Well that was a little surprising. Here we were thinking that we had been cruising slowly upstream through the night only to find out we were still moored at the dock.... The boat hadn't moved an inch,If you think that life on board the boat is "cruisey" think again. The schedule is full and the activities come thick and fast. There is no rest for the wicked or even "the lucky ones".Our dining table is set for the cruise and each meal is shared with an Austra...

As Kathy pointed out days ago, in retirement, Mac has enjoyed a leisurely 10 or 11 am start to most days so this morning's 5.30 am wake-up call was more like his bedtime during any northern hemisphere sporting event! But we were ready right on the dot of 6.15 am when the porter knocked at the door to take the luggage to our car (the new bag has worked a treat).Jenny and Mr Shin were ready with smiles and a packed breakfast and the trek to the early morning fl...

How could this day be anything but super special? It was always my favourite in the itinerary and we have been in training for a while!"Day 5 – Xi'an - Run to the Big Goose Pagoda"Luckily, Mr Shin and Jenny saved us and arrived on the dot of 9.30 ..... although in terms of muscle fatigue we have just about recovered from Monday's efforts on The Great Wall.First order of business was to visit the Buddhist temple...the Goose Pagoda.....referred to as ...

Just saying, lucky to be here blogging tonight! I believe with every fibre of my Chinese heart that I am here because my soup had three NOT four mini wontons in it! (For the non-Chinese literate...four is the number of "death".....no fourth floor indicated in the lifts in hotels...three wontons much better than four!)Anyway, it was 9.10 pm and the Tang Dynasty show had ended and at 9.12 as arranged we emerged from the theatre to see our driver reversing our car u...

Another early day with the alarm sounding at 6.30 am. The first challenge was to get everything back into the suitcases. Mmmmm, I am TOTALLY convinced we have brought too much stuff - we certainly need to be better at this! But after some swapping and trading we did have it all assembled before breakfast.True to form, Howard arrived precisely on time....with a THIRD driver in tow. We didn't even want to ask what happened to Mr Young. But we did navigate the m...