Another blissful morning at the beach. We arrived here exhausted from our all night journey from Dubai. The first thing that struck me while waiting at the Kenya Airlines gate in Dubai was the colour. After all the black and white in Dubai ( men in white, women in black) it was wonderful to see the colourful headdresses of the African women. We transited in Nairobi and flew over Kilimanjaro getting an amazing view of the top. Touched down at Kilimanjaro then fi...

Last few hours in Dubai and so much I haven't written. The desert smog from sand particles in the air, the way our glasses fog up when we step outside into the heat, the cleanliness everywhere- no one eats on the run, no food or drink or chewing gum on the metro. The malls with every imaginable chain from Cotton On to Marks and Spencer's, Bloomingdales, Tiffanies ... a shopper's paradise and our nightmare. The pride of a city built on sand with vision and desi...

Here we are in the city of shimmering heat and malls! Somehow, we who hate malls seem to always find ourselves wandering aimlessly around malls on our first day in a new city. That is of course when we are not traipsing the streets in the heat of the day! Our first day in Dubai was surprisingly full given that we arrived at 7am after a 14 hour flight from Melbourne. We bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus and away we went marvelling at the architecture a...

And so the spending and decision making has already begun. All the whatifs and maybes. Typhoid jab, tetanis booster, malaria meds, Hep A, $$$$$$. What weight sleeping bag should we take? Will we need shoes and sandals? What to wear in the heat of Dubai? What to wear in the cold of Melbourne? How much cash should we take? And, most importantly, when should we vote??

In 1910 my great aunt Evelyn voyaged to Africa from England to help her sister take care of her first born in Fort Jamieson, NE Rhodesia. Aunt Evelyn travelled by train, ship, paddle steamer, bicycle and machila, a journey of 9 weeks and 2 days. For 296 miles she travelled overland with her brother in law George who was my grandfather, up through Nyasaland to Fort Jamieson in NE Rhodesia. They rode bicycles apart from about 60 miles when she was carried in a h...