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 exteremely relived to get to the airport, where we got held up fo r 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!
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.
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
Our first trip to Japan! See the pictures HERE
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..
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!
I bought a new plant for Jeff's house the other day.. It's an Haworthia (I think).. Whatever.. Jeff LOVES it.. sits in it for hours and hours 😉 And has a bit of a nibble on it too! The Red tint is from his heatlamp, btw...
Dani mentioned in passing one day that she had been into a Garden Centre/Pet store (Olivers) and they had a very friendly and cool Bearded Dragon sitting on the counter.
I happened to be driving past Olivers a couple of days later, and thought I'd pop in for a looksee, as I've always had a bit of a fascination with Reptiles, but had never taken the time to really check them out.
Sadly, the adult Beardie had moved on the day before, but they had a whole tank full of Babies - and were they cute? Oh yeah!
So, not content with two needy Golden Retrievers to occupy my time I left Olivers (Really nice people BTW) with a shiny new Reptile tank!
And of course : Jeff!
More astute readers may have noticed the missing piece in this puzzle.. The research. Yep, I did absolutely NO research before bringing Jeff home, and a bit of a learning curve ensued.. lots of browsing forums and articles about Bearded Dragons, their needs and quirks.
Evidently Beardies are rather particular (needy?) concerning their environment, so I soon embarked on a mission to make his house nicer for him, and to try and make him comfortable. 3 Weeks later, his tank looked like THIS :
Already, visitors are commenting that Jeff's house is nicer than mine 🙁
More of Jeff's story soon..