Nicole sent me an email with the October dates of our road trip to Charleville, Quilpie, Eromanga and Welford National Park. We will be travelling within the northern part of the huge section of Queensland stretching from Charleville west to the South Australian border and south to the New South Wales border.
Today I paid for my return flight from Brisbane to San Francisco and a deposit on the 14 day small group tour visiting, inter alia, Zion Canyon, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. The tour will involve a fair amount of walking. Travel between destinations will be in a mini-bus. Yosemite had been a goal of mine for decades; Monument Valley for nearly as long.
Knowing my desire to visit Yosemite National Park and Monument Valley next year, Simon emailed me a media release about United Airlines inaugural direct flight from San Francisco to Brisbane. This makes my trip all the more feasible.
Every indication, when I left home on October 7, was that the weather wouldn’t pause the trip, though in the two or three preceding weeks, this seemed a real possibility. Because of the departure time of the Saturday flight to Longreach, I overnighted at the airport. The road trip was scheduled to start on the 10th, giving me a weekend at home with Simon & Nicole, except that Nicole was absent on business and due to return on the 9th. Because they did the driving, I insisted on paying for the fuel. Very generously, they let me sit in the front, ignoring my readiness to sit in the back. The great attraction about this trip was the series of firsts that it guaranteed. That there was a bonus first was more than one could ask for. It happened before we got to Winton in the form of a large mob of cattle grazing by the side of the road. It looked as if the drovers had set up camp here, more likely they were having a break. None of us had seen the like.
We were heading for Boulia. Ever since reading about the Middleton hotel on the… Read Complete Text
I left home on June 23 and returned on July 29. Even ignoring the six, as opposed to the normal two-year interval between journeys, this trip was shaping to be unlike any other. The time and then the cost of producing my book, followed by the pandemic, accounted for the gap. Given its length, I suspected that it would give rise to unexpected changes, regardless of Covid. I was conscious of the need to make up for lost time. My focus was on re-uniting with family and friends. The death of my beloved cousin Leila in 2019 meant that there was no longer a need to stay in London for two weeks. The apartment in Belsize Park wasn’t available, so I booked into a conveniently located hotel for eight nights. Clive, who turned 75 two weeks before my departure, agreed to put up with me for a week which included a two-night stay in Cornwall. I was now in the fortunate position of realising a long-held desire to book an eight-day Rhine cruise from Amsterdam to Basel. Also, I had vowed to visit Bruges the next time I was in Europe, so I added a two-night stay there. I… Read Complete Text
Gina handed over my tickets and vouchers – tickets for flights and rail travel, vouchers for accommodation, car transfers and the Rhine cruise. I leave on June 23. The rail pass is only available as an app. I have hard copies of the six days for which I have seat reservations, but the remaining four days appear to be out of reach. In reality, I will have to go to the rail travel office at St Pancras Station today week, to sort matters out and expect to put up with a long wait. A complicating factor is the rail and tube strikes currently occurring in the UK. Ah, the joys of travel, but then, I stubbornly refuse to have a smart phone.
This morning I paid Gina for my accommodation in Amsterdam (both before and after the cruise) and Bruges, and transfers from airport to hotel, hotel to railway station and hotel to boat. On May 4 I paid for the rail pass, after a lot of toing and froing to allow for sufficient time to change trains while avoiding having to linger between trains.
Today I booked my London hotel, including eight breakfasts for less than £90 – which is far less than they would cost here, paying from my UK bank account, having paid for the airfare on February 25 and the balance of the Rhine cruise on April 4.
Flooding rain has dictated the weather for months in these parts and in much of Queensland. Longreach has had its share. I left a decidedly wet Brisbane on 24.3.22 in the hope of seeing blue sky and sun in the mid-west, but terrified of driving back to the mountain on my return at rush hour, in the forecast persistent rain. We arrived in Longreach early, and I had to wait for Nicole to pick me up. Thursday is usually a busy day for Simon with Council meetings. Nicole had to return to work. She has just taken up her position as General Manager of Aussie Outback Tours, a thriving Longreach-based tourism business, and I was left alone for the afternoon with Pepper, which delighted us both. We were confined to barracks next day. I didn’t venture out because I didn’t have a key. The weather was uncomfortably hot. In the evening we dined at Longreach’s much-improved premier restaurant. Nicole joined Simon and me from a reception honouring Daniel Geschwind, retiring after twenty-two years as chief executive of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council. He is a hero of mine because he has brought his Swiss grounding in tourism excellence to… Read Complete Text
I booked my flight to Longreach (October 8) and back (October 16), for our Birdsville road trip, first mooted by Nicole and Simon when we were at Uluru, after I told them that I would love to visit the Middleton Hotel, a lone and evocative haven, 170 kilometres from the nearest town, on the road between Winton and Boulia. I suggested staying overnight in Boulia, whereat Nicole said we might as well go to Birdsville. I jumped at the chance. The beauty of driving from Longreach to Birdsville and back is that the entire journey will be through essential Australia – the glorious channel country and the red centre.