Whitehaven Beach, WhitSunday island, Queensland, Australia
I should preface this with paying tribute to George Selby from Hornchurch who was drowned trying to save his son in rough seas off Majorca, as he started his first trip abroad, described as “the holiday of a lifetime”. He couldn’t swim, which makes him doubly brave. What a really courageous man and an awesome example to us all!
We are now back home after travelling just 500 miles short of circum-navigating the globe on the equator, in a three week holiday which had no less than 17 journey legs. It certainly was a “holiday of a lifetime”. We were very blessed to be able to take it and I certainly don’t envisage having such a glorious holiday again before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
We were really blessed to have an absolute blast in Australia. It is quite a relief to be back home, with all the 17 journey legs having worked like clockwork, thanks to the missus.
Broadly speaking we flew to Sydney and then to Cairns on the north east coast of Queensland. We then hired a car to go up to Cow Bay in the Daintree rain forest for a few days in a “shed on stilts”, which was glorious, and included a night walk in the Cooper Valley rain forest and snorkelling over the MacKay reef on the Great Barrier Reef. We also saw a Cassowary and its youngster at close quarters.
We then drove down to Ingham for a night. With great pride, there I had my photo taken at the “Pub with no beer”.
We then went to Airlie Beach for five glorious days in the most beautiful apartment overlooking Abel Point Marina, which included another snorkeling session over the Great Barrier Reef.
Then it was a flight to Brizzy for two days. What a great city!
Then we had five days in Manly with, of course, full saturation in the beauty Sydney Harbour.
Australia is a land of vast, vast, vast resources. It really is quite staggering to get your head around it.
We then get back to our uncertain rainy, windy weather and the cheek-by-jowl living of the UK, but for some reason which I cannot quite fathom I am really glad to be home and don’t hanker after a life down under one tiny bit… Goodness knows why that is. It flies in the face of all logic….
I will be posting all sorts of stuff about Australia in the next few weeks. But, for now, here is a short video which sums up the brash exhuberance of Australians and the stunning beauty of Australia.
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