Tuesday 4 November 2025 – On the way: Roger It was late afternoon when we boarded the Singapore airlines flight from Auckland to Singapore. As usual on Singapore Airlines the service was great and the food not too bad either. A few hours into the flight I put the bed down to endeavour to get […]
Thursday 18 September 2025: Bucharest to Sibiu – Sylvia Our guide and driver for the next few days, Florin, met us at the JW Marriott Grand at 9am. It was nice to have a relaxing morning and we had enjoyed a lovely breakfast in the hotel. We set off for Transylvania. Romania is a country […]
Monday 15 September 2025: Vidin and Belogradchik Rocks – Roger We woke in the morning to find ourselves moored up alongside the town of Vidin in Bulgaria. Bulgaria has a population about 6.5 million, of which around 30,000 live in this town. It was around nine when we boarded the buses and drove through the […]
Thursday 11 September 2025: Kalocsa – Roger It was 8:30 in the morning when we disembarked and boarded buses for a short trip to Kalocsa. The river in this area is 4 to 500 metres wide, 6 metres deep and flowing at a rate of about 2500 cubic metres per second. As we headed along […]
Sunday 7 September 2025: Vienna – Roger When we woke up we had berthed on the Danube, just adjacent to Vienna. It was just before nine when Sylvia and I set off for a stroll into town. The area we walked through was a relatively new residential area with very tidy looking apartments with lots […]
Wednesday 3 September 2005: Nuremberg – Roger After a light breakfast, it was just after 8am when we jumped into a taxi to take us to the Nuremberg Castle. Arriving there before it opened at 9am, there were few people around and we spent the time looking around the outside of the buildings and the […]
Saturday 30 August 2025: Koblenz and Rhine River – Roger It was around 8am when we docked alongside another Viking boat in Koblenz, after once again enjoying breakfast in our room. My sister Rachael arranged to meet us there; she is currently living in Frankfurt. We found her waiting for us not long after leaving […]
Tuesday 26 August 2025: Amsterdam – Roger It was 4.30 am when we piled out of bed to shower, dress and be downstairs – well down the lift really – to check out of the Mondrian Hotel. It was 5.15am when the driver of the black Audi A6 drove us to the airport. We headed […]
Saturday 23 August 2025 – Roger We boarded the Qatar Boeing 777 around 1pm for the 17 hour flight to Doha. We have passed through Qatar many times over the past few years, since Emirates fully pissed Sylvia off through really bad customer service and we switched to Qatar. The airline has some backward-facing centre […]
Saturday 2 August 2025 Steve and his wife, Karen, picked me up at 0515 and drove us to the Auckland Airport. Steve and I caught the 0640 flight to Queenstown. Arriving just after 0830 we walked to the nearby car park and picked up my truck, then headed south down the east side of Lake […]