Fiji. A South Pacific tropical paradise of 330 islands and an extraordinarily beautiful place. Once home to cannibals, witchcraft and hostile tribes, Fiji now blends tourism with farming and fishing, yet maintains many of its traditions. Like so much of this part of the world, Fiji began its wrenching journey into modernity with a visit … Continue reading Fiji – The Last Stop
Our next stop was on the laid back island of Upolu in Samoa. We arrived at about 2am local time on a flight from Australia, with a few hours layover in Fiji en route. We discovered later that there were plenty of direct flights from Sydney - our travel agent omitted to tell us this. … Continue reading Samoa
Australia surprised us. We’d not visited before for a few reasons. Partly because it’s so vast that a couple of weeks holiday couldn’t do it justice, and partly because of the jetlag and long flights. But also, there were no bucket list iconic wonders or experiences that we have felt compelled to see first hand. … Continue reading Australia – Epilogue
Leaving Byron Bay, we took a walk up to a lighthouse to look out over the Pacific, marking the most easterly point of mainland Australia. Grabbing a coffee for the drive, we then headed down to Coffs Harbour, staying nearby at Sapphire Beach. We took a wander along to a bird colony island and watched … Continue reading Australia – Final Week
The driving in Australia is long and tiring. The scenery varies, but returns to the ever present Eucalyptus trees dotted across pale desert scrubland. Only in the coastal regions, and those further north is there generally enough rain for sustained greenery. Roadkill is a real issue here. We were warned by lots of people we’ve … Continue reading Australia – Week Three
Phew. It’s been a pretty packed week... and that’s coming from a pair of fools who repeatedly over-fill travels to the point of exhaustion, agree not to do it again, then do it again. We landed in Cairns and swiftly jumped in a cab to take us to our pick-up point for our wheels and … Continue reading Australia – Week Two
Melbourne Our flight to Melbourne was with Philippine airlines, who were okay. Without anyone behind me, I had the luxury of full-tilt on my reclining seat, and for once avoided anyone smashing my knees from infront. We managed to get a couple of hours kip (and I snuck in a film, John Wick 3; perfect … Continue reading Australia (country 7) – Week One
Puerto Princesa, Palawan We were picked up at 7am. The driver had to stop by a pharmacist to pick up some medicine for his wee daughter who had not been well overnight with a fever. We dropped the medicine off at his house, which was a sobering sight. Behind the main town of Puerto Princesa, … Continue reading Philippines week 2 – The Islands (Part 2)
We spent one further night on Infiniti, as it sailed overnight to dock back in Cebu harbour at Mactan island. Along with our Swiss compatriot Tobi, we caught a ferry from the island to Cebu City harbour, where we went through a convoluted ticketing process, involving passports, ticket purchase, stamping, check-in, bag-drop and finally boarding, … Continue reading Philippines week 2 – The Islands (Part 1)
It’s been a while since the last post. We’ve been largely incommunicado. We’ve been on a boat, or underwater. We arrived at Cebu airport after a couple of hops to KL, then onto the Philippines. We taxi’d to our hotel (opting, after queuing for a white cab for 45 minutes, to pay the extra for … Continue reading Philippines week 1 – underwater
Travels with Sklaroffs 