Greg and Deb's Travel Blog

Yes, in three weeks time we will be boarding our flight for Perth, and spend a few days with family and celebrating a grandson’s 5th birthday.

From there we will be flying to Istanbul, Turkiye, then onto Portugal, Spain and finally the UAE.

We can wait for the fun and adventures to begin, the running away bit is exciting as well. 🙂

It all begins on 3rd September, see you all then.

 21 June 2025. Adelaide to Kingscote, Kangaroo Island to Southern Ocean Lodge (2.0) Our Celebration of Life! 

We finished packing and were in an Uber a little after 8am.

In the Qantas Club by 8:40am. It’s the first time we have been in the newly revamped lounge. It’s very comfortable.

Our flight left from gate 50, who would have thought Adelaide airport would have a gate number that high!!  We were on board by 9:30, and in the air at 9:40 in our Dash 8-400 prop driven aircraft. There were about 20-25 people on the flight.  The couple in the seat in front of us were the pilot’s parents.   It was the first time he had flown them on a commercial flight, and his mum’s birthday! Made for a memorable flight that was fun to share! Continue reading →

Yes, we (mainly Deb 😀), have been busy. Another epic adventure is coming for Sept / October 2025.

Stay tuned for where. 😀

Greg and Deb’s Circumnavigation of Australia Day 29. Port Douglas Day 1. 6 June.

We landed in Cairns at 6am, but we couldn’t get our hire car until 8am, so there was no rush. It took a little time for our bags to appear. It was interesting watching the customs dog check out all the luggage, both carry-on and checked-in. Once we had our bags we went through customs with nothing to declare and were out around 6:45am.

We eventually worked out that our hire car pick-up point was over in the domestic terminal, so we took a 400m stroll over there. Continue reading →

Bali 29 May to 5 June

Bali Day 1
We were through immigration in almost no time, I had a little speed bump to negotiate! I had made a mistake on my e-visa, somehow my birthday showed up on the visa as the date I applied for it. When I tried to go through the electronic gate it wouldn’t let me through. I got sent through to a manual desk just behind them. The Officer pointed out what the problem was and started saying I might need to do another visa, I played the age card, “sorry, my old eyes didn’t see the mistake, I’m really sorry!”, he looked at me, smiled, I thought at this point he was after an old school envelope, but no, he was simply thinking stupid old dude, and did a manual entry for me on the spot. Continue reading →

Our final Day on-board

We woke around 6:30am and saw land!!!……um, Darwin!

We finished our last bit of packing, put our bags out for collection and went down to our last meal on-board the Geographer at around 7am.

A couple from South Africa joined us for breakfast, it was really interesting conversation.

We were back in our cabin a bit before 8am and waited for our call to disembark. Continue reading →

An early start again for our last day of exploration, 6.30am breakfast and we headed out at 7:15am

We got the second Explorer off the boat to head up the King George River to see the Oomai (King George Falls).

We were told that Dugongs frequent the lower mouth area of the river. Dugongs and sea turtles feed on sea grasses in this area, we didn’t see any.

We passed a huge Osprey nest, maybe 1m+ tall, on our way upstream. It was perched on a rock shelf halfway up a cliff face. Normally they are on the top of rocky outcrops. Continue reading →

Today we visited Banjal, or Vansittart Bay – Jar Island & the Anjo Peninsula

Deb stayed on-board this morning and I took the second Explorer for the morning adventure.

There were 2 explorers from the Coral Explorer in the water near our boat, the Explorer had run out of essential supplies and was being topped up from our boat.

I saw our neighbour at the boarding area, she was wearing a mask. Her RAT (testing for 4 things) is negative. She has a scratchy throat. Last time she had Covid it took 3 days for the RAT to show +ve. I spoke to her from a distance. There are a few people on board with scratchy coughs.

My excursion this morning consisted of a cruise around Jar Island (about 1km x 0.6km). It was named after Macassan jars (Macassans came from what is now Indonesia) found on the island by Phillip Parker King. The area is a site for the pearling industry. There are pearling “String farms” scattered around the area. Pearling has been an industry here since at least the 1800’s. Initially pearling was all about the shells, used for buttons, etc. and then into pearls in the 1900’s. The oysters can be used to produce up to 3 pearls. Continue reading →