A bit of a hiccup leaving Cairns. The plane had a bird strike and we had to wait for an engineer to sign off on it before we could leave. 2 hours it took. Luckily we have a 7 hour layover in Singapore, so any delays at the Cairns end means a shorter wait in Singapore. The flight was rather arduous, made worse because of the lack of any onboard entertainment system. You could access the onboard wifi network to access their entertainment packages - if you had a w...

Spent last night in Cairns. Julie had a chance to catch up with Janet last night which was great - always good to catch up with her & Ketut. We are now sitting at Cairns airport ready for stage 2 - on to Singapore. We had a close look at the news this morning and it is still looking good for Paris. May have to check the Eurostar site later to make sure we can get into France. So, all things being equal, our next entry should be from Paris. Bye for now.

The day before we are due to leave. First stage of our journey is to drive to Cairns today, overnight, then fly out tomorrow. First stop Singapore with a 7 hour stopover, then London, early morning arrival, then the Eurostar to Paris. So, quite a long journey ahead of us. By now, you all would have heard the news from Paris. A bit of a worry. Both Julie and I have discussed it and we have decided to carry on with our trip. A bit more caution may be required, or ...

Geneva, our last stop before we fly back home. Our journey is almost at an end. The final drive down from Strasbourg took about 5 hours, including another drive over the alps. This one wasn't as spectacular as the first drive from Grenoble to Asti, we were driving in rain and fog for most of the time so we didn't get to see much mountain scenery. So, another trip has come to a close. Ten different countries, 26 cities, 26 hotels, more than 7500km of driving. To ...

So here we are back in France. Spent the last three days in Strasbourg. A beautiful city on the confluence of the rivers Rhine and L'ill. Strasbourg is a city of two identities. Being in the midst of the Alsace region, it has been, historically, either German or French, with touches of Swiss. In fact, Strasbourg and the Alsace region was a bone of contention with Hitler leading up to WWII. Consequently, it is a city with two personalities. There are both Frenc...