My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #5 – Rome City

Day 4 5/10/25 Rome City Walking Tour. My last full day in Rome. Scott is our guide for the walking tour & we finally found him at the City Wonders Piazza di Spagna, 00187 Roma RM without the blue shirt as prescribed so you always have to keep a look out for your guide. I was starting to get worried due to the last City Wonders debacle I described in my last blog. He was very pleasant & had no pushed time attitude. Scott is an American but has lived here for a decade or more & has a generational connection to Rome & has stayed here since retracing his family history. On my way to the meeting place & steps, I walked the same streets as before & noticed an impressive building with huge stone walls & metal gates. I was previously in a rush but today I noticed it was the National Museum but not sure when I can return for a viewing. Maybe next time visiting Rome. LOL!

Today (my last Rome day), we are going to see the famous Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps & Pantheon Walking Tour, however we will finish the tour at Piazza Navona some klms away but after that we will have plenty of free time to do our own thing. Now that everyone has arrived Scott shows us the Spanish Steps that was right behind us in the Piazza di Spagna all this time. Of course, there are no historical signage to identify this to tourists so I’m not to blame. I saw this structure the day before when heading to my meeting point for the Positano tour plus the central fountain. These steps are called the Spanish Steps however above these steps is a building with a mixture of French & Spanish architecture and with that ongoing conflict the Spanish eventually won. This is quite a meeting place for tourists & locals; however, the police can move you on if you sit on the steps, for it is forbidden.

Scott has us now walking towards the famous Trevi Fountain & I’m really happy we are doing so because the courtyard area is filled to the brim with tourists later in the morning & into the afternoon & it is not a pleasant experience. Sharyn at my cousin’s Wobbly Chook Brewing Company back home said you have to see this amazing, sculptured fountain. So, Sharyn, here I am, & throwing a coin over my left shoulder like many thousands before me. Apparently, the fountain coins are removed weekly & approximately €22,000 is gained. The coin throwing is a legend that it will make you come back to Rome another time.

The Trevi Fountain is something to behold. The details of sculptures, the size of the fountain. It is a full building width & the high volume of water comes from the aqueduct system below the ground. The God in the centre is Neptune. The crowd must keep shuffling along & when access is obtained you must get to the fountain edge asap (no standing at the top steps) or the ‘fountain police’ will blow their whistles in disgust. Definitely, no hands or feet in the water. Criminal offence. With our ongoing movement, we were soon out of the enclosure & Scott starts showing us his hidden Rome with amazing glass roof arcades of luxury shops, polished marble columns & ancient treasures.

Unfortunately, one of the major things I wanted to see was the Marcus Arillus Statue, but this was fully enclosed with scaffolding (photo 2 below) to undertake the necessary refurbishment. Another thing to revisit Rome. Hope you enjoyed the scaffolding photo? The next photo Scott said was Italy’s White House (3rd photo). This is where President Meloni resides & carries out her duties. It was a very unassuming building & one I would have walked straight past. The next building in this very large courtyard was the more impressive Senate Building (4th photo) where laws are made.

The photo of stones, bricks & different shades of mortar are the original footing/ foundations of the Roman era & they remain in perfect condition to this day. There are several of these exposed footings for viewing & again the public would just walk past this history. Throughout roughly 2,000years of history, no-one could replicate this concrete mortar, for the recipe was lost early until modern day technology scrutinised extensively the granules & found the missing ingredient was the grey & white pumice ash from the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. The setting mixture is incredibly strong & can withstand the elements of weather.

Following on from these footings & turning a few corners we come across the incredible Pantheon with its amazingly strong frontage of 16 hand-carved stone columns. Each of these columns weigh 60tons & were hand crafted in Egypt & shipped over (don’t know how they did that). They used up to twelve elephants to erect each column. With this being a Walking Tour there is no admission today to enter The Pantheon but after the tour you can line up with the public & buy the tickets unless you paid for entrance ticket previously online, etc. I saw the interior of The Pantheon on the 1st day of my arrival in Rome, so you would have to go back to my 2nd blog to see the photos & details.

Standing outside you can see the shape of the world’s largest concrete dome of that type above us. The dome is 43.44m (142.5’) in diameter & is the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world & has had the record for over 2,000years (125AD). History does not record who built it, but it started in 27BC & was rebuilt to finish 125AD. The circular walls are 24’ thick & the entrance doors are bronze at 24’ high with an opening of about 14’ wide. The open eye “oculus” of the dome is a whopping 27’ in diameter & hardly any rain falls through it. The floor has a 1’ slope from the centre to accommodate any rain that rarely comes through it. The concrete dome construction was possible due to the Roman Concrete I described earlier. The concrete thickness reduces as it gets closer to the top of the dome to overcome the additional weight.

Behind the Pantheon you can see the curved walls plus looking down over the handrail you can see the original Rome ground floor level (7m below). Walking back, we find ourselves in the Piazza Trevi for more central fountains. Scott has a connected outlet where we are granted a free drink or Gelato, so we are granted 15mins of free time. My gelato was another thing I must do while in Rome, so another box ticked. I kept an eye on Scott where he was waiting but a couple of women were immersed in their gelato & wandered off too far. In these massive crowds they came over & grabbed me (I stood out in my ultra blue trekking coat). They were so relieved when I pointed out Scott in the crowd & they walked straight over. I think they would even hug him if they could. Scott stated it is the busiest he has seen Rome in October.

After our welcomed Gelato treat we head down an alley which then opened up into the Piazza della Minerva where the Basilica of Saint Mary of Minerva, a 13th century Gothic catholic church with a Michelangelo sculpture located within designed by Fra Ristoro de’ Campi & Fra Sisto di Firenze in 1280 however the basilica was not completed until 1725 after several changes. Scott tells us an ancient architect story where Bernini & another architect (name escapes me) competed to gain the commission to construct a magnificent building adjacent to the basilica. This building was being constructed (curved frontages depicts this architect) under the vengeful Bernini however, he won the commission to do the Obelisk out in the front in the Piazza.

Bernini Obelisk

Bernini created an elongated rectangle spear with a tiny headpiece on top that resembled the learning knowledge of man & the weight it therefore carries. This spear was carried by his sculpture of an elephant for it’s the strongest of all living mammals that roamed the Earth that could carry this weight & has the best brain memory. The tale then turns that the elephant’s backside is pointed directly at the new building construction & still remains in place today. A well-known architect’s revenge. LOL!

The last stop was Piazza Navona (2 photos above on the right), but we managed to sidetrack a bit & saw what is known as the Royal Palace which is an opulent building of grandeur. With our last good-byes to everyone, I decided to walk back to the Trevi Fountain, for that is the way back towards my hotel but can see some other sights along the way. Well!!!! The crowd now was insane. I had virtually no way of cutting through .. I just had to shuffle my way along until a crack in the crowd appeared. Heaven helps those trying to view the fountain. Totally insane!

The Royal Palace

I must get up extra early the next day to catch the airport train to fly to Munich & then a train to Munich Hbf (Central) & then a connecting train to Nuremburg to stay with a young backpacking friend AJ (privacy) who I took around NZ Sth Island with my son Scott back in 2017. Her & her family have been hoping I could come over to see them one day with how we both looked after her. She had to trust an old man & his son for 18days. We all had a great time & not an issue for all that time & she remains in contact with me to this day. With my early rise planned for travelling, I decided to pack my bags as much as possible & have a nanny nap before heading out for dinner as a method of recovery from all my walking. Today, I managed 13,166 steps, 10.12klms. I’ll end my 5th Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blog will be my trip stay with AJ & Munich, Nuremburg, Tegernsee & her hometown in the winery area. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #4

Day 3 – Italy – Amalfi Coast, Politano & Pompei

4th October 2025 is the day I take a full day bus tour South to Politano & Pompei to see parts of the Amalfi Coast trying to fit in a bit of regional Italy. I booked the Politano bus trip (some 13hrs) with a prescribed exact 7.15am departure. I arrived at the mtg point at 6.40am of Piazza Popolo (some 2.2klms from my hotel, so nothing like a brisk walk at dawn) & there was mass confusion with a lot of passengers that are taking about 6 different transport tours. Only 3 guides were there & it took some guests 2 or 3 goes to get a clear direction from them. I was one of them where I was told ‘stand over there‘ until 7am (3m away). To simplify .. I ongoingly approached 2 men & 1 lady & each time, receiving the same statement. When 7.20am came, I approached the woman again who said “your group has left” & indicated it was my fault. I was no more than 3metres from all the guides. With my following stern comment, she quickly contacted the bus where they waited the extra 5mins for me to walk there. Lavinia (our guide) was amazing & the only one who genuinely welcomed me. The front passengers just pointed their eye daggers at me. Very unpleasant. We had a full bus of about 40 people. My younger passenger next to me didn’t say a word until our break, some 1.5hrs later. People are so judgmental when they clearly don’t know the facts.

At this break, a Limoncello factory (quite expensive to buy this liquid beverage here) was not in operation (still took photos), so it only left for us to scoot through the expensive shop & wait for our departure after the toilet break. Limoncello is a sweet and refreshing liqueur made from finely grated lemon peels, sugar, and alcohol. It originated in Southern Italy, where lemons grow abundantly & is used mainly as a refresher after a meal to cleanse the palate. It also has a 30-40% alcohol content. I caught up with Lavinia who understood the mtg point dilemma & insisted I send her my feedback directly to her & the process to follow for City Wonders company. Finally, my seating companion (from America) returned my conversation & became ‘human’ .. LOL!!

Limoncello Factory

Lavinia gave wonderful commentary & had a great sense of humour & we connected well. The scenery was truly amazing, but I couldn’t get photos through the bus window due to my fellow passenger & as we became closer to Positano the bus decreased speed & started to do the tight bends matching the high terrain of the coastline cliffs & then we went to the next level of very tight bends & forcing cars to stop until the bus took the bend (the bigger bully wins over the cars). From about 10mins out (heavy tourist traffic) it gets to the point where the bus stops on the slightly wider, yet short section of road. Here we are to take extreme care in alighting from the bus & walking downwards to a fleet of 3 smaller bus vehicles to take us into Positano. These drivers are very skilled & know how to force their way through the crowds. Lavinia had to book our arrival time on the way to ensure the fleet of vans required will be available as there are other tour buses heading to Positano. There is quite a bit of punctuality enforced on this, such is the volume of buses arriving.

Positano from Road

Once the 10seater vans drop us off Lavinia instructed us to meet up again at the yellow church (most small churches are yellow in Italy) leading towards the beach, some 300m below us. I was one of the first there but not confident, for the building here was extremely pale yellow in need of repainting. I looked up & saw the tiny cross with more confidence. LOL! Not long until Lavinia & all the passengers arrived taking up almost the entire street junction. She hurriedly gave us instructions in whether we wanted to shop or walk down to the beach making sure those doing that are health capable of doing the downwards & upwards journey. She had an old person suddenly die of a heart attack recently where help was not immediately forthcoming. This is now our free time to shop, wander or walk. The majority walked down the steep street lanes between the shops to reach the fine gravel beach of grey sand. Lavinia was standing alone with everyone heading out for their adventure. I offered her a beverage (beer or wine) as that’s what I do & she was quite surprised & in doing so had a great chat with our beers (cin cin is Italian for cheers) until she was summoned away by others. She couldn’t believe such kindness still existed. Cheers!!!

Positano Beach Level

The ferry terminal is quite full of scrambling passengers & ferries go back to coastal areas, like Naples & other locations & it seems to be the smarter way of visiting Positano for the day than the insane road issues & on road parking. The ‘beach’ compared to our Australian beaches is far less in comparison but appreciate the Italians love any coastline access. Basically, there are no waves either. Certain elite hotels set into the hills have predetermined space setup on the beach with lounges, umbrellas, etc so the remaining public requires a bit of organising & scouting around for water access. The beachfront has shops, bars & cafes, etc taking every available space, so it is a relaxing but entertaining area.

After our designated 1.5hrs of free time we head back to meet up with the smaller vans for a faster exit to our bus higher up the cliff face. Due to the on-road parking, we are off the vans & walking along the road believing our bus is slightly downwards however, after reaching that bus our driver is madly waving at his bus, some hundred+ metres up the road making that journey involving more traffic risks, so be alert.

Pompei – Lavinia, when last arriving at the bus gladly pronounces, we have lost no-one & we are ready to make up time going to Pompei (closer back to Rome). Despite only 35klms away it will take us an 1hr in the bus with this terrain. With a little more open road you can see Mt Vesuvius in the background awaiting our arrival. Pompei is still an archaeological site & controlled by UNESCO World Heritage site funding. Pompei was home to around 10-20,000 people. Lavinia consulted the on-site guide personnel to obtain our access & headsets for the tour. Lavinia has her break now while we are escorted through the ruins. There is so much to see & to image life previously, for much of the ruins have been removed for other locations buildings, vandalism & earthquakes over the centuries. The township had its clean water supply & was heavily planned with aqueducts, although when inspecting closer to the buildings they had used lead piping (still present) which unknown to them was a poisonous material, especially in drinking water. Mt Vesuvius, close by Pompei violently erupted in 79AD. A severe earthquake happened in 62AD.

Obviously, I cannot write everything of today in Pompei, so I recommend seeking out https://pompeiisites.org as a wonderful resource to see how the 9 regions/ neighbourhoods were comprised of. Click on a region & several houses/ sites can be sourced. Pompei still has many areas to be uncovered to this day & well into the future. Pompei was covered in 7m deep of volcanic ash, but all that came well after the blast. Mt Vesuvius in my photo shows only 1/3rd of its original size to further explain the force of the blast & the flattened top, depending on what elevation you can view. The volcanic dust reached the stratosphere & hung over the ocean in a huge dark grey cloud & then the coastal breeze sent it directly over Pompei to settle over the entire region. The subsequent lava flows did not come near Pompei. Can you imagine 7m of ash to remove, but I couldn’t find out where they relocated that ash to.

Upon years of excavations, human remains were found in various stages of preservation & when bodies were found it took a scientist to discover how to excavate the found shape without destroying them. Air pockets were found in various areas in their underbodies when the people mostly fell onto their faces trying to breathe below the ash. Most findings only showed skeletons.

The excavators over the years provided a real skill in exposing the various structures, columns, roofs, staircases & such purposes these structures provided like saunas, hot baths, bakeries, shops, religious fonts & the list goes on. At some locations you can see a lot of exposed areas, but they are still far short of full Pompei exposure. After seeing lots of general building walls, roadways built for roman chariots & wagons with wheel grooves still showing, you come across certain large piazzas or courtyards & at last, the Amphitheatre where it is amongst the oldest of Roman times built in 70BC & hold up to 20,000people. Pompei was such a huge trading city being so close to the ocean & road networks, so it was very diverse & a real ancient metropolis.

Mt Vesuvius in Background
Piazza di Spagna

With our 2hr tour over we were back onto the bus & stopping for the toilet break at our previous Limoncello factory an hour away. Everyone after that was becoming quite tired & with the bus lighting lowered many were sleeping solidly until Lavinia hit the Rooster call tone (very funny), for we have arrived back in Rome at our original meeting point. I had a great good-bye from Lavinia & proceeded to my hotel via Piazza di Spagna (last photo) after a quick Pizza at a nearby restaurant & when I reached my hotel (25mins walk) I sent her a msg, again thanking her for a great day & to show her my formal review of the day to City Wonders, Viator & separately my overview of the ridiculous drama of that morning when almost missing my tour that she will follow up occasionally to see what will become of it. She was over the moon with my responses & confirmed this to me the next morning. She was on another tour by then. Arriving at my hotel at 9.35pm showed what a HUGE day it was. Shower & bed obviously.

I’ll end my 4th Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blog will have more pictures of major significance of the walking tour sights of Rome city. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #3 – Rome – Vatican

3/10/25 Day 2 OK, with the Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Areas 3hr full on tour & past lunchtime on a warm day it was now very pressing for me to get over to the other side of the River Tiber to the Vatican City for my tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s Basilica, etc. Today, Rome had a united train strike, so public transport was overwhelmed & traffic very heavy so as per my usual method I did my walking. From the Colosseum to the Vatican City is 4.1klms taking a calculated 55mins. I did it in 40mins & still took various photo landmarks along the way & in time to meet our guide. At the start there is no direct straight route until you come to the River Tiber, so it feels like I’m walking a circle. Lots to see along the way to the Vatican so the walk has benefits … if you’re fit too. LOL!! Beware .. lots of photos following.

From my photos you can see various history buildings, magnificent statues, fountains but extremely hard for me to know who & what they are until I see the photo details in my phone, for I make a point to have my location setting on which then aligns the photo to the name & address. It is obvious you can see the dome of the Vatican for miles so it’s easier knowing you’re going in the right direction. Firstly, you come across the original Stone wall with entrance doors which is not for us public people. The Vatican is its own country & government so a law unto themselves of course. While I think of it there are some restaurants/ cafés etc around the Vatican City that secretly invoke a table fee if you wish to sit down for a meal, coffee, etc. If you don’t ask about it when entering, you will find out big time when you get the bill. Some demand €20 which is a big OUCH!!! Can be a bloody expensive coffee. On that note, I didn’t spend a cent anywhere near the Vatican City.

The entrance brings you into a large courtyard with impressive building facades, a large pinecone & an incredible spiral ball sculpture that has several opinions of what it supposed to represent. Certainly, an eye grabber & such a detailed sculpture of modern art. The Pinecone sculpture, known as the Fontana della Pigna, is a monumental bronze statue located in a courtyard to the museum entrance, symbolizing immortality and rebirth. The Pinecone, or Pignone, is a bronze sculpture that stands approximately 4 metres (13 feet) tall & is hollow. It dates back to the 2nd century AD and was originally part of a fountain that adorned the Temple of Isis in ancient Rome. The courtyard itself is a blend of ancient and modern art, with the Sphere within a Sphere sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro also located here, symbolizing the relationship between the spiritual and physical worlds. With the sphere you can apply your muscles & get it to rotate & the inner sphere rotates with the out one & this action causes a mesmerizing stance if you’re not careful.

From the new side entrance, you are led into a chamber that overlooks a spiral ramp, much like the Guggenheim in NY. Our guide took us past this for some unknown reason into a large hall with over 1,000 small & large sculptures which is a bit much to take in however, the curved ceilings are really an eye opener too. I remain wondering where the spiral ramp would take you.

The Vatican City is completely full of all types of impressive sculptures, paintings & artifacts. I think our guide said 10,000 art pieces so there is no way in seeing them all. I can’t see how anyone can put a $value on these, get insurance cover & pay the premiums. LOL!! While you are walking with the crowd admiring the super detailed sculptures, etc you have to at the same time take in the high wall & ceiling paintings throughout the complex. It can be quite a feat! Our guide is super-fast in her speech too .. you can feel her religious passion & belief, so a lot of things are missed like each painting shows a story of course & once you get it, it all makes sense, but our transmitted earpieces cut in & out at times & there’s just too much to see & deal with.

While you’re looking at the ceiling, don’t forget to look at the various floors. Haha … another test! Some floors are all types of marble, granite & most impressive mosaic tiles, so fine you can hardly see the floors are tiled (like a painting). While I’m at it, one photo (hard to remember in my photos which one however it is about 4m x 3m in area) is of fine mosaic tiles so small that from my allowed 1.5m distance it is argued it’s a painting. How in the hell (bad word to use here .. haha .. but plenty of hell images in the paintings so I’m free I guess) does anyone have the skills to do this intense mural? Awaiting your answer … crickets?? The other impossible thing, when you’re allowed to take photos is to do it without the crowd always in front of you.

While I remember, there is one painting (artist name lost in my memory) painted this huge painting of God with Jesus holding one arm raised lifting the good people up to his heaven & the other hand pressing down the no-gooders into the hell version. At the time of the painting the artist was getting a lot of pressure & demands from a less liked pope at the time. Down the bottom of the rh corner is the portrait of that pope being in the no-good section. Classic revenge: while his self-portrait is closer to Jesus & in the centre of the painting holding a distorted dark face in a cloth which resembles his bad face doing this revenge side of him (sin). Apparently, the Pope never discovered this in the painting for he would have surely taken more than revenge upon the artist. There are lots of occasions where the artist or the architect has taken a revenge on the opposition in these paintings & structures. Very interesting.  

Curved walls & ceilings, domes, fountains, arches, gold, silver, bronze are beyond belief & I can’t type what I’m seeing, so enjoy each photo for is just too much to take in. Also note: NO photos to be taken within the Sistine Chapel so that’s another 50photos I could have on my phone to further show what is housed in that area. OMG!! Amazing & full of Michelangelo’s work throughout the ceiling (4yrs to paint it), The Last Judgement & The Creation of Adam. You could stand there for hours taking in the finest details of the immense artworks Michelangelo painted. A testimony to an extreme talent of a human.

We eventually see daylight into St Peter’s Square & after about 10mins we ventured into St Peter’s Basilica (up until 1989 it was the largest Christian church in the world) to more amazement & insane treasures of everything imaginable. There was a special service happening at the altar, so we couldn’t venture past the barricade, some 30m from the alter. The pipe organ was playing & a choir singing & it was an amazing experience to feel how this church really is. Reaching the end of the tour we are left to take our time in our departure while in St Peter’s, so after a while I ventured out to start my walk home being almost converted to priesthood. I was surprised to see a gorgeous blonde that was in our other group walking to the side 2m from me. We sat on different seat areas while waiting for our check-in prior. After my introduction I asked her what she thought of the last 3hrs. Her statement matched mine “OVERWHELMING”!!! Like me, couldn’t believe what we had seen. We walked for a bit together, but you could see she was concerned walking with a stranger & saw a shop she said to see, so I allowed her to ‘escape’ .. haha .. that’s how it goes .. allowing trust, privacy & safety to others as being paramount.

On my way back to my hotel I walked past the Colosseum & more impressive landmarks getting the evening light senses on my photos without the dreaded glaring sun I had to fight against at times. Just on the other side of the Colosseum I came across a set of stairs & too far to circle around them, so I toughened up & took the 101 steps to the top. Certain muscles let me know about it after the day of walking I had done. All in all, with my full day of walking which included the Colosseum area tour of the morning I had managed 24,350 steps or 18.94klms. Yikes!!!

Hope you enjoy the photos & truly, I cannot type or include all my photos on everything, so I’ll end my 3rd Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blogs will have more sights of Rome, Politano & Pompei. Please stay safe, happy & healthy

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #2 – Rome

Day 1 in Rome – 2/10/2025

OK!! I’m now in Rome city (Historic Quarter & my first EVER day in Europe) 9am after my expensive train from the airport (Blog 1) & my first project is to find a café, for coffee & to use their WiFi as my Saily Data package has not evolved as promoted to me. Using my data provider on my original Australian Network will incur an obscene charge per day so I’ll persist in seeking out a better solution. I am without the internet & everything else. A wonderful café opposite to the Rome Termini (Central Station) was Sfizio & they were superb. Everything appeared to kick in on my phone with Saily once the WiFi took hold. I could now confirm where my hotel is (not far) but upon leaving Sfizio & a block away, I again had no internet. I finally found my hotel Bettoja Hotel Massimo D’Azeglio without Google Maps & left my bags at reception (too early to check-in) & took a map they had at the counter, as I had a Patheon Tour (Italia Explorer) booked for 2pm @ $21.84AUD. With plenty of time I headed off, but the map reading was all over the place. The thousands of people & tourists made walking the streets bloody hard & I found myself doubling back several times & not quite int the direction needed. The street signage was in a level of crap of small writing & not making sense!!! Really out of my depth.

With frustration mounting (I had already done about 6klms of walking) & by the time I had found The Pantheon & my guide before the required deadline. He helped by putting me straight in (skip the line booking) which was a huge bonus instead of waiting for my designated time. The Pantheon was truly amazing & I can’t believe how this construction was carried out back then. The front 16 stone columns each weigh 60tons & were hand crafted in Egypt & shipped over. They used up to twelve elephants to erect each column. When inside, the wonder continues with great stone sculptures, arts & the world’s largest concrete dome of that type above us. The dome is 43.44m (142.5’) in diameter & is the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world & has had the record for over 2,000years (125AD). History does not record who built it, but it started in 27BC & was rebuilt to finish 125AD. The circular walls are 24’ thick & the entrance doors are bronze at 24’ high with an opening of about 14’ wide. The open eye “oculus” of the dome is a whopping 27’ in diameter & hardly any rain falls through it. The floor has a 1’ slope from the centre to accommodate any rain that rarely comes through it. For centuries experts could not prove the components of the true Roman Concrete of that age. The recipe had been lost long ago. With the latest technology used on original foundation footings still present today they found the vital ingredient which was the ash (white & grey pumice) from the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD over Pompei, etc making it the strongest concrete ever.

The Pantheon & Obelisk

After the Pantheon I found another café with WiFi & contacted the Bot in Saily Support where the AI really can be scary .. so human like in answering & it diagnosed my phone was cutting in & out with the Airplane mode. After a few interactions & waiting the required seconds on the mode setting Saily cut in fully & no more problems after that so it was easy to find my way back to my hotel. I am now aware the Airplane mode can be erratic. My Samsung Health App notified me I had walked 23,705 steps equaling 18.56klms if you don’t mind. Yikes!!!

Upon returning to my hotel, quite close to the Rome Termini Station (Central) I was quite shocked trying to convince the reception staff on my check-in stating they had my bags in storage that morning. Finally, the staff realised I was in the wrong Bettoja Hotel, which was directly across the road from my Bettoja Massimo D’Azeglio. I was informed the father Bettoja had 3 hotels & upon his passing, each of his 3 sons inherited a hotel each & they are near each other (Mediterraneo was opposite & Atlantico on same block but further down). They are stunning hotels & had better get my attendances right over the next few days. LOL!! Finally settled into the night & sorting out my 4day stay & to get ready for my early morning Colosseum tour (1.5klms, 18mins walk away from my hotel).

3/10/25 Day 2 The hotel delivered my brekky right on time so heading out in the late dawn went very well. After lunchtime I must walk from the Colosseum over the River Tiber to the Vatican (50min walk, 4.1klms) for that tour. A HUGE day of course. My Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Areas Tour by Crown Tours through Viator, was for a 9.30am start where the meeting point was 20mins walk away & I detest being late for anything. It is critical to organising an early morning tour, as by lunchtime the volume of people at the Colosseum is beyond ridiculous & the temperature is more comforting. Our guide was Annalisa, a documented archaeologist who apologised frequently in confirming a lot what we have been shown & taught are so out of touch to the real history we may become upset or disillusioned. The Gladiator movie was an example where it was more of Hollywood illusion of course.

After the viewing in awe of the Colosseum structure as we walked closer for its massive size you notice a side section is missing of its upper decks. This was due to outside thieves or colonies stealing the blocks of limestone/ travertine blocks for their other infrastructure which was an ongoing crime as building resources & workers were hard to get. The other side of the Colosseum was inhabited by a large village; hence blocks couldn’t be stolen from there. Due to the ‘vandalism’ it weakened the structure & when a great earthquake happened in 1349 & some of the fallen debris eventually was used to build hospitals, palaces & other structures. In a lot of walls of blocks, you can see small holes chipped into the blocks where the rare steel metal joining spikes were removed for other structures in time. This also weakened the walls.

The Colosseum was built in just 8yrs (72AD-80AD) using over 100,000cubic metres of stone & Roman concrete. After the fall of the Roman Empire the Colosseum was abandoned & fell into disrepair. The arena was a timber floor supported by numerous brick walls as per my photo. Sections of the floor was raised vertically by means of the adjacent aqueduct system that hydraulically lifted the selected platform for better public viewing when required. The underfloor structure, known as the hypogeum, consisted of numerous alleys of brick walls & cages where animals were caged for hunting performances. The next fighting gladiators were housed there just before their fights were to take place. The remaining gladiators were kept longer outside the Colosseum for relief & training & entered the arena underground by a tunnel. Gladiators were well paid by their schooling master’s & not killed merely for sport as per the movie The Gladiator. Their surviving skills kept them in a good financial status, but no life was long in Rome those days but not every gladiator was eliminated, unless they were poor performers.

The arena floor was also treated with a small layer of sand for the shows to reduce the effect of blood volume & slipperiness, mainly from the animal kills & not so much from any gladiator kills. Animals were hunted & slaughtered far more than any gladiator. If you look closely at the interior photo you can manage to see there were 5 seat terraces (see the staircase remains) where they placed all the lower-class people up onto the highest level, for their role was to cheer the loudest & to confirm if the losing gladiator was to live or die. The decision was decided by the volume of the cheering, not the emperor’s, thumbs up or down.

Everything you view is of a grand scale & it is hard to understand just 8yrs to build. On the eastern side, when you walk around you can see the original Rome floor was some 7m below the current ground level. This area would flood so over time the romans would build over what the floods provided with more soil making it now 7m above.

On the same side you can see the remnants of the high-level aqueducts that fed the water into the sub floor of the arena area for the hydraulics to work. The sub-floor would be flooded for approx. 1m deep. This again is confirmed when you venture adjacent to the Colosseum on the western side called Palatine Hill which also shows more intricate structure history including aqueducts over this expansive area. In the lower area, there is a small, curved wall with a new protective roof over it & this is where Julius Ceasar was assassinated by a stabbing. There is far too much history to type, discuss & take photos, so you must come to Rome for yourself & it would be a bonus in scoring our guide, Annalisa who is a walking encyclopedia. Enjoy the photos & look closely at the detail.

I’ll end my 2nd Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blogs will have far more pictures & of major significance of the major sights of Rome starting with the Vatican. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour – Oct 2025 – Blog 1

Bon Voyage for Europe

2025 came around so quick with quite a few trips done over the years with 70+ travel blogs (my initial passport was obtained in March 2016 (60yrs old … late starter). This year was also a busy project time for family, with the main one for my middle son, Matt at Banora Point. A huge retaining wall project that was convoluted with Cyclone Alfred. While stuck in a cyclone, I had a moment or two wondering what is next for my travels & something for me. Time to be selfish. LOL!!

Out of the blue, I had amazing memories of people I had met over the years, some at my now hometown of Yamba, NSW where I met quite a few at my cousin’s Yamba Backpackers plus, some on my trips overseas. It must have been then, when I had a yearning to see those faces again & contacted my Wyndham Resorts Owner Travel Club help line & my lovely Nili started setting up everything from my 1st attempt location list. Numerous emails, phone calls & lots of computer searches now had me locked in to fly out of Brisbane International Airport on 1st October 2025. I was amazed Nilli had remembered she had set up my Peru, Ecuador & Chile trip in 2019 with my eldest son, Scott. Amazing lady.

Overall, there are 8 countries, 9 plane trips & 7 train trips to undertake plus the accommodation, etc. Of course, I had to book a few things myself in places out of the way & all my activities, etc. My cities of visiting start at Rome with a Doha (3hr stopover), Munich/ Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Paris, Amiens/ Villers Bretonneux, Barcelona, Lisbon, Dublin, Bristol & finishing up at London so that will encompass plenty of more blogs to upload for my readers around the world. Itinerary set at 43days. Yikes!!!! 

The Schengen Area is where I’ll be spending much of my time & is made up of 29 European countries with common border rules. It lets travellers move freely between Schengen countries without going through border controls or getting a visa for each country provided your stay is under 90days. Their new digital entry system (EES) comes into effect 12th October 2025, so I’ll be well into my travel so I’m assuming there will be processing delays at some point when crossing a border. The system will hold your data (fingerprints, photos, etc) for 3years so re-entering later will be streamlined again. The UK & Ireland are not Schengen so you must now do an ETA (entry approval – £16) that lasts for 2years (basically a new Labor Tax). I was approved online in about 7minutes so they must just like the money.

My hometown is a regional coastal village of some 8,000 residents but on holidays, Easter & Christmas, 25,000 isn’t uncommon. It’s paradise where major surfing is every day with 6 beaches in walking distance from CBD including the Big River, The Clarence River. Check it out in Google Maps. Therefore, I’ll be extending my Winter months (Dislike the cold). LOL! From Yamba I have to get to Brisbane Airport, some 3.5hrs away. My first duty was to exchange my AUD with Euros by using my fav swap company, Crown Currency. Bummer .. $0.52 cents to 1 Euro dollar. OUCH!!!! I won’t bore you with the details of my awkward trip to Brisbane Airport, but it was a struggle out of my control.

My other clever planning was that I bought my Caribee Global Explorer Rolling Bag 125L (Anaconda) at their online sale $249, nearly $100 off & I tried it on my recent Cairns/ Port Douglas trip in the hope It will be better for my European tour. I am confident it will with its variable compartmentation and well-designed wheels. My still trusty Black Wolf 70L backpack can be adjusted to a duffle bag too, but that involves carrying this entire weight for the 43 days over my shoulder/ neck & have done for several years & now that I’m older I had best start being a little smarter. I’ll still take my small Black Wolf 20L day backpack for the airport journeys but interchange with my adjustable shoulder briefcase for my city touring of sights, blending into the population. I did a few packing trials prior to make sure I had everything & inside the weight & operational limits. I’m sad to not being able to display my Australian Flag/ badges, etc due to the current mass immigration & hatred exposed in a lot of countries. Even tourists are being targeted, so Barcelona may be a problem for me. My other duty was to purchase a good data esim provider for my trip & the best one & least problematic one was Saily, as I wanted to include all of Europe & UK without separately doing each or bundled countries. Using my phone gave me a few options, however, by using my laptop I saw more options available. 25Gb 60days – 8 countries covered for me. VPN Security, Add Blocker. 5Gb/day without speed limit or Hotspot restrictions at $78.51 or $48.99USD. It seemed perfect except you can’t get perfect & a low cost in the one bundle.

1st October 2025, Brisbane Roma St Station (short walk) & catch the Airport Train (wow ..$22.00AUD thanks) to the International Terminal (Domestic Terminal is the next & last stop on that line) for my 15.10pm departure on my first leg (14hrs 50mins .. yikes!!) to Doha (Qatar) for a 3hr stopover, then onto Rome Terminal 3 Fiumicino Airport, another 5hrs, arriving 7.25am local time. Am I getting excited? .. hmm?

While at the airport, my first duty was to send birthday wishes to my niece, Kahli who is now in the Australian Women’s Rugby Union Team + the 7s team. She even played in the last Olympics & has seen a lot of the world now. All morning, I have been getting messages from my friends in Europe & UK, my fb friends & my upcoming activity tickets, so all is good in the universe for this trip but stay tuned.

The 14hr 50min first leg to Doha was quite a struggle. The plane was totally full so there was no spare seating. The Boeing 700-300ER had a 3-4-3 seating arrangement. The two young guys sitting next to me, both had major sniffles & cough issues & was getting worse while the young guy sitting directly in front of me had a worse cough at a frequency of around 10mins & getting more frequent. He was sitting next to a young couple who went to the toilet 8times, yes, I counted as every time it was a challenge of how they could disrupt the passengers more. There’s no way anyone found sleep time & our flight started 3pm Brisbane time, so we were well through our normal body clock scenarios by then.

Doha International airport is HUGE!!! & the number of flights taking off around midnight their time was beyond belief. Our flight was 3.5hrs later & that didn’t even fit onto the oversized departure boards. At least the entire airport is under 1 giant terminal building & is split into 5zones. We arrived near the central zone of A/B & our departure gate was in D5. For that you transfer from your flight to go through security screening again with your carry-on & wander through the duty–free shop & into the endless mind-blowing luxury shops. Once you wander with wide eyes, you can take the escalators/ lifts to Level 1 where there is a looping tram carriage system to take you all the way to Zones C, D & E. I stayed on ground floor & walked the entire route for leg stretch & to see more of the terminal & it is a very long walk & that’s why a higher volume of travellers take the tram system.

Central A-B Area
My Long Walk

I was pleased to see the young guys are not on the flight to Rome however, our Airbus A350-900 was completely full too with a 3-3-3 seating pattern. The trip went fairly well but 5hrs was cutting deep again. A point to note, with both aircraft & having the enormous volumes of bums on seats, they need to re-pad the seat as they were quite compressed & a solid feel. I used the supplied blanket to overcome this. By the time the flight was over I had no idea of time (body clock time), apart from the sign of sleep deprivation, for I had been on the go since leaving Yamba.

Day 1 2/10/25 Upon landing at Rome Terminal 3 Fiumicino Airport, we were ushered to a tram system to take us to the other side of the airport into the main terminal. Going through Immigration was brief & then again in Border Control for passport stamping was a bit tedious but many of us were keen to get to the baggage pickup considering the volume of travellers. Ours was designated #12, yes  .. there are 14 carousels! By the time we arrived many bags were already on the carousel & being full, the bag sensors would not let all the bags out onto the carousel. What we found out was we had a very large Chinese group travelling with us (about 40) & they took ages through Border Control & the bags we could see, were theirs. Eventually, they turned up & the bag sensors started to work again. Suffice to say, one elderly couple & myself were the very last of the bags, some 40+minutes later!!! Not happy Jan!!!

OK, with that test completed, the best way to Rome CBD (Historic Quarter for the sights & my hotel) is to take the train (some 32mins). Only 4 train ticket machines were available & each person was struggling with its complexities & the lines kept growing. Finally, after watching the operation over time I got my chance & being under pressure, pressed OK & a ticket popped out after card payment. Yay!! From there you cross the road & take the stairs or the escalators to Level 2 for the train station. There is a scanning process of everyone’s ticket & when I scanned mine, the young lady doing the checking ushered me to hurry & pointed to my terminating train as it was deemed to leave immediately. With two other women we managed to sneak in before the doors closed & we were off. All was well until a young lady train guard asked for tickets. She scanned mine & scolded me for being on the wrong train or something like that. I had boarded the first-class part of the train, or the other train was the economy one. My ticket was for the economy train. Who knows? With much embarrassment, she processed a new ticket, along with a penalty making my trip from 8€ to an additional 14€ (22€). I was totally innocent of this mistake & I caught up to her when departing, for more clarification. My train was the other train on Platform 2 & not #1 as per the lady before pointing out. It felt like a scam to me on tourists, but that’s me being pissed off. Lesson learned.

I’ll end my first Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blogs will have far more pictures & of major significance. Rome awaits. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 4

Sightseeing

With most of my land sightseeing with the days left I decided to just use my rental car (East Coast Rentals) to see a bit of Cairns CBD area, 1hrs drive south & after finding some selected parking spots I did a few klms of walking along the shoreline of the marina and wherever my feet took me. Nothing was overly impressive, and the CBD crowd was hardly to be seen. I walked far more blocks than I thought I would, yet nothing really stood out. Not even a coffee shop caught my eye for a sit down. Rather depressing, considering what I have seen elsewhere. I enjoyed Port Douglas far better.

The realisation was hitting me of wasting valuable time, so I thought the next best was to drive back along the Captain Cook Hwy to Port Douglas & continue north to Mossman, a small village 16klms from the turnoff at Craiglie to Port Douglas. The Captain Cook Hwy takes a little longer than originally due to the stages of roadworks where it was severely damaged by Cyclone Jasper 2022. After the cyclone, this hwy was closed to Port Douglas so traffic had to go up via the Karanda Range that took 3.5hrs each way, so that’s how critical this highway is. That sort of detour is insane!

Upon arriving at Mossman, I wasn’t setup to see the wonderful Mossman Gorge even though they had a $15 shuttle bus on the route. It is a 40mins walk if you’re keen each way to avoid the shuttle, but time was really getting on & my calculations would have had me pushing to meet the closing time. I put all this down to an error on my part in poor planning, so I have to wear the failure. The Mossman Gorge is a total indigenous cultural region and they offer full guide walks & cultural centre. The village population is around the 250 mark & this is certainly the main attraction here.

I was very keen for an extra late lunch so decided to go back from the Gorge Reception to Mossman & found the wonderful Beechmont Cafe in the main street. What a great lunch & coffee & atmosphere .. they had a secret hideaway out the back too, which proved a great find. Thoroughly loved the food & coffee. Even sat there a while to soak it up & watch the wonderful staff doing a great job & constantly smiling. I even did my Google Maps review where it would further enhance their patronage.

With dusk not long away, I decided to venture back to the pool at my resort (Wyndham Port Douglas Resort). I caught up with my computer & Polarstep inputs (tour journey blogs), then pack & clean ready for tomorrow’s departure to return the rental car & shuttle to the airport for Brisbane Airport Train. East Coast has a great free shuttle service to the airport.

2/05/25 Up earlier then my alarm & started to do final packing & tidying the unit. I make sure the cleaners are rewarded by not really knowing anyone had stayed in the unit. It’s a way of brightening their day & they do such a great result on the unit when I arrived, so I try to reciprocate that feeling to them. The rain kept me awake most of the night & it will now get heavier for the week. Fantastic to have great weather for my week, truly blessed.

Saying my pleasant good-byes to the reception staff I headed off on a slow road trip down to Cairns (peak hour I guess & with 3 stages of red light-controlled roadworks) & returned my hire car in time & without any hassles at all. 5mins later I was on their airport shuttle. East Coast Rentals were great to deal with & the shuttle was excellent to the airport. So impressed & another addition to my Google Maps reviews.

My Virgin flight was right on time & 2hrs later I was in a colder, cloudy Brisbane & using the same airport train & another 1.5hrs I arrived at the end of the southern line, Varsity Lakes. While I was in Cairns Airport I set up my first ever Uber account using the pre-boarding time I had. So glad I did & it was so easy. I forced myself to use Uber, for my son Matt wasn’t able to pick me up living at Banora Point just across the border in New South Wales (NSW) from Queensland (QLD). With rain getting heavier my Uber arrived to fight the excessive peak hour M1 drive & suffice to say, arrived in pure darkness. Matt was happy I arrived safe & a great scotch followed.

Overlooking Cairns

The next day, reality hits hard with the restarting of the huge landscape project on Matt’s place. Concrete sleeper retaining walls along the side & front. I’ll be soooo happy when I finish this project. Very physical but relieved I can do this type of work at 69yrs old & the excavation was severely interrupted by a direct Cyclone Alfred which was not well received by myself, son – Matt & machine operator, David but we struggled through. The 64 concrete sleepers weighed 73kgs each & involved 21 galv posts concreted in 900mm/ 300mm dia piles, all dug by my faithful petrol post hole digger & myself.

I’ll end my last Cairns/ Port Douglas Blog #4 here & many thanks for reading them. Stay safe, happy & healthy. My next blogs will most likely be my first trip to Europe, starting at Rome, 43days long. 8 Countries, 9 planes trips, 7 trains & lots of walking.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025

Blog 3 – Karanda Scenic Rail & SkyRail

Hello .. & you got your wish .. less typing & LOTS of photos. Enjoy!!!!

From my last blog I managed just a few minutes with the family that surprised me with a birthday muffin & scotch (thanked them again) & of course the Down Under Tours by Meagan was right on time at 7.50am at my Ramada Wyndham Resort Port Douglas & dropped off at Freshwater Station for the Karanda Scenic Rail. A historical rail line that involves 15 man-made tunnels by picks, mattocks & occasional dynamite, etc & 50+ cross bridges leading up the Karanda Range taking about 90mins. With Down Under Tours you can have a few options like, SkyRail first & come back by train using different time frames for return. I chose the train first & made a full day tour.

At the Freshwater Station, the Railways Workers Cottage sited here was relocated from Redlynch in 1984 & was amazing in its presentation with pressed metal ceilings & exposed stud work in the walls. Early Qld construction & not many people would really notice the construction details I have grown up with being in the construction industry all my life.

The rail line was established to meet the needs of the large gold rush where horse transport was inadequate up the mountain range but who would even envisage such a proposal in this steep range. I suppose gold will make man do amazing things. The rail line has a 1m rise:15m length steepness which is quite significant. The train engines from early 1950s or so are 1,000 horsepower engines & I suspect that is what is absolutely needed. 

Tunnel 15 (last tunnel) is the longest & took 2yrs to build & 4 workers injured delaying the project (Above photo). Workers then started to dig 8 tunnel faces simultaneously to catchup to the timeframe. Very hard work & most workers slept in tents & had to supply their own tools too. Some had families that camped with them as well. Tough times by all.

I had a Gold Upgrade ticket @ $325 that provided nibblies, beer, etc with 2 rail staff waitresses plus it incorporated the SkyRail ticket later in the day (cost included the pickup & drop off to my Port Douglas Resort .. 55mins each way) which was a bonus. 

The antique carriage was amazing with pressed metal ceilings & Spotted Gum hardwood interior. I sat with an aged, retired couple Ian & Janet from Canada. Ian took some sneaky photos of me when we disembarked for a few minutes so hopefully they contact me to swap photos. He was a professional photographer & he had a twitchy finger taking numerous photos. I suspect it would take him years to go through all is library photos.

The famous photo shot of the rail line is the Jungara Loop (below) where you can see a good length of the train doing the circular bridge climb over the metal bridge. A great bit of engineering & has your heart pumping knowing the height & span of this crossing.

The waterfall (above) appears in the centre of this trainline loop & continues falling under the bridging section. A few more minutes up the line the train stops at Stoney Creek Station & everyone can alight for 15mins to take photos of the magnificent Barron Falls adjacent of some force & 200m+ fall which is as old as the dinosaur era. This Barron River also has a hydro power installation. At the rear of the photo, you can see a viewing platform on the other side, so obviously there must be some method of getting to it. With the sight & sound of this huge waterfall & meeting a young Netherlands lady yesterday (Anouk) on our waterfalls tour I thought I would share my Barren Falls video with her & show her what I’m doing today on a much larger waterfall. OMG!! She immediately textd me back, stating she I was in carriage 12 & I was telling her I was in carriage 8. What are the chances of that? Such a coincidence!

Barron Falls
Hydro System

This Stoney Creek Station has the only bypass line setup to allow trains to cross each other on this single line network. Records show in 1944 (WW2) this line played a huge part; the station recorded 43 train crosses in a single day. WOW!!

With 90mins done, we were finally in Karanda at 350m above sea level where the station opened 1891 when the rail line was completed. The station is a 400m walk to the main street which has numerous shops, cafes, etc plus huge Strangler Fig trees within the main street. 

I was lucky to catchup with the Netherlands lady, Anouk for lunch (my shout) & we talked about a lot of subjects & then she had to run to meet her return train whereas I’ll be taking the SkyRail gondolas, later in the day.

In the main street (Coondoo St) there is a sign showing the direction & distances of the world’s major cities, some I’ve been to & other soon this October. In this township you can venture to Birdworld & Butterfly enclosures, Koalas Gardens, local markets where you could spend around 40mins each for around $20 or so. 

One of the gift shops in the main street has a small bird nesting off a chain in his roof awning. Such a sight to see & most people don’t notice it which is probably a safety factor for it. Nature is everywhere.

After a few hours meandering it was time for the SkyRail back to my starting point of Smithfield. The SkyRail is 7.5klms in length with Barron Falls 1.7klms from Karanda (3hrs walk by road) & 5.8klms from Barron Falls to Smithfield (sea level) via a changeover at Red Peak. 

I took a video & some photos after alighting at Barron Falls to the platform mentioned earlier to see the Barron Falls directly below over a glass floor platform. Yikes!! I sent this video to the Netherlands lady as she would have missed this closeness by only doing the train journey. She was thrilled to see my video. The bottom right photo above shows you the train in the distance.

Another stop to alight is Red Peak where you can do a quick platform walk loop to see the nature & flora/ fauna of the region like the huge 400yr old magnificent Qld Kauri tree (bottom photo below). In the tree tops you can see large ferns, etc creating large baskets & this is one area where Australia’s largest snake, the Scrub Python or real name, amethystine python, measuring up to 8m & weighing 25kgs. Another yikes!! Not a snake fan.

At Red Peak is where you change Gondolas for the line down to sea level/ Cairns direction.

From the SkyRail you come very close to the tree canopies & you’d be hard pressed to actually see the forest floor, such is the density. Truly a wonderous area. James Cameron used the SkyRail viewing to inspire the movie Avatar. The tree in question was quite different from the rest above the canopy & through admiring it I forgot to take a photo, so my apologies. Bummer!!

Alighting from the gondolas the crew take a photo which you can purchase at the adjacent gift shop. Now to wait for our tour pickup back to Port Douglas arriving at 6.15pm in the dark. The pickup was rather late so a couple of us were starting to worry, as the café, shop, etc was starting to close for the day.

Suffice to say, I managed a great restaurant meal at my resort, the started on my Polarstep blog & more red wine, gifted to me. Cheers. The next day (Wednesday, 30/04/25) I spent the day around the Wyndham Resort via the pool, relaxing after 2 full on days of nature. Caught up on my laundry duties & later in the day I have an Owner Sales Update session & then an Owner’s Meet & Greet Session where quite a few owners turned up for the drinks & nibblies & to share their life & travel stories. One person I did not want to see was the local ranger with his bloody python snake! Can’t I just have a moment without snakes? LOL!  

The next day, Thursday, I have another easy day & will use my MG rental car more on sightseeing, so I’ll end my Blog #3 here & many thanks for reading them. Stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 2

Waterfall Wanderers Tour – Blog 2

I was up at 5am to start my birthday celebrations & drive 55mins to Waterfall Wanderers at 36 O’Keefe St North Cairns for the tour bus @ 7.20am .. full bus of 24 people to pick up. Orion is our driver & guide. A young Greek but in Australia for quite some time. I was the first & only onboard & was privileged to have a great conversation learning about Orion’s young history & as a travelling person. After picking everyone up at various hostels, resorts, etc we headed west towards Mt Walsh monolith (one rock pyramid) along the highway. Annual foot races are held to the top. 1hr 35mins is the record from a European male. What a run!!!

Travelling Gillies Range Rd, Orion gives a full commentary of the upcoming range road where we will be experiencing Australia’s windiest roadway .. most bends/ corners in 20klm length towards Atherton (270 bends in all) going up the range. Motion sickness can happen. Beware.

1st Stop is .. Lake Eacham .. a 65m volcanic lake (Calderas). This will be the warmest water we encounter today so I braved it & had a quick dip after my first platform dive in decades. Still brrrr!!!!I Rated the dive as 3. Haha. This lake has 2 known small freshwater crocodiles, but they are timid & not a threat to humans. Yeah .. right .. Hope so. Sadly, we didn’t all swim together & share in the banter. Some chose to walk further around the lake & swim there. I must say, the swim was quite rewarding. With all that was around me I totally forgot to take photos. Argh!!!

Orion was very strict with the return to bus time & repeated how important it was to now keep to the timeframe to fit everything in & respect the lunch preparation. He wasn’t kidding either, so it was quite a shock to venture back & not see the bus. Some panic was starting to show on a few when right on time (within 2mins of the Orion deadline) the bus storms up the hill & parks at our stop. A full bus of people exit & Orion confirms the other Wanderer’s bus following us caught on fire some klms back. Therefore, Orion leapt at picking them up to keep to their timeline & for a lake swim while another bus would be sent out. One young passenger alighting was miffed & I wanted to remind him how good this company is in handling problems like this with hardly any impact on the passengers, but I guess you can never get through to ignorant self-serving people.

Orion was quick to get us onboard & off we went to the next rainforest stop keeping to our timeframe. My fellow, much younger passenger, James (ex-England, living in Sydney), was so relieved sitting next to me when he found all his wallet, phone, etc still intact in the seat pocket where we were told the bus would be locked while we swam. Lesson learnt I thought & so lucky having the other bus passengers onboard.

Not far away from the lake we stopped at Yungaburra, a rainforest where Orion showed us the ‘Wait a While’ plant vine with very fine strands hanging down. The Aboriginals used this fine vine for a fishing line & hook. Very strong too. With all the greenery surrounding us we even saw a set of car keys hanging down for hopefully the driver to see them.

Across the road (too dangerous to cross the road), Orion showed us the Red Berry- stinging tree with large heart shaped leaves & red Berry clumps. Orion said it would be less painful if a truck hit you, for this plant is very dangerous & painful .. commonly called the ‘suicide plant’ with its microscopic stinger fibres which can last for months or even years, hence people take their own lives to escape the ongoing pain. One story Orion told was an army soldier in a jungle training for Vietnam War used the large leaves for toilet paper. Some months later he committed suicide to escape the ongoing relentless pain.

The rainforest walk was amazing & you are led right up to the famous Curtain Fig Tree which had taken over 2 host trees & this formed the unusual curtain. A movie Director/ Producer, James Crawford saw this tree & another one at another near location, called The Cathedral Tree where he used both of them in his huge film, Avatar. This Curtain Fig Tree is estimated to be around 6-800years old.

Curtain Fig Tree

This Daintree & Cairns region rainforests are the oldest rainforests in the World … dinosaur era old in fact. We are also on the lookout for the dinosaur bird (Orion’s name), the super impressive Cassowary (2nd largest flightless bird in the world behind the Ostrich). Unfortunately, no sightings eventuated today but Orion has seen a few cross the road while driving. Orion had lots of funny nicknames of favourite animals & birds. Sorry, far too many to remember.

From Yungaburra, we stayed a little while in the village of Eacham for a quick view of shops & then lunch .. a beautiful lasagne meal for me with a great chat with some travellers & some from other parts of the world. Anouk, a young lady was from Netherlands & she had a great personality & interaction with most on the tour. We just started a great conversation after eating when Orion rushed us to board the bus. Bummer!!! Two young ladies ate a few tables away, secluded from the rest of us & they sat behind James & I on the bus. One was an ‘exact’ match for one of my Netherlands friend of many years. Surely, she must be a relative or even the slightly younger sister. Very uncanny & I have learnt sometimes the world can be quite small.

Next was the Millaa Millaa falls from the Johnstone River located in the Wooroonooran National Park. A beautiful waterfall used in several tv adds, etc. Orion even did the ad performance by untying his long black hair & dipping it in the water & then throwing his hair in a backing stand up motion (hair flick). It went off like a treat & he really did it well. The TV ad used a blonde woman in a bikini though. In these falls you can swim here but not directly under the waterfall as there is a large tree stump lodged up & peering over the top edge.

After Orion’s show I cautiously went up to the young ladies to introduce myself & ask if one of them was from the Netherlands but to my surprise they were both Germans. I started with stating the uncanny similarity of my friend Ayla to one of them. She seemed awkward until I showed her Ayla’s photo & she was quite shocked to the accuracy of both their faces. The other German lady seemed quite shy & withdrawn, possibly my age was off putting. It is hard for me to learn that young people find it hard to interact with older people. I understand it .. but it’s hard to accept. Helen was my Ayla, while Dana was the cautious & slightly withdrawn one. Helen spoke fluent English & we hit it off quite quickly, then she told me she wanted to do this tour on her birthday. I was blown away, as I told Helen it was my birthday also, with the same tour date idea. We were both thrilled to be sharing our birthdays together, (28/04) but she is 20 & I’m so much older. LOL!! She was a blessing to me today, such a lovely young lady. Made my day. They were both keen to enter the water of Millaa Millaa Falls, so I dared not deter them from that. Upon returning to the bus, I managed a smile from Helen again to further make my day. Thank you Helen.

A few minutes up the road at Crawfords Lookout we stopped for a clearer view of the river back towards the Millaa Millaa Falls & further upstream. A very impressive outlook. With further driving we climb slightly, then towards Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain at 1622m high, some 75Klms south of Cairns. This is the direct area for Josephine Falls, the most violent of waterfalls for public access.

At Josephine Falls you can walk down to a platform & enter through a gate to walk the boulders to a natural water slide down the rock face. Access to the top section of the falls is prohibited. Serious injuries and deaths have occurred here. Please observe the well signposted warning signs. Flash flooding (rapidly rising water) is common during wetter months. Rapid and unpredictable water level rises have isolated people on the far bank requiring their rescue. The rocks are also exceptionally slippery, the water cold and submerged objects may be in the creek.

Based on the above, Orion was clear in his safety directions and for those keen to slide down the rock formation which basically enticed the younger passengers. I think my maturity kicked in where I cannot afford an injury with what is ahead of me these coming months (building projects & a Europe trip). Some of the girls yelled out for me to take videos of their slides so I ventured out on the slippery boulders & found a safe perch to stand. I had trouble at times when a lady, not on our bus kept getting into my video space & she knew it too. Arghh!!!

All the sliders had so much fun & even Orion too despite probably doing this almost weekly or more often. He was brilliant!! Finally, back on the bus & keeping to the timeframe we head to the Babinda Boulders. Once the bus is parked you head along The Devil’s Pool Walk, a 1.3 kilometre return walk along the Babinda Creek downstream from the Babinda Boulders picnic area. Slightly undulating along a rough bitumen track, the walk leads through the rainforest to two viewing platforms where the creek cascades down a series of spectacular waterfalls, granite boulders and washpools. This is a most dangerous area & with the water churning into washpools cascading around these huge granite boulders it is quite easy to see how a body can be totally trapped underwater, never to escape. For more info & to read about the local aboriginal legend of these boulders please use this link Cairns Attractions | Babinda Boulders – Cairns Attractions  There has been some 25 deaths since 1959 when records started, so don’t take this area lightly. The signposts definitely don’t miss informing you of this. The council rangers regularly screen these falls for stupid people as rescues are so demanding & risky. We came across a plaque some time later recognising the search & discovery of a lost USAAF – Mitchell Bomber, noting my birthday date in 1942. Back then, this search would have been beyond belief with the resources they had.

Babinda Boulders

James (ex-England, living in Sydney) sat next to me the entire tour which proves young people can interact & accept us older folk. LOL!!! He showed me his proposed renovation plans for his unit in Sydney, knowing my construction & building background. From the Babinda Boulders it was the usual drive back to Cairns along the flat Bruce Highway but of course Orion remained full on with music & his DJ allowed song skip enforced & lots of commentary of fun. He really made the day for all but he forgot Helen’s name for her birthday song we all sang to.

It was sad to see my fav travellers be dropped off at their respective stays & not being able to catch up later on. Helen & Dana leaving for Fiji the next day & Anouk, Japan 2 days later, James back to Sydney. I used my bus time to write down all my contact details to Helen & Anouk so I can send them the waterslide videos, to which they were thrilled but there was no time to discuss further. I only hope they will contact me.

I was the last drop off seeing I was 1st on. Orion couldn’t believe I had kept my birthday secret all day denying him of further comedy. Haha. Saved. I told Orion I had been on many bus tours & he was by far the best I had ever experienced. He was most thankful, but I again reaffirmed it to ensure it was just not a throw away comment. I even did a full on praise review for Orion on the Viator platform & company website.

By the time I arrived back at my resort it was 7.15pm & with enough time to get down to the restaurant by the pool to get a great cooked meal with a scotch .. remember, it’s my birthday. One gentleman arrived at the counter the same second I did, so it was a bit of ‘who goes first’. He insisted I go first with my order & after my payment he asked how my day went. I told him I did the full day Waterfall Tour & what a great day to celebrate my birthday with great people I met. He congratulated me & then I found a table out to the rear with the footy on the TV. I had this whole area to myself.

As soon as my dinner & scotch was gone, some staff, the gentleman & his family (wife & 2 sons) sung from behind me with Happy Birthday!!!  What a great surprise & they even bought me the x-large muffin with a candle lit. I was totally blown away & thanked everyone wholeheartedly. I was so blown away I forgot to get a group photo. Bummer!!! I saw the family the next day at brekky when walking through (I had brekky in my room prior), but only for 2mins when my tour bus arrived to pick me up. I thanked them again rushing off, sadly they were leaving the region after brekky. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get their contact details.

I returned to my room to upload my Polarsteps journal & photos of today & reminisced my wonderful day, albeit without my family with me. Yes, it is not the first birthday on my own & possibly more to come. My family (children) are so busy & independent and quite some hours away from my home. My daughter is planning a post birthday get together later in May.

Post Blog: After about a week or so Dana contacted me with sincere apologies for delays in contacting me. I uploaded the waterslide videos to her & she was thrilled. We exchanged a few messages & I hope to see her in my upcoming Europe tour. She is safely back in Germany & Helen went to Bali after their Fiji trip. Quite a few weeks later Helen contacted me too, now she is still in Bali. We had a great catchup & she will advise me of her travels ongoing.

Tomorrow, I have another big tour day so I’ll end my Blog #2 here & many thanks for reading them. I’ll be able to give you an update on Anouk as well .. it will surprise you.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 1

Blog # 1

I am an owner within the Wyndham Resorts empire & to use some of my pending overdue holiday credits I became very lucky to engage a 2-bed apartment at the Wyndham Port Douglas Resort 1hour drive north of the North Queensland town of Cairns around my birthday timing. To gain such bookings in Australia since COVID is like winning a lottery, so one must take these opportunities when they show as some bookings become available 13months in advance or when a rare cancellation appears. The 2-bed apartment was also in the hope I could share it with someone or my family but as you will read on, sadly this wasn’t to be.

I spent the early time after my booking confirmation for the best available flights, hiring a car which was a nightmare, costly & full of ‘traps’ from supplier contracts & some adventure tours, etc.

I left my hometown, Yamba, NSW at 4.15am to leave my car at my son’s place at Banora Point (2hrs away) for him to wake early & drive me to Varsity Lakes Train Station (Gold Coast) to board the Airport train at 6.40am (train goes directly to the Brisbane Airport Terminals) @ $23 one way. After 90mins I arrived with plenty of time to handle the terminal construction redevelopment changes now in play. No problem through security & found my favourite eatery from last time .. The Aviary. It is so much nicer than the communal fast food outlet area. Table service too, great food & coffee. 

2hr 10mins flight time to Cairns Airport via Boeing 737-800. Flew over the coastline going North & seeing a volume of popcorn looking clouds which I’ve never seen before. Saw the magic sea colours of The Whitsundays (mineral sands floating through the sea water gives out the glowing colours). Unfortunately, the photos are not doing it justice through the airplane’s porthole windows & at 36,000ft. I did the Airlie Beach/ Whitsunday stay in 2023 & the sands & water were beyond amazing. Reaching Mackay I counted 26 container & bulk ships anchored off the coast & there must be more, as the coastline was now on my western side. Must be a massive wait time to get into the port.

Brisbane Airport
Whitsundays
Whitsundays
Whitsundays
Whitsundays

Not long after this I arrived at Cairns & was picked up by East Coast Car Hire shuttle bus for my MG car hire for 6days. They had the best deal & a breeze of a contract. From there I did the grocery shopping at Cairns Central (main shopping centre) but bought my fruit & vegies at nearby Ridleys (so cheap & fresh) & travelled further north (55mins) to my Ramada Wyndham Resort at Port Douglas where I settled into my apartment with great ease & had a well-earned sleep that night in of my upgraded apartment (2 Bed) of the Ramada Resort nestled in a melaleuca rainforest. Such a shame I couldn’t get anyone to come with me, so the 2nd bedroom & bathroom wasted, I guess. 

The resort has a great nature looking Central Pool off the large timber boardwalks & the restaurant/ bar is adjacent to the unique ‘nature’ pool & within the structure they have kept the natural strangling figs taking over the host trees & these puncture through the dining roof. Quite huge specimens & creates a great atmosphere. The pool area is perfect for families. From the pool there are separate lounge areas, perfect for chatting, reading or card games, etc.

By mid-morning I had a Wyndham ownership update meeting, then headed 2klms down the road to the Port Douglas CBD (Macrosson St is the main street full of all types of pubs, eateries & boutique shops). Being Sunday, the huge markets are on in the park at the end of Macrosson St, along Wharf St. 

From the markets I walked through the large park sighting the ANZAC Memorial full of wreaths from our annual commemoration of the landing of our ANZACs on 25th April 1915 which is heavily placed in our history where our veterans went fay & beyond and gave us our lives we enjoy now. Next to the memorial is the restored Court House of yesteryear & now a museum, such a presentation of old building construction & techniques. On the southern side of the park, I came along a restored and relocated St Mary’s By the Sea Church. Again, beautifully restored but it wasn’t open this day. A cousin of mine lived her for some 30+ years & was heavily involved in raising funds to restore & relocate this wonderful community building. Next door to this church is the famous Tin Shed … a seaside tavern of sorts linked to the fishing community. They have a large deck overlooking the bay.

Leaving the Tin Shed I walked back up Wharf St to spend a bit of time at The Central Hotel for a beer or two & listening to a great guitar/ singer performer & as Aussie as they come. Great music!! After the pub I walked right along the nature thick shoreline on a nature path at the northern end of Wharf St until I took a shortcut to get me back onto the sealed road of Island Point Rd which eventually leads you to the end for the Trinity Bay Lookout. This is the highest point of Port Douglas so there is the restored signal mast for old shipping lines & the radio/ telecommunications tower.

I met a large travelling family from India looking out over the bay & then trying to get a family photo, so I jumped in to take the photo for them & not missing any family members. They were so surprised an old Aussie guy would do that for them. Surely, I can’t be the only one to do these simple but very important gestures? When I started to look out over the bay, I could see the ‘surf club’ far below with their structured swim pool area boarded off to the remaining sea & quickly spotted a large saltwater crocodile (4m, my guess) lying still just outside the border. The Indians were amazed they had not seen it & were thrilled to be shown how these crocodiles are so free & brazen. With a cheery good-bye I walked slowly back to my hire car & then headed back to my resort, now it’s quite late & time for a beer next to the pool.

Port Douglas was established in 1877 when gold was discovered & then forest logging took place. Back then, the population was around 27,000 & with 27 hotels. The population is now around 3,700 & expands to almost triple in the peak tourist season (Winter migration from southerners). This region cops the cyclones & a couple of nasty ones have devastated the region & some of the buildings in my photos took major restoration & relocating. 

Pt Douglas is 1hr drive from Cairns & both these locations are the stepping areas for The Great Barrier Reef (largest coral reef in the world) & The Daintree Rainforest (oldest rainforest in the world). Tomorrow is my birthday & I have to get up at 5.15am to meet my pre-booked Waterfall Tour in Cairns towards Karanda & South, expecting it to be an extra special day so I’ll end my 1st blog here & many thanks for reading them. Pls stay happy, healthy & safe.

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 6

Blog 6    Days 15 & 16   21-22/11/24 Last Days

Woke up around 7.30am a little bit dusty & a very croaky voice from last night’s mini-binge outing but knowing I would be a lot better than some of my fellow drinkers (32 beers in total for us all). Sorted out my backpack & after a wake-up shower in the hope of repacking at the airport for when we leave at 6°C Max Seoul to 29°C for Sydney & Brisbane.

I sat with my favourite travellers, Maria & Ted (78 & 80) for brekky & I will truly miss them. They live in Sydney, Manly. Our check out was set for 10am so we had to log our suitcases into Reception until our bus arrives for the 5pm departure. I somehow missed the bus group after reception, so I didn’t know if anyone had something planned for their day.

Really, today is another wasted day with nothing to shop for or to really see without too much complication & walking so another wandering around to find a great cafe where I can add to my travel blog & watch the rain for 5mins. This is the only rain (drizzle) we have seen on our entire 16day trip to Japan & Korea, so we were truly blessed. Yay!!! However, Korea has been mostly freezing for me.

I walked down a few different streets but nothing to take a photo of and eventually found my way back to my normal main street & the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge where again, I found this area rather surprising & unique. This good stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built a major elevated highway over it.

Over time, the stream became a cesspit & an unsafe area, then a decision was made some decades later to demolish this highway & return the stream to some beauty for the city in a hard landscaping, construction theme (not natural edges of flora but stones, pavers, etc) & now it provides a great attraction for passive walking, city lunch gatherings & festive celebrations. At its western end is a constructed weir & waterfall that provides a good constant flow. Such imagination and ingenuity for this landmark.

Top End of Cheonggyecheon Stream

With more meandering undertaken I eventually returned to the reception of AMID Hotel where everyone was securing their luggage & in doing so, no-one had any good stories to tell of their day. Mostly just window shopping & a couple of markets. Come 5pm we are all loaded on the bus & finally EVERYONE is on board on time & not lost. First time EVER!!! Looking at my phone I had undertaken 7.61klms of walking.

The traffic to Incheon Airport (2nd largest port & 3rd largest city) which services Seoul was insane directly from leaving the hotel being end of work time & with 4hwy lanes each way mostly choked will be a very slow 90klm trip & it was. The airport is massive & amazing & basically taking up the whole island off the coast of Incheon city & even with us reaching the airport at dark, it certainly became obvious when the skyline opened like the full sun just appeared with the airport’s lighting. What a light show!!!

Getting off the bus & saying goodbye to our driver, the airport is so large we had trouble finding the Qantas check-in counter. We eventually found it on Aisle H .. & trust me, there were a lot more letters following beyond your line of sight with such a large airport. With the check-in counter closed for another hour, it gave me time to exchange currency & sort out my duty-free Scotch shopping. I allowed myself to get 2 bottles of my fav scotches (Aberlour & Balvenie). Yummo & Cheers!!!  Going through the security was OK however, one of our couples found quite a security emergency where the wife wore new sneakers she bought yesterday & the shoes tested positive for drugs & eventually was cleared with the new shoes intact. Her husband bought his new shoes at another store & those were OK after showing both purchase receipts. Whew!!

There is still enough time to review a good coffee outlet & notice a popular one down further with people lining up, but as it turned out, only 1 employee is taking the order & making the product. You’re kidding!!! Back to the start of my search & took the chance of the first option & was pleasantly surprised. A good coffee before I start the boarding circus.

Sitting at Gate 9, I was thankful for my bus friend, Ed (same age as my daughter), found me & we had our last catchup before he went to his gate to Melbourne. I’ll miss him & his humour, but he promised to call into my new hometown of Yamba when he comes up north next year. Looking at the boarding lines of both gates there were several people I will truly miss & a couple I certainly will NOT!!! Not group friendly or considerate the entire trip.

My QF88 flight is boarding 10pm, the same time as Ed’s & with a quick wave to him from a far I start to think being in a single seat, dreading sitting next to the bus horror passenger, DS from the G/Coast where I am also heading to .. I can’t print what this man did on the trip. Such disgusting, self-serving behaviour & I called him out on it the other day. He was horrid. With such relief, I had two spare seats between my other young Korean lady passenger (centre aisle of 4 seats). She was happy to take up these 3 seats & had a sleep for 95% of the 10hr flight. The flight gave us our dinner meal at 10.45pm & then lights out of course. The Korean lady had no dinner, nor breakfast & arose of course quite refreshed upon landing, but with bed hair extreme to which she was quickly rectifying.

22/11/24

No sleep, basically for me on the plane (10hrs is a long time) & was awake when the brekky trolley was pushed out around 6am. This was the time I could get to my backpack above to retrieve my pen to fill in the Australian Immigration & Customs Card provided to me when boarding.

Yikes!!!!! While sitting down to start writing, my pen leaked a ‘ton’ of blue ink out everywhere, narrowly missing my open passport, clothes & seats. Blue ink all over my hands. My opposite aisle passenger saw this & gave me a couple of fresh wipes & they were definitely blue when I finished but couldn’t get all the ink removed. That’s going to look suspect to Customs, I’m sure. Lol! I was so thankful for the young couple but now I have no pen.

Alighting from the plane & heading towards Customs/ Immigration, my favourite traveller, Maria was already waiting in line & I explained the pen ink situation & she instantly gave me her pen. Here I am trying to write, move my bag in the cattle grid line & keeping composed. Lol!! Suddenly, a line opens up & Maria & Ted were off like a shot!! I now have inherited her pen. Getting through Sydney Customs was a breeze, despite my fluoro blue hands & straight onto Gate 15, after another security check onto the Qantas inter-airport bus to the domestic terminal for Brisbane. Again, I’m dreading the thought of sitting next to DS & again the universe looked after me. Whew!!!

I again enjoyed the inter-bus trip across the airport adjacent to a taxiway I was heavily involved with in construction back in 1986 & to provide the beauty of Sydney I have uploaded some of my flight photos over the Sydney Domestic Airport, CBD & Harbour Bridge areas. The taxiway I spoke of is basically the centre of the below left photo.

Before long I was landing in Brisbane & was very thankful for my son in law, Jason to pick me up at Brisbane Domestic after his 14hr night work shift & drove me to their home in Canungra for a 2-night stay. The weather & traffic was so bad it took us 2hrs to do the drive. Jason was totally stuffed & went straight to bed after his shower & didn’t see him till later the next morning.

Such a relief to see my family & to chat about the trip & to chill out before heading home although I will spend one night with son, Matthew & his wife Ashlee at Banora Point before heading on a 2hr drive South to Yamba to review their large landscaping project they want me to undertake very soon. Reality starting to hit already.

Cheers to a great trip .. & my next one is Cairns/ Port Douglas (Nthrn Queensland, Australia) in late April. My next big trip will be Europe to catch up with some great friends in October 2025 for about 43days. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. By scrolling down to other posts you can review my entire Japan & Sth Korea trip plus keep scrolling to see my numerous other travel blogs. Happy reading … or sleeping? LOL!!!