We had a brief encounter with the lurgy AKA COVID when we arrived in the UK from Australia – the day two government-required test came back positive for one of us, inconclusive for the other. Go figure! No symptoms whatsoever though, but of course we had to isolate for the requisite 5 days. By day…

We were briefly in North Wales earlier in the week, Hawarden specifically, Ants’ ancestral home. It’s been 2 long years since we’ve been back, so it was lovely, as always to see Anthea. Family reunited.  On a drive over to the Wirral, we went to Rock Ferry at Birkenhead with Liverpool looming across the murky…

‘Had I but lived a hundred years ago I might have gone, as I have gone this year, By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know, And Time have placed his finger on me there.’ – Thomas Hardy From the steaming tropics of Far North Australia earlier in January to the stunning Jurassic Coast of Southern England…

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more spectacular sunrise than the one we regularly got at Wonga. The sun quickly rises from the Coral Sea at 5.53am, turning the mackerel sky into a riot of rainbow colour, with the reef shimmering and the Low Isles appearing as a mirage, shape-shifting on the horizon.  Our…

Thanks to our great new friends at Wonga, Shirl and Andy, we ventured out on their rather large and impressive cruiser for a day on the Reef, specifically heading for Bat and Tongue Reef and the intriguingly named Blue Martini – so called because of its circular rim and deep blue dive hole.  Because of…

The Daintree River Ferry, the only cable ferry operating within tropical Australia, feels like crossing over to the ‘Land That Time Forgot’ or, perhaps more relevantly, to the gateway into Jurassic Park – all it appears to lack is a huge rustic wooden gate and electrified fencing to hold the ‘wildlife’ in. The river is…

The CREB track, beyond Daintree Village, is a rough and ready off-road challenge for highly experienced 4WD drivers (only) and is considered one of Australia’s most notorious 4WD tracks, traversing the Daintree World Heritage Rainforest, the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest in Australia, at around 1,200 square kilometres.  The CREB (originally the service access…

Beautiful one day, perfect the next….another cracking day dawns at Wonga, Christmas Day. I have to say that the dawn chorus here is more raucous than chorus with incredibly loud repetitive shrieks, squawks, haunting whistles, cackles, hoots and coos….and then the insects get going as the heat and humidity rise, the noise getting louder and…

Would you swim here? This is a local swimming hole near to the house. We are ‘assured’ that there are no crocs here ‘cos apparently they don’t swim uphill… ‘ Who knew? It was so tempting on a roasting hot morning to plunge into the cool water, but we chickened out. Whereas the other photo…

It’s too darn hot for the beach as we’d fry to a crisp within minutes after say 10am. The best time to explore is at sunrise and early morning or late in the afternoon, just as the intense heat of the day subsides. That’s when the reef appears to shimmer on the horizon. It’s a…