campervan Park in Ecucha. Louise had our refrigerated items stored in the refrigerator in the park kitchen facilities. We moved to the new site and then decided to explore the town. As we walked, we got a call from the road service company. The agent informed us he was trying to put together a solution. He thought we would be exchanging our campervan for a different one and jus
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Blogging

BLOG is a contraction of the words weB LOG. Wikipedia says a BLOG is "regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video." According to Wikipedia, "As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112,000,000 blogs." So the idea here is to weave a continuous account of the events or activities of an individual, group or organization. Continuous is the tough part. We all have routine days when nothing seems extraordinary t
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Birthdays with Grandchildren add Some Spice to Life

We are still in Missouri which is unheard of since we began living full time in our motor home. The weather has made us wonder if we need our heads examined. We keep telling ourselves this is why we haven't done this before. We were going to be here later than usual this year and we have two grandchildren with June birthdays we haven't celebrated with them for a while so, why not make the best of it? Kaitlyn is six years old this year. For her birthday she chose to go to the Magic House (
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Best Supporting Actor: Our Moon

Look up at the sky tonight or any night in the next few days.  The brightest thing in the sky is the Moon.  Our Moon will play a key role in the coming total solar eclipse.  Between now and the 21st of August, the Moon will move from its current position, slowly closing in on the Sun.  On August 21 the Moon will slide between Earth and Sun, casting its shadow on Earth.  You can watch this drama starting right now.  If you look at the Moon in the next few nights, you will notice that shortly afte
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Bad to the Bone

Our travels after Denver were easy to plan. We drove about three miles from Golden Terraces RV Park to I-70, headed east and stopped when we got to Foristell, Missouri. Another three miles south of I-70 and we were at our daughters' home where we are parked for an extended period of time. Our activities since arriving here have included a dance recital by our granddaughter, a barbeque on Memorial Day weekend which included several killer games of croquet, and now a brand new knee for me! We've
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Another Leg on Our Summer Journey

After a three week stay in eastern Missouri at my daughter's home we were preparing to leave. After unplugging the coach I started the generator. Just as it was switching the current over to the generator it died. The error code indicated an overheat condition. It was a very warm day but we could get by without the air conditioners running so I decided to let this ride for now and investigate at our next stop. While on the way to Independence, on the other side of the state, I pondered how
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Another Foreign Adventure - Italy in a campervan

Another Foreign Adventure - Italy in a campervan

It is Saturday afternoon, May 21, 2022.  We are in Chioggia, Italy.  It is a beach town south of Venice.  How we got here is a long story.  I'll begin with our flight from the US. Our flight from McAllen was an early one, we left Sandpipiers Resort at 5:30 a.m. for a 30 minute drive to the airport.  Check in was a mess.  There was a line until things got stopped up, only two agents and both had customers with problems.  Skipping details, they held the plane for Louise and I and one other cust
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And Then the Rains Came

We’ve had a very dry trip, only a couple of days of rain in New Zealand and nothing to speak of in Australia. That all changed on Tuesday, March 25. As I was doing the final outdoor tasks getting ready to leave our campground in Eden in New South Wales (NSW) I noticed a little mist in the air. The clouds were dark and heavy and the forecast for several days had called for rain. We planned to drive along the Sapphire Coast as it is known. There are designated tourist routes which have histor
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And Now Comes Irma

As the news of Harvey begins to fade from the news, the next major disaster looms just off the southeast coast of the US.  A hurricane that looks like a buzz saw in the satellite movie clips is making its way toward Florida.  There are other states that may be the location of landfall, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi are all in the cone of uncertainty.  So as I write I'm using Florida but this applies to many other states as well.  The damage this hurricane causes coul
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