Senior Morton's World Tour
Kids are done, work is done, Grand Kids…Eh… they'll be here when we get back!
We have found the Internet!
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 04 27th, 201326 April
We are really in South Africa and have found a tiny little pocket where there is Wi-Fi . It is late so we will try and update things tomorrow if this little pocket is still here. Here’s hoping……………!!
read comments (0)More from Perth ….
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 04 27th, 2013Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 April
We spent another quiet but relaxing day on Monday. After sleeping in until WA time, we did some further shopping in the morning and then went around to see Aunty Bun who looked remarkably well all things considered. Janet was there also as she is taking care of her mother at the moment.
On Tuesday morning we went up to Byford for a coffee, where we hoped to catch up with Sue Murfitt. however we weren’t able to contact her. After lunch we did a tour of Armadale, in particular the other nicer side of Armadale, then went over to Churchmans Brook where the ashes were scattered last month and had afternoon tea in the lovely surrounds. Then it was back home to pack and get ready for our flight to South Africa. Penelope drove us there and we arrived at the airport about 8 pm in the dark. We had quite a bit of trouble finding the correct departure place, with all the building going on there. We booked in and as we were going through security we had to go into a booth for an X-ray photo. I went through and came out and saw a blob on my shirt pocket which turned out to be a toothpick. Jill went through and she came out looking like Guy Fawkes! She was then promptly taken aside and frisked by a burly security lady, only to discover that the metallic thread in her blouse was the cause of the problem. So much for modern technology!
SMS from Dad
Posted by Craig in Adventures on 04 25th, 2013Just got this SMS from Dad and thought I would share with you all…
“Having problem with internet no blog let everyone know arrived safely all ok Dad”
Relaxing day
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 04 22nd, 2013Sunday 21st April
A quiet day today adjusting to the time. Weather is sort of overcast with occasional bursts of sunshine, but quite mild in the early 20’s. We went up to the local shops in the morning as we didn’t have any Wi Fi for the I-Pad, so we purchased a Telstra card and put it into the computer, then organized the authorization. ( I hope Craig is impressed that I mastered the technology all by myself!!) So once again we have our blog.
In the afternoon we drove out to meet my cousin Marian and her husband Alan Perkins and spent a very pleasant afternoon with them catching up on some WA news. I forgot my camera , so wasn’t able to take any photos. It was a quiet day relaxing.
The trip that nearly wasn’t!
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 04 21st, 201320th April
Well we nearly didn’t make it! I was going through all our travel paperwork and I noticed there was nothing that looked like a ticket. I felt we should go to the travel agent and enquire why, but Jill said ” don’t be silly, they don’t use tickets now” and the agent who gave us our itinerary should know what they are doing. Having seen all those films where people turn up to the airport without any tickets or passports, I wasn’t convinced, so decided to phone and they said ” Yes, you should have tickets, would you like to come and get them!!” I think we would have looked rather silly in South Africa trying to convince them that we should be allowed to fly on their aeroplanes without tickets!! Anyway, we arrived at the airport having been delivered there by Fi, with our luggage, passports and tickets where we were confronted by many booking in computers instead of booking staff. We duly looked helpless and a kind Qantas gentleman came and guided us through the booking process and we were soon through the baggage check and headed off to our departure gate.
The trip across to Perth however didn’t earn Qantas any brownie points. We found out their marvellous new fangled ticketing systems placed Jill in row 55 and me in row 56 right behind her. I noticed later that within 3 seats of where we were sitting there were ten obviously single travellers. So we complained to the stewardess and luckily we were able to swop with one of the single travellers. Lunch came and they had run out of whatever it was that was good and we got what was left. For afternoon refreshment, they simply ran out and gave us whatever they could lay their hands on. So, I am not inclined to recommend Qantas to any other travelers. Let’s hope our next leg of the journey is better!! We arrived in Perth 15 minutes early, but they forgot to tell the person who drives the disembarking arm and so we had a 15 minute wait for him to turn up before we could leave the plane. We were met by Penelope and managed to get home without any further incidents about 4.30 pm Perth time.
Yes, we’re off again!
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 04 14th, 2013Sunday 14th April 2013
Yes we’re heading off again, this time to Perth and South Africa and so we are busy getting everything ready. This trip is going to be more catching up with family than touring around, but who knows we may get a bit of sightseeing in along the way.
Hope you enjoy travelling with us.
Grandpa fulfilling his final babysitting duties at Nicola’s house before we leave.
Someone’s got the bug again…
Posted by Craig in Adventures on 04 5th, 2013Sounds like someone has got the travel bug again, so to encourage them to keep us entertained on their travels I have freshened up their travel blog (sorry the old mission brown just wasn’t doing it for me!!).
Have added a really cool new feature too… on the left hand side of the blog home page you can quickly and easily subscribe!
Why would I want to subscribe I hear you say? Well by subscribing you will automagically (technical term) get an email everytime they post something new!
Yes that’s right you wont have to check everyday just in case they posted!
To subscribe, just enter your email address in the box provided and click subscribe. We will send you an email to confirm, and simply click on the ‘Confirm Follow’ box and wha-la!!
All done and you will never miss another post 🙂
By the way… you can do the same thing to follow my blog at http://caravan.mymorton.net *hint hint* yes I love to hear that people actually read all that we write…
Anyway, good luck and all the best Mum and Dad, and can’t wait to read all about your new adventures…
Farewell London and happy birthday Craig!
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 10 19th, 2011Tuesday 18th October
Let’s start off by saying happy birthday Craig, which we should have said yesterday as he is so far ahead of us! Hope he managed to have a great day.
An earlier start today as it is our last day in London. We caught a tube to Cannon Street station, as I wanted to replace the photos I lost of Tower bridge and theThames River at low tide. Got some nice photos then walked along the river bank towards the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We came to the tower and walked around the perimeter and got some more photos. Then we crossed over the Tower Bridge by foot. I got a photo of Jill with one foot either side of the drawbridge looking far down into the river. After we crossed the bridge we walked back towards the Globe Theatre along the Southern Embankment. The HMS Belfast, a World War II warship is permanently moored in the Thames as a memorial. This is a very old, less developed part of London with a lot of interesting back streets. We came across a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s Galleon called the Golden Hinde in which from 1577 to 1580 he sailed 140,000 miles, including sailing around the world. Then we came across the ruins of Winchester Palace which was the home of a 12th century bishop.
We eventually arrived at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and had a guided tour around the theatre. Unfortunately the season for the actors had finished a couple of weeks earlier so we couldn’t see any performance, but it was very interesting nevertheless. It was also interesting that for the several theatres in the area at the time of Shakespeare, the main competition was the bloody and cruel sport of bear baiting, where a large Russian bear would be tied to a pole and dogs set on it to kill it. This was one of the favourite sports for Queen Elizabeth I.
We continued walking, and crossed over the Millennium Bridge until we reached St. Paul ‘s Cathedral where we replaced some more lost photos and got some pics of the protest against the economic situation here.
Then we became a bit disorientated, but found some very interesting back streets and landed up back in Fleet Street, so we had our lunch (stuffed potato in its jacket) in a cafe there before continuing up Fleet Street until we reached Temple Bar where we saw the Royal Court of Justice. We then headed for the nearest underground station where it turned out that Jill’s oyster card had been drained of its balance, even though we had put money on it this morning. When exiting the station this morning at Cannon Street she had inadvertently clicked out and then clicked in again, so all money on the card was used up. Had to eventually put more money on the card after some deliberation with the ticket officers. We then decided to go to Marble Arch and see if there was anything worth buying at Primark. There wasn’t however, so we wandered down Oxford Street until one of us (Jill) was exhausted, so we had a cup of tea then got the tube back to Earls Court for the final time.
So, this is the end of our blog!! The whole trip has been rather exhausting but most enjoyable and we would happily do it all over again. Our only disappointment was that we didn’t get to see much of Shaun, but understand that he needed to accept the job.
THE END
A walk through Kensington Gardens …
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 10 18th, 2011Monday 17th October
Today we started off the morning by packaging up and posting off the numerous leaflets we have accumulated to try and lighten the weight load. Then we headed to Kensington High Street shopping centre to do some shopping. As we didn’t end up buying anything, we then decided to go and look at the Princess Diana Memorial in the Kensington Gardens which was nearby.
We saw the outside of Kensington Palace which was Princess Diana’s home and also where William and Kate stay when they are in London. Kensington Gardens is a huge park with lots of trees and a really lovely place to walk through. We walked over to Hyde Park which is separated from Kensington Gardens by a lake and then came to Princess Diana’s Memorial Fountain. The fountain is amazingly unimpressive!
We continued walking through Hyde Park until we came to the exit near Wellington’s Arch. I got a photo of the Archilles Memorial which is made out of melted down French canons from the Napoleonic War. We wandered over to the impressive Wellington Arch and had a look also at the relatively new Australian War Memorial, which was completed in 2007.
As it was getting late we managed to catch a train (together this time!) back to Earl’s Court. When we arrived there, we bumped into an Australian couple who were on the last tour with us. Who said London was a big place?!!
Last day tomorrow, so hope to have a final look at what London has to offer.
British museum
Posted by laurie and jill in Adventures on 10 17th, 2011Sunday 16th October
Today we brought the blog up to date. Hooray for that!! It was becoming a hard chore towards the end as we were so far behind, but I’m sure I will appreciate it in years to come.
We had a late start, but we decided to go by tube to Holborn station to visit the British museum. However on the way, I was deciding which train to catch and Jill jumped on the train that was already there with the doors closing and me still on the platform! I signalled to her to go one station and get off, which fortunately she understood. The next train followed two minutes later so I got on this and she was there waiting for me at the next station. She was rather unhappy with me however, as she had absolutely no money with her!!
We eventually found our way to the museum and boy oh boy is it a huge building! We wandered around, but in fact you could spend several days there and Jill wasn’t feeling the best due to the flu bug she got on the final day of the tour. So I will have to place it high on my list for my next visit to London!!???
Several things I did note – there were human skeletons ranging in age from 1,000 to 3,000 years and they all had remarkably good teeth!! Dentistry wouldn’t have been profitable two thousand years ago. We saw a number of Egyptian mummies and other artefacts that had been looted in past centuries, when it was a case of either the museum removed them or coffin thieves raided them and sold them on the black Market. No-one could create a museum such as this now that each country has rights to what is found in its country.
Another thing was the Islamic section which explained the difference between Sunni, which means tradition where followers believe the prophet did not designate an heir on his death in 632 AD. The decision of leader was left to the community. The alternate Shia, meaning party, believed that the prophet’s cousin Ali, who married the prophet’s daughter was the rightful heir. This just goes to show how similar they were to the early British monarchy, as wars have been fought over this just as they did in England.
When we came home we went to go and get some food for our dinner, only to find they don’t work Australian hours and were closed. So I had to walk back to Earls Court Road which was full of life and managed to get our groceries there.
The weather has been quite good and sunny since we returned to London but is about to turn cold tomorrow. I wonder what it is like in Australia, as we have absolutely no news!I??
