Approaching Napier. NAPIER – So named after Sir Charles Napier 1782 to 1853. The Hawks Bay earthquake of 1931 flattened Napier, and killed 161 people and injured thousands. The local newspaper at the time wrote that the town had been wiped off the map. I took a photograph and this photograph, which was on a large […]
Once again my fellow cadets and I joined the excursion ashore to see this time the sites of Istanbul. We visited St Sophia’s (pictured above) – the first church on this site being built in 360 AD, the second church was built in 415 AD, the third church was opened in 537 AD and remained […]
Cowra is the only place in the world that has a Peace Bell and is not a major city. In 1951, Chiyoji Nakagawa, who at that time was a council member of the UN Association of Japan visited Paris at his own expense to observe the 6th General Assembly of the United Nations. He obtained […]
I The Calcutta & Burmah Steam Navigation Company was registered in Glasgow in 1856. One of the first ships of the company was Cape of Good Hope, built in 1853, (420 gross tons). She was a steamer, but also rigged as a brig. At 190 feet long, she still managed ninety days from Southampton to Calcutta to […]
To carry on from Singapore 1963 and all that . . .Our next port was Hong Kong. We anchored in the harbour, just a week after entering Singapore harbour. Once again the smell of Asia fired my imagination of day’s gone bye. They do say that you can smell money in Hong Kong – everyone […]
It’s Always You Bing Crosby sang it to Dorothy Lamour, in Zanzibar of course . . . Christmas Day 1964 – we arrived off Mombasa and berthed alongside the Chakla, another Company ship. Also, in port was a BI passenger ship named ‘Karanja’ and this name had a family link for me. My father was […]
Flag of Wales The Eisteddfod can be traced back to Cardigan Castle in 1176, when the House of Dinefwr, which was a royal house of Wales, supported the eisteddfod. The House of Dinefwr can be traced back to King of Gwynedd in 844. The above is the flag of Dinefwr. The Eisteddfod had it ups […]
Considering the current pandemic I thought I would throw in a comment or two about a visit to Fremantle to load cargo for the Middle East, but before we could leave port a number of us had to have our vaccinations updated. This happened periodically to protect us from ‘catching’ something dangerous from yellow fever […]
The British celebrating ten years of service for Concorde’s trans-Atlantic service, accompanied by the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows, and Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship, which also carried passengers trans-Atlantic but much slower. On arrival at JFK (New York’s major airport) we taxied to terminal 7 There wasn’t any mistake as to our location because […]
March, 2015 Road Trip Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Beechworth, Hay, Mildura, Broken Hill, Tanunda, Adelaide, Robe, Ballarat, Albury, Sydney. 4305 km door to door. My wife and I have seen quite a lot of Asia so we thought it was about time that we saw some more of Australia. We decided to visit Adelaide, which would […]
During our visit to Hanoi we’d booked to visit Halong Bay for an overnight sail. The drive was about three and a half hours. It was an interesting trip, particularly watching the motorbike drivers taking live pigs to market on the back of their bikes. The pigs didn’t seem distressed, perhaps they were used to days […]
Chakdara – launched 1951, 7,132 gt The first Chakdara (3,035 gt) was launched in 1914 and was named after an important trading town in northern India, which was on the main trading route to Afghanistan.In 1933 she was sold to Burma Steam Nav Co., but she foundered off Burma in 1935. After partition the town of Chakdara was […]
We sailed from Puerto Montt at 5.00 pm for our next port of call, which was Puerto Chacabuco. We passed a number of islands off the Patagonian coast, and experienced the majestic fjords that made one think of Norway. The area known as Patagonia is split between Chile & Argentina, but I must admit I […]
Flag of Wales The Eisteddfod can be traced back to Cardigan Castle in 1176, when the House of Dinefwr, which was a royal house of Wales, supported the eisteddfod. The House of Dinefwr can be traced back to King of Gwynedd in 844. The above is the flag of Dinefwr. The Eisteddfod had it ups […]
