We often watch the Big Duck Boat belting around the bay and islands chasing whales and Dolphins, and thought it was about time we went and checked it!

We had a great time - sadly no whales as the season has finished, but we saw sealions and loads of dolphins, and finally got to see what the other side of the islands looks like!

Highly recommended!

Pictures 2026

Our third trip to Japan!  We just love it there for so many reasons - the people, the food, the scenery - the respect!

This time we started in Okinawa, basing ourselves in Naha and hiring a car to explore the island, which felt like a cross between Hawaii and Cairns to me. The weather was a bit unkind to us, but we still saw plenty. We had a week, but in all honesty 3-4 days would have been plenty.

Next we flew onto Hokkaido, staying in Soporro and relying on buses for transport. Hokkaido prides itself on being a mecca for food and drink afficionados, and that claim is well justified in our opinion. We landed right in the middle of the Soporro Food and Wine festival, which is held on a kilometer long strip a city block wide right in the middle of the city. Normally a lovely park, the festival has it full of food and drink stands - and it was AMAZING!  We enjoyed every moment of our time in Hokkaido and would return in an instant.

Our last week was spent in Tokyo, where stayed in Asakusa, one of the oldest areas in Tokyo. The atmosphere is great, and it is local to the Skytree and Senjo Temple (both of which we'd visited already).  We had several day trips out to outlying areas like Yokohama and Kawagoe, using the amazing train system.

The only glitch was that the night we left Tokyo a cyclone hit, shutting down all the freeways and forcing our (very brave) Uber driver to get us to the airport by back road and country lanes, dodging road blocks and bursting river banks - very exciting! We were extremely relived to get to the airport, where we got held up for several hours because the flight crew got delayed too!

Once again, a very enjoyable trip and I say once again - if you haven't visited Japan - do it!

Pictures HERE

And here's our "As it happened" Blog! 

In March 2026 my great pal Steve and I hopped on a plane to go and visit another pal, Geoff, who I had worked with way back at Hostworks and remained good friends with.  Geoff had just bought a 40 foot Catamaran and was preparing to start some extensive travels.

After landing we hit the trains and eventually found our way to Runaway Bay, where the boat had just moored after coming out of dry dock.  Beautiful spot!  Steve moved on to visit friends on the sunshine coast, and Geoff and I sailed on northward, having some great adventures on the way - including running aground twice - once having to call out the coastguardm who couldn't help us. Luckily (after a night on the mud flats) the tide floated us the next morning and we were on our way.  We met Ben and Chase (the Surfboarding Kelpie - see video below) and ended up on North Keppel Island, which I loved.  From there I hopped on a ferry back to Brisbane and flew up to Townsville, spending a few very relaxing days with close friends Gazza and Beth!  All in all a great break, loved every minute!

Chase, the Kelpie!

There are some more videos on the Holiday Page

And a day by day blog of the time with Geoff

It's always  been a dream to go on a (Camera) Safari, and this year we made it happen!  We started out with 2 days in Kruger National Park, spent a couple more in Capetown, then flew on to Zimbabwe where we stayed in an amazing lodge and cruised the Zambesi River having drinks and nibbles. FAfter a day at the beautiful Victoria Falls we drove into  Botswana where we had the best Safari Day of all at Chobe National Park - lots of 4-wheel driving and another amazing river trip.
Then it was on to Morocco for another 2 fantastic weeks, making some lovely new friends in Casablanca and even venturing into the Sahara Desert on Camels.
We wound the trip down with a few days in Istanbul, enjoying the famous Grand Bazaar and wandering around the city and Mosques.

Pictures HERE

And here's the trip as it happened!

I have been a big fan of Meross gear for years, using it where possible to power my automated home.

Recently though, I received an email from Meross giving me 72 hours to fix an "issue" that my equipment was sending messages to their cloud server at an unaceptable rate.

The email contained no information about which device(s) were creating the problem.

I responded immediately to their "support" team (I use the term jokingly), requesting more details, but they failed to respond in a timely manner, and my cloud service was shut down, causing me to lose access to several critical devices.

I did some searching on the content of the email, and the issue appears to be related to using Home Assistant (I think the most commonly used Home Automation software), so I removed the Meross module from Home Assistant, whilst continuing to converse with Merross "Support" to identify the actual issue so that I could resolve it.

The final email from "Support" was this :

Please double-check your installation to ensure the following: avoid using any APIs or plugins such as Home Assistant, or ensure the cloud access limit is not exceeded (no more than 200 messages per hour, per device).

So, Meross do NOT support Home Assistant (in fact they actively discriminate against it), which makes it a deal breaker for me (and doubtless millions of others).

I will be replacing my Meross equipment with something I can rely on, and encouraging others to do the same.

Very disappointing.

Japan was so good we had to go back again!

This trip we got off the main Island and hired a car to drive around the island of Shikoku. We based ourselves in Kochi, the capital city. The island is beautiful, and we had a great time exploring.

You can see my photos HERE

And our day by day blog of the Holiday

Our first trip to Japan!

We shared the trip with Dani's Niece Bella and her boyfriend Damian. Bella and Dani did most of the planning and it turned out really well! We got to experience so much of Japan, including the Skytree, the Bullet Trains, Hiroshima Peace Park and more.

See the pictures HERE or check out the daily blog below.

After having been laid up for (quite a few) years, the FC is back in business again!  Jason from REVS replaced the frozen injectors, good buddy Matt helped me detail it, a new set of boots and she runs like new again!  I'd forgotten what a lovely car she is..

This trip wasn’t really planned, and grew out of a comment from Dani’s Mum that she’d like to visit her family in Italy sometime. It eventuated into also taking my Mum back to the UK, meeting up with my Son and his family there, and then everyone except the Nonnas spending 7 weeks touring Italy by Train! I made a big mistake on this this trip though. I decided NOT to pack a real camera and to depend on my phone for pictures instead. Although it was certainly easier not carrying around a camera case, chargers, etc it really took the enjoyment of taking pictures away, and I ended up taking much less and really not enjoying it. Phones take great pictures nowadays, but the process and feel is really sub-par IMHO.

More Pictures HERE

And view the day by day blog below

When my brother Kev passed last year, I "inherited" a pair of sunglasses that he had in his car.

Kev had planned on going to the UK this year to visit with his mates at beloved West Ham FC, but sadly that never eventuated.

We had also spoken of visiting all our relatives in the U.K., and possibly travelling around a few other places, making an extended trip of it.

Moving on, this year Dani and I took our mothers back to Italy and the U.K. respectively, and my son Chris joined us with his partner Ericka and my grandson Jaxon.

I had a bit of a silly idea to take the SunGlasses with me, so that Kev might still get a look around through them 🙂

We spent a week in the U.K., and then 7 weeks moving the length and breadth of Italy, so although Kev never got to make his dream trip in person, he did in spirit, as "he" accompanied us everywhere, and everyone in our little party made sure that I never left "Kev" on a train or in a hotel room 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the trip, Kev!