Our youngest daughter Shashana, had been bantering for some time for us to do something special with her and take a break from work. We had also been discussing for some time that the worlds largest monolith Mt Augustus was practically on our doorstep. So we decided to make a long weekend of it and include Coral Bay in our excursion.Coral Bay is a special place in its own right, one of the few places in the world where one can enjoy swimming on a coral reef from ...

Next morning when we arose we were greeted with the approach to the popular Malaysian resort island of Langkowi. The view from the Virgo was picture perfect with small deserted tropical islands dotting the calm waters as we sailed toward Langkowi's jetty. The jetty was quite long and more prestigious looking than the one we docked at in Phuket.Once we had disembarked we shunned the offers of transport and walked into town. The town area was far less boisterou...

The Ship sailed on through the night but when we climbed out of bed the next morning the storm had abated. We were greeted with a true cruise ship day which we set about enjoying, taking in a spa or two and some sun, then we remembered we had a substantial bar tab, so made a fairly early start on reducing same. There were some two for one style bargains so of course we had to take advantage. Some time that afternoon we reached Phuket and docked at the very empty ...

9/11 changed the world forever. One change was immediate, most of the world stopped travelling. This meant that the Virgo cruise ship sailing out of Singapore twas hit with a wave of cancellations and as a result cheaper fares were being advertised. As Avan had a birthday on 15th Sept Heather jumped in and grabbed an amazing birthday present. It was a time when we were having serious staff and business difficulties but nothing could compare with the gloom created...

After leaving Cairns we stopped in Alice Springs, then Adelaide before flying to Kangaroo Island. Heather's sister Joyleen and her husband Garry owned and operated holiday units on the island and we had been invited to stay. The island is quite large, and when in the farming areas you could be forgiven for forgetting it is an island, not the mainland.The name Kangaroo Island to my of thinking is a bit of a misnomer given they are actually wallaby's on th...