Important Note: We were on New Zealand's South Island February 11 through February 25, way before the Coronavirus was declared a pandemic. Since then, we have arrived back in the United States and are sheltering in place, as are millions of others. We started our time in New Zealand’s South Island by flying to Christchurch. … Continue reading New Zealand’s spectacular South Island →

The Land of the Long White Cloud, or Aotearoa, is the name the indigenous Maori people gave to New Zealand when they landed there, sometime between 1200 and 1300 AD, about 500 years before Captain Cook “discovered” the islands. New Zealand has so much to offer – on the North Island, accompanied by my sister, … Continue reading On the North Island of New Zealand, the land of the long, white cloud →

We were fortunate enough to visit several of Australia’s great cities in our six weeks in the country, including Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Sydney is the most famous of the three, with its iconic opera house and bay bridge, Melbourne is known for a great coffee culture and its livability, being ranked as the world’s … Continue reading A Tale of Three Cities: Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide →

John and I enjoy coffee but we are not coffee snobs. We rarely go to coffee shops and when we lived at home, back before we sold our house and most of our worldly goods, we bought good coffee beans, ground them daily, and made a pot of regular ol’ brewed coffee. When we were … Continue reading Drinking Coffee in Australia →

Australia’s Great Ocean Road goes south from Melbourne, starting at Torquay (pronounced Tor-key) and goes on for 243 kilometers/150 miles, ending somewhere around Port Fairy or Portland, depending on who you ask. Many people drive it in just a day or two or, worse yet, get on a tourist bus to see a few sights, … Continue reading Australia’s Great Ocean Road →

  As I write this, it is January 8, more than two weeks after Christmas, and we have, by now, moved beyond Australia’s tropical north, down through Sydney, and are now in Melbourne. And I still haven’t posted my Christmas blog. But, in my own defense, I figure that if everywhere we go is still … Continue reading I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas →

Singapore was by far the most westernized of the places we visited in Southeast Asia and I will say that we were happy to be in a place where the water is safe to drink, the sidewalks are wide and intact, and cars actually stop at crosswalks. I visited Singapore 16 years ago when I … Continue reading Easing out of Southeast Asia in Singapore →