A day exploring Alice Springs . We started with a short drive and a visit to the very beautiful Simpsons Gap. I really like this place. It’s peaceful and fascinating. It’s also home to a clan of black footed Wallabies. We didn’t see them though. They were hiding somewhere doing whatever black footed Wallabies do …
Ice Cold In Alice
Today we drove from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs, a journey of about six hours, and just under 500 km. The road was straight for nearly all of the journey, except for two turns. The landscape was largely empty desert. Australia is both huge and empty. The video below gives you a taster of what …
Rocks
Okay. We’ve had a wonderful time at Ayers Rock, but this post will be a little short of text because I’m really tired. Our hotel was messing us around a little bit, so this was one of the times where I had to earn my money as a tour manager. But let’s not worry about …
Reef
Today we visited the great barrier reef, courtesy of the highly polished and professional team at Quicksilver Cruises. Our shiny metal boat took us out from Port Douglas to the reef. once we arrived, there was a large pontoon to which we moored, and from where a large number of activities were available. Snorkelling, SCUBA …
Never Get Out Of The Duck
After two long flights, we made it to Cairns in northern Queensland. From here, you can explore both the rainforest and the great barrier reef (we’re doing the reef tomorrow, and today we did the rainforest) . Cairns is a tropical town. The temperature today was in the 90s with humidity running at about 95%. …
Straya
Tuesday morning I'm off to Oz to ride The Ghan. The Tour is Ultimate Australia and the Ghan for Great Rail Journeys, and the map below shows where we're off to (We've had to reshuffle a couple of days due to various things not running on the promised days) but it shows the route plan …
End Of The Line
today is the last full day of our tour to Alsace. Tomorrow we return to London via Paris on the Eurostar. This morning we travelled up into the Vosges Mountains to visit our friends at The Abreschviller Forest Railway. Another friend, a Mallet locomotive runs along an old logging line. The scenery was beautiful in …
La Cité du Train
Yesterday we steamed for a while with our friends at the Kandertalbahn, once again on a private steam charter. Video below…. Today was different. We travelled by service train to Mulhouse and then by tram to the Cité du Train. This remarkable and attractive museum is the largest rail museum in Europe. It’s beautifully presented …
The Mallet
Today we visited the Train Thur Doller Alsace. Another group of heritage rail volunteers who could not have been more charming and helpful! Due to unforeseen circs we had to shuffle the excursions round on a couple of days, including today. The rail team were happy to help us with an extended rail journey and …
Steam at Volgelsheim
A fabulous morning with this delightful train steaming from Volgelsheim station. This was a private whole train charter so we were able to organise mini photographic opportunities. We had some great high speed run pasts (I call these drive-bys, because for some reason, that’s how it’s stuck in my head, which amuses some enthusiasts and …