M/S Dunera in Malta After a four month voyage in MV Chilka to East Africa, I was allowed ten days leave before the telegram arrived that I as to join MS Dunera in Venice. Three days later I flew with Alitalia from London to Venice, via Milan. Fortunately, ALITALIA didn’t live up to her acronym Always […]
Llangollen to me means two things, beyond the beauty of the town of course, – the international music eisteddfod and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, so when we visited the UK for our self drive, self catering holiday with our Australian friends, Llangollen was on the list. In 1943 the British Council organised for members of governments in exile […]
Our next port of call was Tauranga – the above is of the sunrise as was we entered Tauranga harbour, which is a beautiful place to visit. Entering the harbour. Maureen & I were fortunate because our daughter in law’s parents live in Tauranga and had offered to be our guides for the day, and to […]
After leaving Nuddea I was asked to attend an interview in London. I was a little apprehensive because I thought it was because of the near closing of Liverpool docks, when I asked a crane driver not to rip the bottom out of the cargo. It wasn’t, it was to tell me that I was […]
Danang, China Beach and Good Morning Vietnam – with Robin Williams’ Viva Danang comes to mind when I think of this area. We flew from Saigon to Danang airport, which is the airport for Hoi An, where we would be staying. On arrival in Danang (about 9.00 am), we were met by Phong ‘Our man in Danang’, […]
Chakdara We loaded tea in Trincomalee for five days before sailing to Madras. I stayed on board this time because I was not going to be accused of not being aware of our sailing time. Our next leg took us from Madras to Aden, which is across the harbour from Little Aden – at least we […]
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 […]
How things have changed since my first trip to Hong Kong in 1963. Note the clock tower to the left of the picture, right on the waterfront, more about it later. I found this old advert, which also shows Hong Kong of the 60’s. We entered Hong Kong harbour via the Tathong Channel on the […]
Berlin to Prague. All to soon we had to leave Berlin for Prague – again by train, and again I booked first class seats over the internet, via the German booking system, but on Czech rail – I had no end of trouble trying to book on the Czech system. Only after I had paid […]
Port Arthur taken from the ship. Maureen and I attended a talk about Port Arthur and Hobart. At the end of the Port Arthur talk the speaker stated that we would be anchored off shore, because Port Arthur was not a port that could cope with a vessel of our size. In fact, all they […]
The Silverton Pub. As soon as I saw the local pub I recognised it from various films. Mad Max 2 A town like Alice – Australian min-series from the book by Nevil Shute. Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, to name three that I’ve seen, and I couldn’t count the number of TV adverts. Outside […]
BOAC I joined BOAC in 1969 and in 1971 an Act of Parliament merged BOAC with BEA to take affect from 31 March 1974, which would create British Airways. The UK had joined the Common Market, as it was called then, in January 1973, so the merger of the two government-controlled airlines made sense. BOAC […]
We arrived in Colombo on the 8th June at 2.pm for fuel and water, because our next port of call would be Muscat in Oman and it was already getting hot and summer months in or near the Persian Gulf is an experience I can do without. There was little for me to do so […]
Never mind clocks & watches and all that accurate stuff, when in Fiji one must get used to Fiji time . . . Just after sunrise we approached our berth at Suva, Fiji. Abel Tasman was the first European to sight Fiji in 1643, and this was followed by Captain Cook in 1770. It was […]
