No, not the time for long French loaves. One of the other meanings of the word in French is for what we Brits refer to as the decorative trim that goes around door and window frames where they meet the wall. When my house was built the interior doors were installed but it was left for me to finish them off with whatever form of trim that I wanted – the baguettes. It’s some time since I painted the walls – some of the joints between the wallboard sheets are already beginning to crack up a bit as a result of expansion and contraction – but up to now I’ve never got around to fitting the baguettes.

This year I want to concentrate on the house’s exterior and garden and spend the minimum of time on its interior. In fact, the only interior jobs that are outstanding are to fit the baguettes, varnish them and the interior doors and do the tiling above the worktops in the kitchen and utility room. So I’ve decided that I need to get a move on while it’s too cold to work outside (I will need to cut tiles outside because my machine has a diamond blade that is lubricated by water that sprays a bit) and get the baguette and door work done. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of days – and not before time!

Here’s a shot of what a door frame looks like without a baguette.

And here’s another, taken from the other side of the door, with a baguette fitted.

I hadn’t realised how much of a difference fitting baguettes would make and in fact I’d go so far as to say it has transformed the corridor leading to my bathroom and bedrooms. I knew that something was missing but hadn’t realised just how much character fitting the baguettes would add.

I’ve only completed half the work so far and will continue over the next few days. It’s not cheap – each 2.4 metre length of baguette profile costs 5,95€ and each door needs 5 lengths, except for the bathroom and separate toilet which were beautifully finished inside by the tiler with tiles right up to the door frames, so only needing 2 1/2 lengths each. So the 7 doors will cost nearly 180€ in total for the wood alone, excluding the varnish which itself is not cheap, but I think the final result will be well worth the cost and effort.

I found this poor boy outside my house after I’d finished taking my outdoor Christmas lights down. He’d been gone for some time, I don’t know why. I didn’t move him for now but I couldn’t see any wounds on him and I doubt whether the few cold nights we’ve had lately would have been bad enough to have seen him off.

Maybe someone poisoned him, but I now know who’s been taking the scraps left in the bowl overnight after I’ve fed the raggedy dog who often visits me for food and company, as she did today.

But anyway, I won’t just throw the poor little soul’s body over the fence and into the trees. I’ll give him a decent burial more fitting for an animal who’s lived his whole life, short though it was, in Nature in the wild.

Now packed and being shipped. Should be in Marseille within 60 days but should be less.

Shown are the machine itself with 400mm bucket attached, the 200mm bucket, the smooth edge 400mm bucket (could be 500mm) and the post auger. And they upgraded me to a hydraulic thumb, as shown, for free.

I think it looks great! 😀

So far, so good. It’s all mine and paid for so now I’m just waiting for it to be shipped and arrive at Marseille.

I’m looking to clear it through customs myself without using an agent as there’s no duty to pay, just 20% VAT which I’ve already settled. I intend to pick it up from the port on a flatbed vehicle recovery trailer towed by my Kia as the crate only weighs about a tonne, so similar in weight to a car.

I’m assuming there will be loading facilities at the dock eg a large forklift, and the only information I don’t have is whether this will be free or chargeable. I’ve sent two enquiries to the port authorities using their contact form but have received no reply, so no surprises there then, as this is France.

Does anyone know? If not I’ll probably have to give them a call.

It’s a better machine than the original one I ordered which was never delivered and for which I was reimbursed. As shown in the video below, it has a hydraulic ‘thumb’ (behind the bucket which is used for picking things up such as logs and rocks) whereas the other machine had a very basic mechanical one. It also has its hydraulic lines enclosed in its beam which makes them less likely to be damaged.

I intend to build a ‘garage’ for it before it arrives. It’ll just be a temporary structure with a wooden frame and tarp walls and roof covering but I don’t want it to be standing out in the weather in the open when it’s not being used. I’m very excited and can’t wait to get my hands on it. 😀

The other day I watched a video on Youtube about children who grew up in the 1950’s on which I posted a comment which I thought I might share here.

“I was born in 1946. We had a small coal fired boiler in the kitchen on which we used to dry our gloves after snow-balling until the gloves were dry and crackly and then we went out again after our fingers and toes had warmed up enough. We had a fireplace in the dining room and while I was still at primary school because mum and dad were both out at work it was my job to clear out the ashes from the previous evening and set and light the fire after I’d walked home from school.

If it was difficult getting it going I used a copy of the large ‘local’ newspaper to cover the fireplace opening to ‘draw’ the fire with the increased airflow as my dad had shown me how. Sometimes the paper caught fire and I had to put it out… and I was just 8 or 9 years old.

In the school holidays I’d have to pay the Co-Op baker when he knocked. Mum would leave the money near the front door and when I paid the baker he’d give me a little paper slip that showed the amount which mum would take to the Co-Op office to collect our ‘divi’. You had to give your ‘divi number’ when you paid. I still remember ours – it was 16212.

To go to work, my mum went by bike some 7 or 8 miles each way (I’ve just checked it) uphill and downhill and thought nothing of it, or if she did, she never let on because in those days mums never did. My big sister, who’s gone now bless her, used to suffer terribly from chilblains. She taught me to jive at a very early age when rock and roll came out because she was fed up practising just using a door handle.

When she was a bit older she used to go out dancing with a full skirt and lots of petticoats that made it stand out and every time she twirled round she showed her stocking tops. All the girls did and none of them had any problems attracting admiring young men. It’s how things were done in those days.

As well as conkers we used to have amazing marble tournaments at primary school and with honour at stake, nobody would have dreamt of cheating. We also used to have contests with our Dinky cars to see who could make theirs go the farthest across the playground which was smooth newly laid tarmac after the war.

We had a climbing frame in the playground and if you fell off and broke your arm you were whipped off to hospital and held in great esteem afterwards by all the other kids who used to sign and do silly drawings on your plaster cast. No parent would ever have thought of suing the school.

In the holidays we’d go off all day under the leadership of the ‘big boys’ and get back home at teatime with dirty knees and hands, grazes and cuts and bruises from falling down holes and out of trees and be ready to do it all again the next day. We made ‘trolleys’ out of old pram wheels and any bits of wood we could find in our dads’ sheds and go hurtling along with no brakes at breakneck speed steering the front wheels with a length of rope either until it toppled over from turning too quickly or one or more wheels fell off, throwing us on the ground grazing our knees and elbows.

We had cowboys and indians fights and also knights in armour battles, bottom of the road against the top. My dad made me a wooden sword and battle-axe, a shield out of hardboard which he painted white with a red rampant lion and a ‘helmet’ from a strip of old lino held on by elastic at the back with a visor that could be raised and lowered with springy metal studs on each side as the pivots. One day the battle became so feverish an ‘enemy’ from the top of the road whacked my shield so hard his axe came right through my hardboard shield because his dad had made it from plywood. Bad form.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. They were great times, the best of times. Children today don’t know they are alive. I wouldn’t change a thing and remember my old friends from those days from time to time, many of whom are now probably gone. But they’re all still alive in my memories.”

An update for those who have been following the saga of me being scammed on the first Chinese excavator I ordered. I’m delighted to say that I’ve now been refunded in full.

It’s been a huge, time-consuming effort as behind the scenes I’ve been pressurising the Chinese supplier, my bank (Crédit Agricole), the supplier’s bank (JP Morgan in Luxembourg), and the Chinese embassy in London in my efforts to apply pressure from as many directions as possible.

I don’t know whether it’s been as a result of those efforts but I’m pleased to say that both of the sums I paid for the excavator (the initial deposit and the final balance) have now been repaid into my Crédit Agricole bank account.

So that’s good enough for me. I incurred some expenses in arriving at this result but I’m relieved and prepared to write those off to experience and now I can look forward to the second excavator I ordered a couple of weeks ago arriving, early in the new year I think, and getting on with the work I have planned around the house.

I have to say that a considerable weight has now been lifted off my shoulders.

At long last I’ve been able to put together a video of the last full couple of days of my Aus trip during which I explored the Great Ocean Road.

The Great Ocean Road is a highway running beside the Great Southern Ocean for 241 kilometres between Lorne in the east and Warrnambool in the west in Victoria on the southern coast of Australia. It’s one of the greatest ocean drives in the world and a fantastic tourist attraction affording spectacular views of the ocean, its beaches and the forests and cliffs that tumble down to its edge in many places along its route.

But it’s more than that as it was built between 1919 and 1932 as a memorial to their fallen comrades by Australian veterans who returned from the First World War.

The Great Ocean Road has many spectacular sights and attractions that can take many days to explore fully. However, I only had two days at the end of my Australian trip that took in Melbourne and Sidney, not enough time to do it justice but just enough to stop along the way and take in as many of the main ones as I could. My video shows each one that I stopped at, in order, driving from east to west.

I’ve had one or two comments like, ‘Why do you need to buy a machine… why don’t you just pay people to do the job’. Well, the answer is that ‘the job’ is very open-ended. I’ve done a lot of travelling this year (by my standards anyway) and I don’t intend to do any next year, apart from go to my son’s wedding in September.

The WHOLE of next year is therefore earmarked for my garden and I intend to devote all of my efforts to that end while I’ve still got the strength, capacity and motivation to do it. The land my house is built on was originally just open farmland and still looks like it. I don’t want it to stay that way.

I want to make it into a space, front and back, that’s attractive and that I want to be in so there’s a lot of work needing to be done. For a start the plot slopes the whole way down from the road 7 metres from top to bottom. A level area was created on which the house was built but the garden slopes down from the road to the house and then down further to the bottom.

So that needs to be sorted. I don’t yet know exactly how but from the researches I have done I’m going to need to create several levels and terraces and sloping paths and stepped areas joining them so a lot of earth is going to need to be shifted. I’m also going to need to bring in some large rocks etc that I’m going to need to move around to get the final result that I want.

And that’s on top of the other work I have planned, like installing the swimming pool with a retaining wall, putting a French drain in across the front of the house to take away water that pools there, putting in a concrete base for a tool store cum workshop down at the bottom of the garden plus a trench to take electricity down to it, plus extending the concrete base in the front garden for a garage later on. And then there’s the fencing – I’ve also ordered a post auger to come with the excavator.

And that’s just the stuff that comes to mind right now. I’m sure that lots of other tasks will emerge as work progresses and I may be wrong, but by my estimates having my own excavator will make it easier (and cheaper) to get things done as and when I want them and also, just as importantly, by doing the work myself, how I want them done. But only time will tell.

Here I go, for a second time. Yes, I got scammed the first time and I’m still pursuing it, but life goes on. If I don’t order another mini excavator about now I won’t have it for the spring and I then won’t be able to start the work I have lined up around my house and garden.

I’ve got the swimming pool to put in for starters plus lots of other jobs which when you add them all together would mean that having my own excavator will be less expensive than keep hiring one in, which would inevitably mean hiring a man as well at a total cost of over 200€ a day. And at the end I’ll have it to sell, probably at a profit depending on what the final cost will be of importing one and getting it delivered to my home.

This time I’ve covered myself by going for what appears to be a reputable supplier through Alibaba and using Alibaba trade insurance to secure my funds. Once everything’s signed, sealed and delivered I’ll go into the process and costs more fully but for now all I’ll say is that the machine has cost about the same as the one I was scammed on and the Alibaba insurance only $100 more, so well worth it I think.

But this morning I have to decide on the machine’s colour. This supplier offers an excellent range, including light and dark grey, black, green and blue as well as orange and yellow. I was leaning towards the yellow but now I’m not so sure. The orange does look really striking I think.

So, picking up the story once again, after dropping off my hire car I got a lift in the hire car company’s mini-bus back to Melbourne airport from where it was just a short walk to the Ibis Budget hotel. It was after arriving at the hotel that I received the email from Jetstar telling me that their flight to Changi airport, Singapore, the first leg of my flight home, had been cancelled without providing any information on what I should do to resolve the problems this created for me.

I therefore decided to try to contact Jetstar on line and what did I get? A bloody useless AI chatbot which is what these monstrosities always are and the final conclusion that I derived from the interchange was that as my booking had been made by Turkish Airlines (so this is what they mean by ‘a partner airline’) Jetstar would take no further responsibility for the upset they had caused and that I should contact Turkish Airlines instead. However, it didn’t take me long to establish that the Turkish Airlines desk at the airport was closed and would not be opening the next day, Sunday, because they had no flights.

So I tried doing an on line check in for my itinerary the following day and received the notification from the Turkish Airline’s web site that it was not possible at that time and that actually gave me some hope as it seemed to me to indicate that they were aware of the Jetstar problem and were seeking ways to get around it. By then it was already past midnight and as there was little more I could do, I decided to turn in and get some sleep and see how things would pan out later on.

I rewoke at around 4.30 am and immediately fired up my laptop to see if there had been any new developments, and there had been as I found out when I again tried to do an on line check in. To my shock and horror I found that I could – but only from Changi airport in Singapore! OK, fine, but how the heck was I supposed to get there from Melbourne in the absence of the Jetstar flight?

So I then began to search to see if I could find any telephone numbers to ring in order to speak to someone in Turkish Airlines. I found one in Sydney and the main Turkish Airlines 24 hour hotline in Istanbul but these turned out to be of no use to me because, of course, when I tried to ring them neither of the two French SIM cards I had in my phone was allowing me to make calls. My situation was therefore becoming somewhat desperate to say the least and I decided that there was nothing left to do other than to go to the airport and find someone to speak to in person, from Jetstar as I already knew that there would be no one there from Turkish Airlines, it now being Sunday.

Total madness. By now it was just gone 6.00 am so going back to bed was out of the question. I rustled up a breakfast of sorts by pouring some of the Rice Krispies I still had into a glass and adding the last of the milk that the hotel had provided because, as I mentioned previously, I’d left what I’d kept especially for the purpose in the fridge at the motel in Torquay, together with the butter I’d also kept for the crispbreads I still had. I then dumped everything that was left over in the bin in my room, repacked my bags and headed off on foot for the airport at around 6.00 am.

I arrived there shortly before 6.30 am and found out that the Jetstar service desk opened at 7.00. I therefore parked myself next to the desk and was their first customer when they opened for business. I explained my predicament to a very helpful young lady and gentleman who listened intently and told me to sit back down again while they sorted things out, so no dramas.

After about 15 minutes or so the young man came over to me with a new boarding card and check ins for the whole of my return journey to Bordeaux, in the name of Qantas. Jetstar is the low-cost subsidiary of Qantas and they’d got me onto a Qantas flight to Singapore over an hour before I was previously due to leave on Jetstar. So what a huge relief that was as it meant that I’d be able to make my connections in Changi and Istanbul as per my original plans. They’d done an outstanding job and I made sure that I gave them my sincerest thanks before leaving.

Before it all went crazy after I was informed that the first leg of my flight home had been cancelled, I’d had quite an enjoyable final day in Australia. I had plenty of time to return my hire car after leaving the wonderful Bellbrae Motel that I’d stayed in at Torquay so I thought that I’d give Corio Bay another look. I’d stayed over there several days previously in the glorified dosshouse known as the Corio Bay Motel. Corio Bay is actually part of the fine city of Geelong and I knew that that awful motel was far from representative of the city itself.

Waze took me in via the northern end of the bay where the wharves are for the ferries to and from Tasmania, not the most attractive part of the city, but I was not to be disappointed. The road took me around to the northern end of The Esplanade where I parked up for a while to enjoy the full view of the bay, in which one of the ferries was moored offshore. The weather was rather dull but as time went on it brightened up and turned into bright sunshine.

As lunchtime approached I thought I’d drive towards the southern end of the bay to see if I could find somewhere to eat and everything changed. It was Saturday and everyone was out enjoying themselves and doing the same as me and it soon became obvious that parking was at a premium. I missed one plum spot right on the front which then went to the person behind me but I was fortunate to find a spot one road back, above a beautiful trim and well-kept area with large palm trees called Transvaal Square.

I left my car and walked down the grassy slope to the road running along the front. I thought that in view of how busy it was, I’d better forgo a walk along the front and back and look straight away for somewhere to eat.

I immediately spotted the Royal Geelong Yacht Club on the opposite side of the road which was advertising its cafe, so thought I’d give it a go.

The Yacht Club was on a short roadway heading down to the quayside and due to the fall of the road, the entrance onto its decked outdoor eating area was a few steps up.

By this time the weather was very pleasant and after going inside and ordering a Garden Salad with prawns and a drink and being given a tag with a table number I went back outside to choose a table and wait for my meal to arrive. And what a pleasure it turned out to be, just the ticket for my last full day in Australia, sitting there under a parasol in the sunshine and watching the world go by.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and was fortunate to be able to savour the moment with no knowledge of the mayhem that would later erupt due to my cancelled flight. That was to come later after a drive of a couple of hours or so to return my hire car, I’d found my way to the Ibis Budget Hotel at Melbourne airport and tried to check in on line for my flight home the following day.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I still had a few Rice Krispies, some butter and some milk left after last night which I thought I’d be able to use for breakfast tomorrow in the Ibis Budget Hotel, Melbourne Airport, where I’m writing this from. However, I managed to depart from Torquay this morning and left the butter and milk there in the fridge and it’s now difficult to buy more.

I arrived at the car hire depot early this afternoon having arranged a 5.30 pm check in so plenty of time. However, the booking-in clerk noticed a small dent on the rear driver’s side door which I hadn’t previously spotted.

Luckily I’d taken loads of photos all round the car when I picked it up but it was impossible to see the mark outside in the bright sunlight. Fortunately I suggested looking at the photo again inside and then you could just make the mark out. The booking-in clerk agreed and to make sure I went and confirmed with the manager that there would be no charge.

But that was (is) the least of my worries. I’m booked right through with Turkish Airlines from Melbourne to Bordeaux via Changi and Istanbul, leaving tomorrow, the first leg being with the Australian budget airline, Jetstar. On arriving at Melbourne there was an email from Jetstar saying that their flight tomorrow is cancelled.

I’ve now got to contact them on line to find out what’s going to happen. They’ve offered hotel and living expenses but at the moment I have no idea when I’ll be leaving Australia 😕

Earlier on I booked into the best hotel I’ve stayed in during the whole of my visit to Australia. Without exception. It’s not a hotel actually, it’s a motel in Torquay and Basil Fawlty doesn’t come anywhere near it. It’s called the Bellbrae Motel, is not run by a large chain as far as I can tell but is privately owned and is beautifully appointed in a lovely position surrounded by gorgeous grounds.

Torquay is at the eastern end of the Great Ocean Road just to the east of Lorne which is officially recognised as the first town on the Great Ocean Road. It’s about 100 km west of Melbourne, about 1 1/2 hours, so I’ll have an easy final drive back to the car hire depot at Melbourne Tullamarine airport tomorrow. Maybe too easy. I think I’ll have to kill some time.

Here are some shots of the motel and my room which has everything I need – a fridge, a kettle, a microwave, crockery and cutlery all spotlessly clean and washing up stuff, just the way I like it. It’s also got a Philips Barista coffee machine which shows the level of quality we’re talking about. Plus it’s got full toiletries including a face flannel, which is always nice.

The hotel I stayed at last night was rubbish in comparison. The proprietors seemed proud of the fact that their accommodation offered no refinements, such as a kettle and tea and coffee making facilities, let alone a microwave. They said clearly in their guest notes that if you want such things you have to purchase them at the bar during opening times or at a local cafe in the area. This meant, of course, that I had to make do with my last two Marie biscuits and some of the milk I’d brought with me for breakfast before departing as the bar wasn’t open at that hour.

The room didn’t even have a chair and table let alone an en-suite bathroom and shower. The communal men’s toilets and showers were at one end of the corridor and the ladies’ at the other. There was a small hand basin in the corner of my room but some idiot had mounted the mirror above it so high I couldn’t use it for shaving this morning. And I bet I know what happens if anyone wakes for a pee during the night…

My original thinking was to take the faster direct inland route from Warrnambool to Torquay but on reflection that would get me to Torquay too early, so having missed several of the sights on the Great Ocean Road yesterday I decided that instead I’d retrace my steps in the opposite direction stopping at those I’d missed.

And I’m glad that I did because some of the ones I’d neglected (like The Grotto) turned out to be very special. I was going to do a full posting about the Great Ocean Road once I’d arrived at Torquay but I’ve decided against it. The amount of video material I’ve got is huge and it deserves to be carefully edited and sorted so I think that it’ll have to wait until I get home.

I was thinking about posting some ‘tasters’ but I’m not even going to do that because picking images at random from the huge number I’ve accumulated just wouldn’t do justice to the incredible experience that driving the Great Ocean Road, one of the best ocean drives in the world, turned out to be.

And guess what. Today I saw my first, and probably only, koala! I stopped later to see if I could find another but wasn’t lucky enough to do so, but instead I had the good fortune to be able to video a small echidna, an Australian hedgehog, with a very long nose snuffling around on the forest floor, so that was a good consolation prize.

When I arrived at the motel it was dull and gently raining. It stopped later on so I went outside again to take some exterior shots to replace the ones I’d taken earlier and there in front of me was a beautiful double rainbow which I took a photo of from inside my room. I hope that it bodes well for my upcoming trip home.

I’m typing this in the Cally Hotel in Warrnambool which is at the top of the western end of the Great Ocean Road and as far as I intend to drive before beginning to head back south towards Melbourne. This is not where I intended to be staying. I’d originally booked in at the Turn-In motel which was a complete shambles and I didn’t even get past its reception.

It’s a weird place. There’s nobody actually in reception and when you announce your presence an Indian lady wearing a headset appears on a large TV screen and starts talking to you. Her accent is very hard to understand but the idea was that when you tell her your name she checks on a computer somewhere and is then supposed to print out your booking details on a printer over to one side.

However, the printer was jammed and when I pointed this out a large, uncouth male person popped his head out from behind the screen and came round to try to correct the problem saying the printer was not 100%. He was obviously as thick as mince and had no idea what to do and when I pointed out that actually the printer was 0% he took offence, accused me of being rude and arrogant and refused me admission to his motel. If I hadn’t already paid it would have been laughable.

He told the Indian lady to credit me but she said she couldn’t and I’d have to cancel my booking on Agoda and claim a refund, which I did in their car park where I also hastily booked this hotel. But I was a bit too hasty as it doesn’t meet my requirements at all, although now it’s too late. It’s a hotel, not a motel and although it’s clean and modern it doesn’t have the facilities I need.

I’ve just eaten a massive mixed grill in the restaurant when I’d brought food for this evening. The room has a nice bed and a fridge (what for?) but doesn’t even have a table and chair. It has a small hand basin in the corner but there’s no en-suite bathroom and the toilets and shower are at the other end of the corridor. Next time I’ll look much more closely at what I’m letting myself in for when booking my overnight stays.

The day itself was a great success. I left the appalling Colio Bay motel in Geelong this morning and headed for Lorne at the southern end of the Great Ocean Road. I then wanted to drive its whole length to Warrnambool but my Waze satnav wanted to keep taking me off it and onto the fast direct inland root without offering me any other option, so it was back to following signposts.

In fact I managed to do the whole drive exactly a I’d wanted to and took in every sight that I wanted to see, many of which were absolutely spectacular and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I’d planned to do the Great Ocean Road over two days but as today has more or less completed my bucket list of things I wanted to do during my stay here in Australia I’ve got just two more ’empty’ days to go.

This may be a good thing because I’m now pretty tired. I intend to have an easy drive tomorrow to what I think will be a lovely motel in Torquay at the other end of the Great Ocean Road but this time on the direct inland route, stopping for breaks along the way. Then I’ll have a last easy drive the following day back to Melbourne to return my hire car.

As I’m having to type this in the hotel bar in far from ideal conditions I’m going to put off my full Great Ocean Road post until I get to Torquay, but to finish off, here are a few photos to be going on with.

I rolled into the Corio Bay Motel in Geelong after a drive of just over 5 3/4 hours from Wagga Wagga. However, that included two stops for a break and refreshments and a sandwich for lunch. The drive was very pleasant with bright blue skies, little wind and very little traffic. I was on the Hume Freeway and Highway connecting Sydney and Melbourne I think the whole way. The roads were excellent as they have been almost everywhere I’ve driven during my stay here, with an excellent surface, rolling green landscape on each side flanked by trees and the occasional glimpse of low mountains off to the left.

Sadly, I passed lots of dead kangaroos and other wildlife on the way south but although there were many signs showing to watch out for koalas in the road, I still haven’t seen any, dead or alive. I’m beginning to suspect that koalas are an endangered species and the only ones here in Australia are all in zoos.

With a name like ‘Corio Bay’ you might expect the motel to be on the ocean’s edge, like Lakeside where I stayed in Mallacoota, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s situated on a very busy junction as you enter Geelong and as I type this the traffic is constantly stopping at and then roaring away from the traffic lights outside my room.

My first impressions of the motel were bad and my second and third even worse. I thought that the first room I was put in at the Ibis Budget Hotel in Sydney was awful but this place beats it by a country mile.

It’s claimed to be 3* on Agoda but that’s totally false as in reality it’s a tip. My room smells and not in a nice way. It’s filthy and much of the wooden ‘furniture’ in it is damaged or broken. I wouldn’t dare touch the telephone for fear of picking up an incurable communicable disease and after walking around on the carpet I’ll have to wipe my feet before getting back into my hire car.

I’m washing everything, like the cup and spoon I’ve used to make my first cup of tea and I’ve noticed things on the floor against the wall under the shelf I’ve got my laptop on that I’m in no way going to get close to to find out what they are. Seriously, if this place was in the UK it would have been closed down long ago by the Public Health Inspector.

The room offers some special features as shown in the following pictures. Note the hole on the seat of the chair, the light fitting with no lamp cover in what’s laughingly referred to as the bathroom and the smoke detector hanging off the ceiling above the television

When I climbed the metal staircase up to my room I noticed another ‘guest’ standing outside smoking on the other landing. He looked like a homeless person who’d come in off the street for a shower and it had me thinking who the main clients of this place are. To be honest, if I hadn’t prepaid I’d have left as soon as I saw the room but as I’m only staying for one night I’ll grin and bear it as this trip was supposed to be a bit of an adventure. However, this is a bit beyond even my limits and I just hope that I don’t leave here tomorrow with a dreadful disease.

I rolled into the Junction Motel on the road out of Wagga Wagga to the west, so in the direction I think I’ll be heading tomorrow morning, just after 2.00 pm after a drive of just over 5 1/2 hours from Sydney. I stopped once for a break after 2 1/2 hours in which I took a nap of about 20 minutes as I slept so badly last night, then for a a pee and finally to buy fuel when entering Wagga Wagga.

It was dull and cool the whole way with a strong wind and I’m wondering if the wind ever drops in this corner of Australia. The roads were modern highways in excellent shape and the landscape for most of the way after leaving the urban environment of Sydney behind comprised vast open rolling tracts, some with livestock (both cattle and sheep) and mostly kept very trim and in good order.

I’ve passed by a few wineries but the Canberra wine country was sign-posted off to the left and I’ve seen no vast vineyards such as you’d see in France, for example. The terrain hasn’t been completely flat but the hills on either side of the highways have been more like humps although some have had very steep sides.

I sussed out the fuel situation after my first fill-up. My hired MG5 has phenomenal fuel consumption and with a full tank shows a range of over 960 kms. This means that I can fill up as and when I want to as none of the legs I’m driving comes anywhere near that, so I can take advantage of wherever fuel is the cheapest. I didn’t know that and on my way north from Melbourne, not knowing how frequent petrol stations would be, I made my first purchase at the rate of Au$1.895 per litre.

I didn’t know at the time that this is the highest price out there for the grade I need. The car has to be filled with L91 gasoline and when I topped the tank up in a Mobil garage on entering Wagga Wagga I paid Au$1.695 as I have done previously elsewhere, but not in the cities. By way of comparison, this equates to 1€ per litre. In France I pay around 1.63€ for diesel and 95 gasoline comes out at around 1.69€. Here the prices are reversed – diesel is considerably more expensive than gasoline – and that explains why you see considerably more 5.0 and 5.8 litre Ford Mustangs in Australia than you do in France!

Wagga Wagga is bigger than I thought it would be. It even has its own regional airport, so I suppose it’s a bit like Bergerac. The motel I’ve stopped at is quite old-fashioned, I’d say 1980s, but it’s clean and the bed seems comfortable. It has a kitchenette area so what more could you want for a stay of just 1 night?

I’ve brought with me the last of my Rice Krispies and a couple of English muffins left over from the pack I bought in Jervis Bay. They’ve been kept in the fridge except while travelling so they should be OK for breakfast tomorrow, but I’ll need to find something else along the way for the day after. I bought two large pot noodles for evening meals tonight and tomorrow, I’m also well covered for milk and tea and still have an apple from Jervis Bay, so what more could I possibly want?

I’ll be departing tomorrow morning for Geelong, another 500km, 5 hour drive. Geelong is on the Tasman Sea to the west of Melbourne so then I’ll be right back down south from where I started. I just hope that tomorrow my neck will be less painful than it was today.

I was tossing up yesterday whether I’d finish my visit to Sydney by going to either Manly on the ferry to the north or Bondi Beach to the south because I didn’t think that I could do both. However, when I checked Waze I found that Bondi is only a relatively short drive from my hotel so I decided to take an Uber this morning to Wharf 3 of the Circular Quay next to the Opera House from where the ferry departs for Manly, make a brief visit there and return in time to drive down to Bondi in the afternoon.

Everything went pretty smoothly and as usual I shot plenty of video from which I lift my still shots. However, on this occasion I’m going to be pretty sparing with my posting and let the images speak for themselves. The reason is that because almost all the hotels I’ve stayed in only provide low tables and where I’ve been bending my head working my laptop so much I’ve got the same very painful neck again that I suffered from just before I left home to come to Australia.

The contrast between Manly and Bondi was very stark. Manly was genteel, clean and very much organised as a family resort. Bondi, on the other hand, was none of those things. I don’t know what I expected of Bondi, maybe I was over-expecting as it’s an iconic location with an international reputation. After the impressive initial view I had after parking the car of the sweeping beach framed by trees I was somewhat disappointed with what I found when I got closer.

It wasn’t a help that the wind was blowing a hooley and then some and even increased in velocity while I was there. As one of my photographs shows, even the Bondi seagull squadron was grounded on the beach all with their beaks facing into the wind and the wind was blowing the sand with such force that it was stinging my legs.

I’m glad I visited Bondi but I don’t have the urge to go back. In contrast the ferry ride to Manly and the views afforded there and back of Sydney, the bay, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge alone made the trip worthwhile without the pleasant impression left by the place itself.

So that’s it for me for Sydney. Tomorrow morning I leave for a something over 5 hour drive to Wagga Wagga on my way back south.

After losing the morning waiting for a change of hotel room (which I eventually got) I decided that I needed to make the most of the time that remained today, so ordered an Uber to take me into the city. The hotel told me that it would cost around Au$50, but it didn’t, just less than Au$30, which I thought was quite reasonable (the return journey also cost about the same).

I got the driver to drop me off at Darling Harbour Wharf 9 which seemed like a good place to start but by the time I’d walked around the corner it had begun to rain, which it did on and off during the rest of the day. While I was sheltering until the worst of the shower had passed I got talking to a very nice American couple from Boston who were leaving to return home tomorrow after being in Australia for 6 weeks, so quite a long vacation.

As soon as the rain eased off I started to walk north along the east side of Darling Harbour heading for Millers Point, The Rocks and ultimately the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District) has some stunning modern buildings, just as Melbourne’s has, overlooking the harbour.

At one point I stopped to ask a guy in a white shirt who I thought was a waiter from one of the restaurants on the quayside if I could get to the bridge in the direction I was going. It turned out he was also a visitor, an Aussie, and he said that the last time he was in Sydney none of the new buildings were there. When I asked how far it was to the bridge and if I could walk it, he said, ‘Too far for me mate, I’d get an Uber’.

But I kept going. The next shot shows the view looking back towards the CBD from Barangaroo Reserve. The stunning all-glass building pointing skyward is The Crown and it has a huge gold crown on its side almost at its top.

Eventually I came to Millers Point and was rewarded with my first view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The following shot wasn’t actually the first view but was the first photogenic one.

As I continued on my way to The Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney around the foot of the Harbour Bridge, it began to rain again so as it was about lunchtime, I decided to pop into a small restaurant for a steak salad. The restaurant is on one of the old quays that were originally constructed for international shipping and I guess many of the early immigrants into Australia entered through here. However, they’re no longer required for such a purpose and much the same as in London, they’ve been gentrified with modern new apartments being built on them.

I climbed up some stairs and crossed over one of the bridges mentioned in the above photo and saw my first view of The Rocks. I would imagine the houses were once occupied by the dock workers but they have long gone and been replaced by a much more gentrified type of homeowner.

Much as I would have liked to spend more time exploring The Rocks I couldn’t so just kept taking shots as I continued walking to get up to the Harbour Bridge. I did pass one place of special interest, though, namely the Hero of Waterloo pub. I didn’t have time to stop for a drink and anyway I’d only just had lunch, but I did pop in for a quick pee and also took a photograph of the inside where a small jazz combo was playing.

I then continued on up to the road that runs under the bridge itself.

I then turned a corner and walked parallel to the bridge until I came to an elevator opposite the Glenmore Hotel that took me up to the bridge walkway.

Once on the walkway I headed north until I got my first view of the Sydney Opera House. Like the bridge, the following shot wasn’t the first but it was the first photogenic one.

I don’t know if the walkway on the west side of the bridge was open or not, but if so most of the foot traffic was on the east side because that’s the side with the view of the Opera House. The next shot shows the south-side bridge towers.

The next shot shows the Opera House on the south side and Milsons Point on the north. Between the bridge and the Opera House is Circular Quay where the visiting cruise liners tie up

The next shot was approaching the centre of the bridge.

Finally, here’s the last shot I took looking back towards the Opera House from Milsons Point.

And the next shots are of Milsons Point itself.

The next shot was walking off the bridge at the Milsons Point end and shortly after I reached another elevator which took me back down to ground level.

Having completed the long walk north from Darling Harbour over the bridge I decided I’d take the easy way back to the city and go by train. Much as in London, frequent users purchase an Opal card but occasional users like me just swipe their credit or debit cards. You swipe on and off and the system calculates your fare and debits your card.

A friendly guy who was observing passengers going through the barriers told me that if I wanted to walk south through the CBD one stop would be enough and anyway, if I then wanted to continue again on public transport, I could use the trams that operate on the same principle.

I don’t know the name of the station where I caught the train but I got off at Wynyard Station’s York Street side.

I walked out of the station and sat down in some small gardens opposite to get my bearings and there was one of those pesky Ibises as bold as brass!

I decided to make my way to George Street as by walking south along it I’d be able to see all that I wanted to – the Queen Victoria Building, the Sydney Tower and Sydney’s old Town Hall. Some (most?) of the trams on George Street are incredibly long and swish through the crowds at quite a high speed.

Here’s the Sydney Tower.

Here’s the Queen Victoria Building

And finally, here’s the old Sydney Town Hall.

I picked up an Uber opposite the Town Hall outside Woolworths to return to my hotel. I’ve now seen enough of central Sydney as I just want to see (some of) the sights and get a flavour of where I’m visiting. Call me a philistine if you like but I’m not one for trawling around galleries, museums and the like. I’ve now got to decide what to do tomorrow, my final day in Sydney. I’ve got two options – visit Bondi Beach or take the ferry to Manly which has been recommended to me. I don’t think I can do both as they are in opposite directions and I’m leaning towards Manly.

This stay in the Ibis Budget Hotel in St Peters, Sydney, is turning out to be my most horrific hotel experience ever. After this trip I’ll never cross the threshold of another Ibis Hotel ever again in what remains of my sad, tortured life.

I’m now wasting half a day when I could be exploring Sydney waiting to be moved into another room that is at least barely habitable because the one I slept in last night, apart from having a comfortable bed, was not. I appreciate that disabled people need special facilities but those same facilities are a gross inconvenience for able-bodied people – toilet wise, showering and washing and shaving wise, etc.

My room is at ground level with a window with no blind or curtains that looks straight out onto a KFC outlet, so people entering it and the hotel walk right past and can see straight into my room. It appears that the Accor chain also expect you to pay in advance and eat breakfast in a pig stye with minimal facilities – the ‘buffet’ is like a bookshelf with one toaster, frozen bread straight out of the freezer and a few stale croissants. No teaspoons – little wooden paddles are good enough for their guests. And nowhere close by to drop your waste and used teabags – you are expected to walk across the room balancing your old teabag on your wooden paddle. Absolutely bloody awful.

I’ve been filling in the time making plans for my final few days in Australia. I was originally thinking about returning south via the Snowy Mountains but (a) it’s still bloody cold up there and (b) there are strict rules about carrying and using snow chains if you happen to pass above the snow line. So I’ve abandoned that idea – maybe in my next lifetime if I return to Australia.

So here’s my itinerary.

October 28 – Sydney to Wagga Wagga staying one night there.
October 29 – Wagga Wagga to Geelong, staying one night there.
October 30 – Geelong to Warrnambool, staying overnight there.
October 31 – Warrnambool to Torquay, staying overnight there… (bit pricey!)

After Torquay I’ll take a leisurely drive back to Melbourne airport to drop off my hire car on November 1, stay overnight in the Ibis Budget Airport Hotel (Yes, I know!! But I booked it a long time ago before I knew what they are like, but at least it’ll be for only one night) and then fly out on 2 November heading back via Changi, Singapore.

Warrnambool is as far north on the Great Ocean Road as I want to go and will involve driving north on part of it. That’ll give me a chance to identify places I’ll want to stop at on my way back down to Torquay.

But that’s all to come. For now I’m still wasting time waiting for my room change! The highlight so far is watching large Ibises with long black beaks strolling around in the carpark outside the KFC outside my window. Ibises, you know, the majestic birds of ancient Egypt. Trouble is, nobody told the Australian variants that because there’s also a group of them picking over the rubbish in the KFC dumpster!

After leaving Jervis Bay and driving the relatively short distance north to Sydney I now have the misfortune to be ensconced in room 102 of the Ibis Budget Hotel in St Peters. And to say it’s the pits is doing it a gross over-service.

I didn’t take any photos or videos during the journey north because after the first few miles it was all just on a motorway that could have been anywhere in the world. Before leaving the comfort of my motel room in Culburra Beach I made an angled mount for my phone out of a Rice Bubbles box (we call them Rice Krispies in Britain and France) which made it far more secure and readable and Waze brought me straight to this ghastly hotel.

And that’s when my problems began. When I tried to check in the reception clerk said that the only booking he had for me was for the same dates, 3 nights from the 25th, but for January of next year! This was unfathomable. I’d made the booking direct on the hotel chain’s web site – usually I use Agoda and have never had a problem like this – and I cannot understand how this could have happened. And yes, my booking confirmation email showed the same but I hadn’t noticed as at the time I was making a number of bookings one after the other.

I was then on the phone for what, the best part of an hour trying to get the hotel to amend the booking but the same reply kept coming back. ‘Computer says NO’. This is what happens when you are dealing with idiots running a crappy hotel chain. In the end in order not to lose the over Au$300 that I’d already paid, I was effectively blackmailed into paying an additional Au$217 for the three nights I want to stay, so in effect I’m paying a premium hotel rate for what has to be the most awful room that I’ve ever stayed in, in a dirty, rundown budget hotel in a dirty, rundown area.

Just take a look at the pictures.

They said that if I didn’t make up my mind quickly, this was the last room available tonight and I would end up losing that, and sure enough, the sign outside does now show ‘no vacancies’. However it’s pretty clear from the pictures that this is a disabled room and the facilities on offer are dirty and badly knocked about. I’ve asked to be moved to a different room tomorrow for the next two nights and the reception clerk has agreed, but I’ll need to wait until about 11.00 am for the move to happen. This will delay my journey into Sydney but I think it’ll be a small price to pay. To be honest, this is not a great start to my Sydney adventures 🙁

Jervis Bay isn’t a single location. It’s actually a length of coastline spanning quite a distance comprising small inlets, beaches and developments where houses have been built and small townships have grown up. Because of the nature of the terrain and features, such as creeks and impassable rocky landscape, it often needs a drive of 30 or 40 minutes inland and back out again to go between adjacent developments.

When booking I was directed to go to Fishermens Wharf, Huskisson, which is a fairly major holiday and vacation centre on Jervis Bay, to board the whale-watching vessel. As usual Waze took me straight there and although I’d been concerned about parking I was able to just park the car outside one of the houses that go right down to the waterfront. After checking in we were all instructed to line up for boarding, which we all duly did!

Shortly afterwards, after we’d all taken our places on various levels, the boat’s engine was started and we began to head at quite a fast pace out to the opening of the bay and the open sea. I was on the highest level looking towards the stern and seated with a charming couple from Hanover in Germany.

As we proceeded seaward the water became rougher and rougher and the wind stronger and colder, especially when at one time we entered under low cloud rolling out off the land. We hung around out there for what seemed like ages, possibly 40 minutes or more, but it eventually became evident that our whale-watching trip was doomed to failure.

The waves were rolling in with the wind as breakers up to what I estimate was a height of 2 meters or more caused the boat to pitch and roll like a bucking bronco. Quite honestly with the comparatively low height of the rails around the boat, if you weren’t hanging on tightly when some of them hit it would have been quite easy to go overboard. Anyway, the master eventually gave up as it was sadly evident that no whales were going to be sighted under such conditions and he turned the boat around and began to head back to Huskisson.

So I now have a list of two things for which Australia is famous that I’ve failed to see… Koalas and whales. Hopefully the former will be rectified in due course but I may have to accept that I’ll not be seeing any whales during my trip.

On the southern end of the entrance of Jervis Bay there’s an island called Bowen Island. We were some way to the north of it while looking out for whales but on the way back the boat passed closer to it. The videos I’ve taken show the breakers crashing onto its cliffs on the seaward side and throwing up huge plumes of spray but the conditions to its leeward were far calmer and more placid. The master didn’t recommend landing on the island, however, as he said its interior is full of funnel web spiders and other nasties trying to kill you. Australia… I ask you!

We didn’t return direct to Huskisson. Instead we headed westwards towards the land to then turn and cruise north up the coast in order to view the beautiful unspoilt sandy beaches interspersed with rocky outcrops jutting out into the sea. While I was videoing I noticed that when the waves broke over the rocks they emitted a pinkish hue that you can’t see in the still shots I’ve lifted, but I don’t think it was just my eyes!

The master of the whale-watching vessel said that back in 1957 his grandparents bought a house on the development south along the coast from Huskisson shown in the next image. Apparently in those days it was struggling, the developer collapsed and the whole development was sold off for AU$100,000. Nowadays, he said, that sum wouldn’t even buy you a letterbox there.

We passed sandy beaches and coves one after the other as we wended our way back towards Huskisson.

And eventually we picked up our consolation prize for the trip in the form of a small school of Bottle dolphins criss-crossing and arcing their way through the water as they do. They seemed oblivious to the boat and the master turned around to follow them for a short while before turning back to head for Huskisson.

After we’d disembarked I decided to have lunch as it was approaching 1.00 pm. There’s a small cafe on the wharf where the whale-watching boat docks and I settled there for a Buster Burger and chips and a local lager. And by golly, it was a ‘buster’, let me tell you!

I didn’t stay long in Huskisson as I needed to find a supermarket, which seem few and far between in these parts, to buy stuff for breakfast tomorrow, but anyway, here’s a quick shot of the main street.

I found a Coles supermarket in the Vincentia Shopping Village. It’s only a short distance south of Huskisson but it took the best part of 40 minutes to get there for the reason I explained at the beginning of this post. The cafe where I had my lunch was playing all old 70s and 80s music and I noticed that they were doing the same in the Coles supermarket. I don’t know, though, whether this part of Australia is actually stuck in a time warp, but I have to admit that I found it quite pleasant.

Up again bright and early at 5.00 am this morning in Jervis Bay, New South Wales, where I’ve come to watch whales. I was up at about the same time yesterday but only because I got up for a pee a bit earlier and couldn’t get back to sleep again thinking about the 5 hour road trip I had ahead of me. Today I awoke feeling much more rested having gone to bed very tired at 9.00 pm last night.

The drive was long but not too tiring in itself. The speed limit here is only 100 kmh and most drivers keep to it pretty well. The roads I’ve driven on have all been good or very good but many of the side roads in the open country are just dirt tracks. There are lots of Toyota Landcruisers and similar vehicles with snorkel tubes so they can go through deep water, the latter because although it’s dry now, many roads have signs on them saying they’re liable to flooding.

My Chinese built MG 5 hire car has proven to be excellent, trouble-free, fast (enough), quiet and comfortable. If this is the direction in which the Chinese motor industry is going the European manufacturers had better watch out. All that I’m missing is a built-in satnav but I prepared myself for that by buying a roll of duct tape as I was leaving Melbourne.

I use the tape to stick my phone running the Waze satnav app to the car’s dashboard and other than being a bit cock-eyed and difficult to view clearly because of the angle on which the phone is mounted, Waze has performed wonderfully just as it does in France. The biggest problem is that when the sun heats up the tape comes unstuck and if I’m not careful the phone could fall down. But so far, so good.

Some of the views coming north were gorgeous, but the roads besides being only 3-lane with preferential overtaking lanes every few kilometres, have very few areas where you can stop and take pictures. When on the higher ground the views swept off into the far distance with the low green rolling landscape peppered with homesteads each in its own land of several acres. Because land is so plentiful even the more modest country dwellings have plenty of space around them, often with a few cattle or sheep on them.

That’s not true of the houses in the townships, of course, many of which sit on tiny parcels of land and are incredibly scruffy with rubbish all around them and in front onto the road. Rubbish and graffiti seem to be big problems in the parts of Australia I’ve been to so far. Where my cousin lives and also here in Jervis Bay where pleasant ‘summery’ houses line the roads, rubbish sits in heaps in front of them on the roadside, apparently for days, presumably waiting to be collected by the local authority and disposed of. It’s mostly not a pretty sight.

Many of the houses here, it being a resort area, are two storey but where my cousin lives and in the countryside the homes seem to be predominantly low, single storey, many of the older ones with rusty, old-style metal rooves. I’ve been surprised by how small many of the houses are out in the country and I guess they comprise the bare minimum amount of living space for the people living in them. There are many contrasts. One minute you’re driving through scrubby open countryside with the occasional tiny house that looks as though it could fall to bits at any minute the next you’re passing an estate with a kilometer long access road, a luxurious homestead and fenced paddocks and horses.

I took only one shot of the countryside as I was driving here, when I’d stopped half-way for a snack and a cold drink. The view shown below was far from the best I had en-route.

I arrived at the motel I’d booked in Jervis Bay at around 3.00 pm. The weather wasn’t very nice and it was quite cool actually. This time there was a friendly, on-site reception office and shortly after arriving I received the key to my apartment, which although smaller than the one in Mallacoota and less well equipped without a cooker and washing machine (which I didn’t need anyway), is much brighter and more modern-looking. I like it.

After I’d got settled in I found my way up to Penguin Point where I took some shots of the bay and the sea. It was cold, windy, overcast and not very inviting and if you ignored the houses on each side overlooking the bay you could imagine what it must have been like all those years ago when those brave men had travelled for many months thousands of miles from home and set foot on these potentially hostile shores for the very first time.

There weren’t many people about – the season hasn’t properly started yet – but I got talking to a very pleasant Australian lady who was there with her husband (I guess) and grown-up son. She knew what she was looking for and to my amazement pointed out the occasional glorious sight of a whale’s tail breaking the surface only about 500 meters off shore and re-entering the water with a large white splash. I saw a few but not as many as she did.

I bumped into her later in the local fish and chip shop where I’d gone for a take-away. Just take a look at what I got for only just over Aus$14.

Amazing… I could hardly eat it all!

I awake this morning (23rd October) in Mallacotta, a small town on the edge of the Tasman Sea in south-east Australia. I left Sale earlier than I expected, for reasons I won’t go into, yesterday morning and had to make some quick decisions the day before about how I will be spending the rest of my time here in Australia.

I’d originally intended to head north to Sydney in a few days time driving the whole way in one day and staying over there for a couple of nights but I decided to bring those plans forward a couple of days and take a more leisurely drive up the coast, which I’ve been told is beautiful, stopping over at a couple of places along the way. So yesterday I made my way to Mallacoota and today I’ll be heading for Jervis Bay where I’ve booked to stay over for a couple of nights and go whale watching tomorrow as this is a peak migration time as they head south.

I found that Sale has little to recommend it. It’s a very rural location and although its population numbers over 13000 it seems to offer a simple, fairly basic lifestyle. I arrived on Saturday and on Sunday we enjoyed a very nice roast lunch at the local country club, but the Chinese meal we had the evening before I departed was in rather less than ‘Chinese’ surroundings and left something to be desired. We don’t know what happened to the special fried rice we ordered but which was still on our bill before I pointed it out.

Sale has a wonderful park bordering a lake. When we went for a stroll on Sunday the weather was gorgeous and there were peacocks displaying their stunning tail feathers and lots of quite large ground-walking birds, black with orange beaks and pink chests. While my cousin dozed on a chair under the trees I went for a stroll down to the lake and one that I videoed evidently took a fancy to me and followed me the whole way back from the lake to where my cousin was resting. When I told her about him there was no sign and then he suddenly popped out again from behind a nearby bush.

I left Sale quite early yesterday morning to take a few videos. By then the weather had changed, which it does quite suddenly in these parts I’m told, so it was dull and grey. As the following two images show, Sale is quite a contrast to Melbourne with its strikingly tall, modern skyscrapers. In complete contrast, Sale has a ‘frontier town’ feel about it.

Heading north through South Gippsland the terrain was quite featureless with some distant mountain views. It was flat with scrubby grass with occasional large herds of predominantly black cattle occupying wide areas to take advantage of the availability of grass when it becomes dryer and things warm up. The following shot shows trees on just one side but frequently they were on both making for a rather uninteresting drive.

Conditions became more ‘tropical’ as the drive north continued. The Snowy mountains were off some way to the left but I didn’t realise that I was climbing almost imperceptibly up to higher ground. I stopped to take a few shots that show how the vegetation had changed even over a relatively short distance.

The road descended again and the land became flatter as I approached Mallacotta. There were herds of cattle on the grasslands which were much greener and lusher compared to those I’d passed farther south.

The GPS on my phone took me straight to my destination that I’d booked the day before without paying too much attention to what I was getting. It turned out to be a ‘unit’ just up from the water on a small development where there are several others. Most of the people in the other units seem to be elderly like myself because of the time of year. Although some have come just for a relaxing break I think the main interest is fishing and already before 8.00 am as I type this two vehicles have departed towing boats.

When I arrived there was no reception committee, as the following picture shows, and as much to my annoyance neither of my French phone SIM cards are allowing me to make calls, I had to jump into my car again and go to a different location (a caravan park) to pick up the key to my ‘unit’.

My ‘unit’ is the one with the yellow panel in the following pic in front of which my hire car is parked.

It’s very nice actually. It’s fully self-contained with a lounge, kitchen area and bedroom. The kitchen area is clean and very well equipped but the only surprise this morning was that when I got up the worktop was run alive with thousands of tiny ants, a bit like camping but indoors. It appears that you’re always very close to the wildlife in Australia and that includes the insects, even indoors.

As I said above, the unit is just up from the water’s edge and it was only a short walk down to take some photographs. The whole area seems more or less to be a large camping area and even at this time of the year there were plenty of campers and caravans of all types.

When I arrived, I joked with the lady in the office that I’d come to Australia under false pretences and hadn’t seen one kangaroo or koala. She said that koalas are rife in the surroundings and said if I went down to the golf club I’d see kangaroos lazing around on the greens. In fact I didn’t have to because my first sighting of kangaroos was a small group munching grass on the local football pitch.

After I left Sale yesterday the whole of South Victoria was ravaged by a violent storm (nothing to do with why I left early). Trees were ripped down, buildings were damaged and thousands of homes lost their electricity. I think it’s why the weather is unsettled further north here in Mallacotta. We caught the tail end last night with some quite strong winds which have moderated, although it’s still not warm. When I’ve finished this I’ll be packing my things and heading off for Jervis Bay where I hope conditions will be better.

My first proper Aussie breakfast

Melbourne!

After planning my trip (and paying for most of it) many months ago, I’ve at last arrived in South Australia. I’m here to visit my cousin who is the same age as me who I’ve not seen since we were small children over 70 years ago. Our families were both going to emigrate in the 1950s but on the brink of our departure my dad secured a new job and while she and her family departed the shores of Britain, we stayed behind.

She returned once to visit old family members and friends but I and my family were away on holiday at the time and missed her. Over the years we lost touch but out of the blue the best part of a year ago I felt the urge to contact her and through determination and good fortune managed to do so within 48 hours. After I had done so, as we are both of an age when time is slowly running out, I decided that I would take what may be the last opportunity to travel to Australia to see her.

So here I am. The long haul flight consisted of three legs, the second of which was for over 16 hours from Istanbul to Singapore and was excruciating. The Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 in which we flew was obviously approaching the end of its life and the seat I was in would not recline. Therefore I had to sit bolt upright for the whole flight and while others slept I was unable to do so and had the video screen on the back of the fully reclined seat in front of me just inches from my face.

My journey began at Bordeaux airport and as I was flying Turkish Airlines I took the same 4 or so hour fight to Istanbul that I have taken several times over the past few months, starting in the depressingly naff Bordeaux Merignac departure area.

But this time, instead of proceeding to Arrivals at Istanbul’s superb new airport I headed for International Transfers.

My next stop after the awful flight leg that I described above and a layover of 2 or 3 hours, was Changi airport in Singapore. Changi has been voted the best airport in the world and possesses some spectacular features and I’d hoped to see some of them, but it was not to be. Turkish Airlines had only provided me with boarding passes for the first two legs of my flight and had instructed me to pick up the pass for the final leg at Changi without telling me who the airline was. So not only did I have to discover this information, I also had to make my way through International Transfers to the correct area of the airport.

There was a queue of passengers doing the same as me and for some reason my pass took much longer than those for others to arrive. In fact mine was the last taking the best part of an hour (because of my Australian visa for a reason I could not understand) and I therefore saw none of the features and attractions for which Changi is famous. Instead I ended up with only an hour or so to wait in another somewhat dingy departure area.

The flight was yet another overnighter but this time in an almost brand new Boeing 787-8 of Jetstar, the low-cost Qantas subsidiary. So no problems there then, and at least this time I was able to recline my seat and doze for an hour or so of the 6 hour leg. I was also served with yet another evening meal, making that one on each of the three legs, so by the time I arrived in Australia I was somewhat over-fed and feeling rather bloated.

We landed at Melbourne Airport half an hour before the scheduled time but unfortunately we lost all of that as we parked away from the terminal and it took 30 minutes to get stairs to the aircraft. Australian immigration formalities have a reputation for being somewhat strict but I did not find them so except that our flight had not handed out the forms that you need to fill out declaring that you are not bringing in anything illegal and telling where you’ll be staying and what you’ll be doing during your stay. So after waiting in an enormous queue to go through automatic e-Passport Control and another to clear Immigration, I was sent to yet another to fill out said form.

With all that done, I then found my way to the SkyBus stop to travel to the city as I’d previously planned, arriving at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station on a fine spring morning as the city was waking up and going to work.

I’d downloaded maps of the city before leaving France so knew how to find my way to my hotel which was less than half an hour’s walk away (less if I hadn’t been shooting videos on the way). My hotel is in Little Bourke Street, close to Chinatown, and was exactly as I’d expected it to be, as I’d viewed it on Google Earth.

It’s unprepossessing, not luxurious and the usual sort of place I like to stay in, without airs and graces. My room is clean but somewhat spartan and described as a ‘studio’ as it has a small kitchen with a fridge, hot-plate, kettle, toaster, a small selection of pots and pans and crockery and cutlery for two people. I’ve said previously that for three nights a hole in the ground would do me so long as it has a bed to sleep in, a shower to shower in and a toilet to… you get the picture, and this is much more than that.

I did little more than crash out for much of yesterday on arrival after the excruciating long haul flight that I’d endured to get here. However, as usual, after marking up my map with places I wanted to visit, I spent the morning wandering around the city and shooting videos on my GoPro. I only made one mistake and had to retrace my steps but by the time I got back to the hotel shortly after 2.00 pm I was feeling the strain. I’ve evidently lost some of my fitness through lack of exercise since the last time I was in Istanbul when the walking hadn’t taken as much out of me.

I’ve also made the mistake of not bringing some really comfortable shoes with me, something I may have to rectify while I’m here, so it was a relief to hobble just round the corner to one of the many small restaurants close to my hotel (the main reason why I chose it) to enjoy a superb lunch of spicy pork belly. Here’s a picture of it, but I don’t think you will enjoy it as much as I did though 😉

I’ve at last managed to put together the videos for my last flights up to La Rochelle and back. It’s been a bit challenging because the paid-for video editor that I’ve been using for several years, Corel VideoStudio Ultimate, which has been ‘upgraded’ several times without ever changing much, let me down and just refused to open. I found that an older version that I’ve kept on my computer did the same, so I think it’s something to do with an incompatibility with a recent Windows 11 update, but when I contacted Corel support the best they could suggest was that I embarked on a lengthy investigative process with them to track down the problem.

I thought this was pretty pathetic as it’s clearly a problem with their software as I’ve changed nothing at my end except allow Windows to update, so I declined anyway as in the meantime I don’t have the time. Instead I spent my time better by becoming familiar with an alternative editor, DaVinci Resolve. Don’t be put off by the name. It comes in two version, free and paid-for. I’m using the former and I’ve got into the basics in a few hours. I’ve found it better in most respects than Corel VideoStudio which has now let me down once too often so I’m aiming to stick with DaVinci in the future. I think that the Corel software is based on old architecture and is at about the end of its life. DaVinci, however, performs better in all sorts of ways and its developers keep coming out regularly with new updates.

Anyway, perhaps more of the technical stuff later. For now, here are the two latest videos. The only thing I’d like to improve is titling which I haven’t delved into yet in DaVinci but will be doing in the future.

Despite my total lack of welding expertise (and experience) my cheap Chinese welding machine came into its own again today. I was determined to cut my grass today before the rain that’s forecast for the week-end. However, my plans were thwarted. I hit what I thought were a couple of bumps on the ground but should have checked before reversing and carrying on with my cutting because the problem was much more serious.

It turned out that, as they often do, one of the securing pins for one of the forward facing rods that support the cutter bed had fallen out and the rod had then dropped out and driven itself into the ground. This happened a couple of times and because I hadn’t noticed what had happened the lug securing the rod to the cutter bed got bent and was eventually torn off.

The bed itself wasn’t badly damaged – there was just a small split where the lug had originally been welded to it – so after banging the lug as straight as I could (not easy as it’s made from thick metal and I don’t have a suitable hard surface to use as an anvil) I thought I’d get my welding machine out and see if I could weld it back on again myself.

And much to my own surprise, I managed to do it! And without taking the cutter bed off. The hardest part was getting it held in position before I could get a couple of tacks on it but after much sweat, tears and bad language I succeeded. Now OK, the results aren’t pretty but this ain’t no beauty contest. All I need is to get my mower back in working order so I can finish the job and continue using it in the future.

Here are a couple of shots of the results it doesn’t look too bad from the front but welding the back lying on my back looking upwards with a welding mask on wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.

Incidentally, when I was wire brushing the metal before welding I noticed that there was already some rust inside the old welded joint, so it was either like that from the factory or had been failing for some time. But anyway, that’s now twice my welding machine has got me out of trouble with repairs to my mower, so it has to have much more than paid for itself. I reckon at the price it was a pretty good investment.

A weather window finally materialised yesterday for me to fly up to la Rochelle in the Charente to have my transponder refitted in my Savannah and have its avionics signed off for another 5 years. And the weather window was not just suitable. Compared to other recent flights the weather was fantastic in both directions making for a safe, comfortable and above all, enjoyable flight.

As the winds were light, the flight took under two hours in each direction and having taken off just after 9.00 am, even though the skies were more or less cloudless on the way up with bright sunshine, there was no time for thermals to build up and the flight conditions were ideal. Initially I was more concerned about the screen misting up before I could take off but after cleaning it twice beforehand I got away without incident.

Mist was still hanging over the ground after take off and in the early stages of the flight north and as I flew abeam Perigueux Bassillac airport I could see that it was in a small valley and still totally obscured by mist, so no chance for any VFR only pilots who might have wanted to take off from there.

Even so the mist was beginning to dissipate by the time I passed abeam Perigueux itself and Leroy Merlin and the Auchan supermarket were both bathed in sunlight as I flew by.

I took quite a few photos as I flew north and here’s a lovely view with la Rochelle just visible in the very far distance.

The next large town was Rochefort.

After Rochefort, the next shot is approaching la Rochelle reporting point SA (Sierra Alpha) close to the coast. As I did not have a transponder I was cleared to SA and had to report when overhead.

I was offered a non-standard right-hand approach to runway 09 following the coastline as the airport was officially closed but I opted to fly the published VFR approach to 09 via a left-hand circuit to the north of the airport just for future experience. The next shot is on base leg to land, to report final.

Now some general shots of la Rochelle airport taken outside the STAR hangar where my Savannah’s avionics were being dealt with. I couldn’t wander too far without authorisation.

The flight back south to Malbec was a bit more trying than the flight up due to the warm sun inducing thermal activity, but nothing like when I flew back in July, which was brutal. To start off with I stayed fairly low but as I could go up to 6500 feet if I wanted to I eventually climbed to 3300 feet where it became calm is this was the level of the cloud base and therefore the height at which the hot air stopped rising.

I eventually went as high as 4900 feet before descending back to 2500 feet before Perigueux and a landing at Malbec.

The landing was quite tricky as will be shown in the video of the flight which I will soon be uploading.

I still need to fly my Savannah back up to la Rochelle for my transponder to be refitted and this week there is a very limited weather window. Tomorrow looks good and possibly also Thursday, but tomorrow is definitely the better of the two.

I have just checked with the la Rochelle tower for permission to fly in without a transponder which should normally be forthcoming but there’s a complication. The runway is closed to all but commercial and essential traffic from the early morning until 3.00 pm local time which would make it impossible for me to get there and back tomorrow while the weather holds.

The tower referred me to the relevant NOTAM and advised me to call the mobile number included in it to see if I can be granted permission, which I have just done. The answer… no worries!

La Rochelle is a fantastic airport to fly into and you can’t beat flying in France for being so cool and laid back!

Here’s another teaser pre my MSFS 2024 flight commemorating the tenth anniversary of the epic real flight that my friend Wim and I did up the west coast of France. The pics show la Bochet, another small private airfield at which we stopped over briefly on day 5 having left Saint Brevin les Pins at the mouth of the Loire for our final destination of the day, Mouchamps in the Vendée.

We were met by Mr Gautier who did a 35 km round trip bringing us sandwiches, which we declined as we hadn’t long eaten, and cold drinks, and then kindly took Wim to fill up our jerricans with fuel. Mr Gautier did not own an aircraft himself but he told us that his friend flew a Mooney into the airfield. It doesn’t look as though he still does because Google Earth now shows that the runway is half the length that it then was and would now be too short for a Mooney to land on.

We took off after a stay-over of about two hours to head for Mouchamps. I only took two photographs at la Bochet so my scenery relies on how I remember it as being but my efforts are a great improvement on Microsoft’s idea of what’s there.