We're Off Again - Our 2019 Cruises

We're off again!

This time it's a long stint away from Australia and will take us to a number of places to which we have never been and a couple of revisits.

Determined not to leave too much of an inheritance for the kids when we take that journey from which nobody returns, we're getting in our last few trips abroad while our bodies still work sufficiently well to lug baggage about, drive hire cars, climb stairs, drink pina coladas, and do all the other things tourists usually do - aging tourists that is.

The first cruise aboard Princess Cruises Sapphire Princess leaves from Singapore and after 37 days, docks at Southampton, UK. The map above shows it's trek.

Sapphire Princess

It will be of particular interest to visit Dubai, UAE and Salalah, Oman again to see how they have changed since we lived nearby at Al Ain. But, would you believe it, it's over a decade since we left Al Ain?

Time seems to go faster as you get older (and hair grows where you don't need it)  - it's not fair.

Before we head off from Singapore, we're going to Bangkok, Thailand for a week to have a look around. Christina has been there before, but not Robin. 

Initially, we were contemplating getting some dental work done at Bangkok, but having spoken to a couple of dentists in Australia, we're thinking we'll get the work done locally when we return. Robin has had several visits to a periodontist and has been asked to wait three months before getting anything done so the periodontist can see whether his intervention has worked and what future work needs doing. So, it's probably pointless getting work done overseas beforehand after already investing so much.

After arriving at Southampton, we have about a month before we take cruise number two from Southampton around the British Isles. The map below shows the trek.

We'll tour the southern parts of England we never got to during our previous two visits before joining the cruise. This time it's on Princess Cruises Crown Princess for 12 days.

On return to Southampton we fly to Bangkok and will probably spend a few more days there before flying to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

A friend from Alice Springs has just recently established the Mango Villa Guest House at Siem Reap so it would be an opportune time to stay with him and visit the Angkor Wat temple complex which we have been keen to see. Then it will be back to Bangkok and head home direct to Adelaide via Singapore Airlines.

It's a hard life retirement, but Robin is always mindful of this verse from his favourite poet, Omar Khayyam (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam):

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend,

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer; sans End!

Our Europe and UK Jaunt

Rainbow Valley near Alice Springs

Next Saturday we jet out of Central Australia for a four-month stint in Europe and United Kingdom.

We'll spend a couple of days at Perth getting some new kit items and then head initially to Hong Kong. A day or two there (we've been there three times before) and we are off to London and then Spain.

We have two tours organised, one a cruise through European cities that commences at Copenhagen and the other a bus tour that begins at Brussels. We've been to Brussels, but it will be nice to revisit and see how much it has changed since 2010.

Late March we will be at Basel in Switzerland where I will attend the Baselworld 2017 Watch and Jewellery Show. As some of you may know, I have an interest in horology. This will be my first ever watch show so I'm really excited to have been able to fit it into our travels.

In the coming week I'll place an itinerary online somewhere and advise close friends of its location. I'll also find somewhere to place our photographs and plan to do some posting to Trip Advisor.

Happy days and lovely nights.

Robin

Our Canadian Visitors

This week, Michael and Linda Fairhart visited us at Alice Springs enroute from the United Arab Emirates to Canada, arriving Thursday afternoon.

On their second morning we drafted them into an early morning walking race with the Alice Springs Walking and Running Club. I had expected they'd resist my offer, however, they didn't bat an eyelid and lined up as keen athletes like the rest of us.

Here they are all numbered-up (and hopefully limbered-up for the race)

Those keen enough, ran the 4 km around the Central Business District. The rest of us, the more sensible people, walked. At the end, everyone received a numbered ticket and had a chance at winning prizes donated by the owner of Centralian Sports shop. The top prize was a Panasonic television set. Other prizes consisted of a heart-rate monitor, pairs of socks, T shirts and water bottles.

I managed to better my time by about three minutes from the last race a fortnight earlier, so I was pleased with myself. Here I am with Linda.

Friday night we had a scrumptious meal at the Juicy Rump restaurant which is part of the famous Lassiter's Casino and after dinner helped the casino make a profit for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Saturday we spent idling about ... you know the dictum, "All work and no play ....".

On Sunday we visited the Standley Chasm which is 45 km west of Alice Springs and dropped in at Simpson's Gap which is on the same Larapinta Highway, but a bit closer to town.

As flies were plentiful, the ladies each bought a fly net. Mike commented that they were looking like Emirati women. One of the photos following shows Christina and Linda wearing their fly nets.
Another is of Michael at the entrance to Standley Chasm and finally, a photo of the Chasm.

According to the publicity, Standley Chasm was gouged into tough sandstone by floods that surged down a narrow tributary of the Finke River over untold millions of years.

The Chasm is at its best around noon on a sunny day when the sheer walls glow from reflected sunlight to create a breathtaking display of stark form and rich colour.

There are also many lush plants, even some cycad palms that have survived from wetter ages millenia ago.
Early this morning Linda and Mike drove off in a bus for a tour of Ayres Rock and Kings Canyon.

We are going to meet up with them at Erldunda Road House 200 km south of Alice Springs tomorrow evening and on Wednesday drive off to Coober Pedy to visit the opal fields and then to a cabin we timeshare in the Snowy Mountains area of Victoria.

We did tell them not to get too excited about the snow, it's not the right time of year for that here.

Robin


























Standley Chasm (Chris in distance)

Arabian Bling

G'day

Well, the title may be a little bit of hyperbole ... what I mean is that we are collecting a lot of "stuff" while we are here. Maybe it's not bling, but that's a nice word and I like onomatopia, so even though it isn't strictly bling, I'm gunna call it bling. Ok?

So what's this bling we're collecting? Well, during our latest trip to Jordan I acquired an Arabian art piece, which is shown here at the left. It's mounted on a wooden frame in the same way that Central Australian dot paintings are displayed. There were dozens to choose from and I chose this as a memento of my trip to Jordan.

Last time in Jordan we acquired a small pottery vessel with an interesting hatched glaze and a painted oryx ... at least I think it's an oryx as it has straight horns. Then there's the three Arabian style coffee pots, and the wall hung carpets, and the dancing dervishes that our friends Sharon and Serge gave us ... and the Canadian thermometer that goes to 50 degrees Celsius unlike the one made in Germany that bombs out at 40 degrees Celsius (fat lot of good in Central Australia!).

Bling is a bit like jewellery. You can rotate it. You don't have to wear the $4,000 TAG Heuer wrist watch every day, you can rotate it with the shitty Rolex Oyster from Thailand that you got for $15. Nobody knows the difference. You can still tell the time as well as ever and pretend you are a filthy rich bastard to boot.

We can rotate some of this stuff through our house to impress you when you visit. Hopefully you'll forget last year's bling and think we are blinged to the hilt.

At the end of the day, if we are down on the bones of our bums and our kids won't help us, we can have a Bling Fest ... not as much fun as some other fests that come to mind (get your mind out of the bedroom), like an October Fest, but helpful if you need that kilo of rice to keep you going until pension day.

Aaaah, it's truly a great life. We should all endeavour to gather as much bling as possible in our younger years so that when we are in need of a bite to eat or a carton of Fourex, we can flog off a bit of bling. And remember, if you bling up early in life, by the time you need your Fourex, the bling could qualify as an antique. Much greater value.

Now that we are close to packing our stuff to move back home, every bit of bling seems larger than life.

Here's to all that bling.

Robin