I’m late I’m late for a very important date. We still had to call at Doha (Qatar), Dammam (Saudi Arabia), Bahrain Island, Kuwait and finally Basrah (Iraq), which is about 90 miles up the Shatt al-Arab from the Persian Gulf. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet and become the Shatt-al-Arab and in English this means The […]
Madrid Station – was spotlessly clean, and very impressive. Our four nights in Barcelona just flew past, and on the final morning we were once again making our way to the railway station for the rail trip to Madrid. Once more we paid a little more for the extra room, but this time we were […]
Das Island The photograph of Das Island has been downloaded from the net – I’ve marked the position of Das Is – under the ‘er’ of Persian under lined in cream. I think the only main change since 1963 would be the upgraded runway. I always had the feeling that the island was floating on […]
All ready for a wedding. The flight from London to Melbourne was particularly good considering the last time Maureen & I flew to Australia, which was not long after we were married in 1970, we were also travelling ‘staff travel’, and we were ‘off-loaded’ in Hong Kong and we were stuck there for about four […]
My first view of Buenos Aires from our balcony – not a very attractive site with the heavy rain clouds. Our arrival meant that we would be alongside from early Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, when the ship would sail with a new ‘cargo’ of passengers. Our plan was to experience BA on Saturday morning, […]
We docked alongside a working port called Phu My (pronounced Foo Me) in Vietnam. The port is about a 90-minute bus ride to Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh. Many of the locals still refer to Ho Chi Minh as Saigon. The Diamond Princess was too large to sail to Saigon, so we had to […]
Catherine’s Palace at Peterhof (Petergof is the Russian spelling) It was a warm day and I didn’t envy the staff in their period costumes. The picture shows the north side of the palace, or what was called the carriage courtyard. The palace originated in 1717 by command of Catherine 1 of Russia. If you like […]
Blackman’s Swamp in 1870 We had five nights in Cowra and planned to have three nights at Blackman’s Swamp. We left Cowra on Friday, but after we received a phone call that Maureen was booked into hospital on Tuesday we decided to cut our visit to Blackman’s Swamp to just two nights. Just to make […]
This blog is aimed mainly at Australian readers, so I apologise to my other readers. I am tired of the multi-coloured banner across the top of my blog, even though I’ve tried to have it removed, and investigated how to remove it myself, but I don’t have the computer knowledge. It is obviously a banner […]
The history of Qatar can be traced back 50,000 years. Throughout history various empires controlled the peninsular on which Doha stands . Qatar is the purple bit which is a peninsular, not an island. Manama is the capital of Bahrain and not part of Qatar. Qatar became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1872, and […]
Maureen & I have completed ten cruises over the years, mainly with Princess Cruises, but the one that we use to judge all of the others is Azamara Cruises. Azamara Quest 30,277 GT, the smallest ship in which we have sailed, launched in 2000, with a passenger capacity of 686 and a crew of 408. […]
The old and the new – Golden Princess can be seen with a sailing ship along side. We berthed close to the town, which allowed for a short walk to many places of interest. A touch of yesteryear where ever we looked. Many of the streets and homes reminded me of New Zealand, quiet and […]
I’d been released by the Company to attend Liverpool Technical College to study and to take my Second Mates Foreign Going ticket. This was when I would find out if my shipboard studying, via correspondence course, had been successful. I think this is the old building that I attended on Hunter St. Liverpool, but If […]
Puerto Montt is a town in southern Chile known as the gateway to the Andes. It began life quite late, not until 1853. For a ship’s tour of nearly eight hours the cost would be USD $169 per person, so it was research time to cut the cost. It wasn’t long before I found GV […]
