Adventures in 2017

Heaven, Vienna mine I'm in the spell of your charms divine Dressed like a queen, with life so gay. You are the love of my heart today  ( link ).

It would be remiss to visit to Austria without visiting the city made famous by The Sound of Music, whether that be by Rodgers & Hammerstein or by the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Caroline's dream to see Salzburg has been fulfilled and I was happy to be part of it.

We drove to the manicured lands of Austria, starting with the ski resort town of Zell Am See. It is doing what mountain areas do best - rain. Though not ideal weather we are get a taste of the germanic love for perfection and beauty. I would have been great to linger longer but alas only two days was all we had available to us.

There is a very good reason why places are listed as an UNESCO world heritage site , that is because they are special. All that mother nature provides is special, but some areas are extra special and Plitvice lakes is one site that made it to the list and deservingly so.

It was forecast to be yet a another hot day, hottest so far; so why not spend it on the water ? Part of the reason we came to Zadar is so that I could visit Zadar and go kiteboarding at Nin. I did not take my kite gear, as over the period of 7 weeks I’d get 1 perhaps 2 days of kiteboarding. At Nin I found out that there was a kiteboarding school and a there was a possible opportunity to hire gear.

We were in Zadar for a couple of days.  It is a town that has belted around its ears since the dawn of time. There are all sorts of ruins from various eras of human civilisation to keep historians amused for a long time. I learnt about the Romans at primary school, and thought not much about it at all until it was realised with the artefacts of their history in places like Zadar.

Krka is a watery paradise, we were in love with this place, waterfalls, lovely swimming and boating on the river, the whole atmosphere made for a great day.

Many moons ago a couple in my cycling club went off on an adventure fulfilling a dream to sail the world. A fantastic looking photo was shown to me, and I asked where is this place ?  Montenegró was the response. Oh, that looks interesting I said. Little did I realise that that comment became a catalyst to a real visit. Both Caroline and I enjoyed the visit very much.

My alarm was set for 5:30am, it is going to be a big day.  I am off for a 3 1/2 hour drive to the Tara Canyon for an  " One day high rafting adventure " hosted by a company called the Waterfall rafting center.  I had driver and was the only passenger for this trip. Caroline not keen on the idea of rafting elected to spend the day in Kotor.

Montenegro is a small nation tucked down on the southern border of Croatia, we visited it directly after landing at Dubrovnik from Prague.

A fine day for cycling I think. May I use a bike, I wish to ride to Plzen, I say to the staff. With enthusiasm they rummaged in the cellars below, found something that would do the job, gave me a map and wished me a good day.  I took my phone loaded with the Maps.Me app, a few bottles of water, roughed out a plan to ride across the river at Liblin follow the road alongside to Plzen, find the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery  and off I trundled.

How cool would it be to stay in one of those mediaeval castles ? We thought so too and so this was the first of two (and as it turns out only one) that we booked and stayed at

Dobrý den! or hello to the Czech countryside and  Čau! (like Italian Ciao! ) or goodbye to Praha or as we English speaking folks call it.

Prague is a small busy city, capital of Czechia. In a nutshell: it's music & culture, good food and fancy old buildings, oh and of course Pilsner beer. It was a good choice to start our trip.

We are off, we being me: Stuart and my wife: Caroline on a seven week jaunt to Eastern Europe, or some would say Central Europe - well who cares - we are visiting Czech Republic, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Hungary in that order

I have been hankering to do a road trip up to Exmouth for some time. Dennis and I have been going on kite surfing holidays for the last few years so we plugged for this one. We started off from Perth and drove to Geraldton, staying a couple of days,  to Denham staying 5 days.

How proud can a dad be when his daughters ask to go on a walking trip with him ? Well I am the proud jeweller with my two gems – ie my daughters Steph and Katie. We’ve just spent a wonderful  week of walking in the Greenstone and Caples river valley of New Zealand.