It seems we have a bit of a theme happening at the moment. Two week stays except our three nights in Singapore at the end of our cruise.
After 24 weeks in New Zealand it seemed like a surreal feeling of leaving home to go home.
We ran into the first person we knew on the train home to Central Coast. I hadn’t seen Robyn King for several years so was great chatting all the way home.
Jacki, James daughter and partner Adam meet us at the station and it was hugs all round.
We picked up our truck from storage and headed to our friends Christine and Jim’s place where we had been offered accommodation downstairs at their home.
BINGO! we win… what a great little apartment, everything we needed to enjoy our next two weeks. A kitchen, dining, lounge, bedroom and bathroom. I particularly loved the recliner chair that also spun around. I think every time Christine or Jim passed by I was in it.
Christine had thoughtfully stocked a few things to make our first days easy. In fact they were so amazing we were humbled by their generosity and kindness.
The two weeks flew by as always, catching up with so many of our dearest friends and family including all four of our children living in Australia.
A few office type jobs and professional visits filled in the rest of the days and before we knew it we were packing our suitcases again and heading to the train station to travel to the city to start our cruise to Singapore.
EXPLORER OF THE SEAS, MARCH 29-APRIL 13, 2019
SINGAPORE.
We had been looking forward to this cruise as we were to be travelling with our dear friends David and Janine who I have known for over 30 years.
What a great time we all had. The ship was The Royal Caribbean, Explorer of the seas. We had never travelled with Royal Caribbean before but were very impressed overall.
We easily fell into a little routine of breakfast at 9 am together unless it was a shore day. We would pick out what we would do together that day and meet at the scheduled times and enjoy lots of laughs and of course the wonderful dinners then shows.
Our first stop was Brisbane and we had organised to be met by Gay and John who we met on our world cruise in 2017. They are great fun and we had a lovely time catching up, they are about to do the world cruise again this year lucky ducks.
At lunch time Warren and Leanne came to do the tag team switch, and over a lovely lunch we were able to talk about our reunion trip that we are doing next year together with some of the people we both travelled with in 2010 where we met.
It was a great day catching up with people who have remained part of our lives mostly because of the an enjoyment of travel and thanks to Facebook.
Our next two expected stops were Airlie beach and Cairns and it was extremely disappointing that the weather didn’t allow for these tender only ports to be accessed. We were mostly disappointed about Cairns as we were going to catch up with our mates Julie and Matt whom we also met on our 2017 cruise. They are incredible fun and I know we will see them again sometime as they’re just too special not too.
Fortunately Darwin was a two day stop and with a dock everyone was glad to hit land for a few days.
James cousin Tony and his beautiful and bubbly wife Judy picked us up for an amazing day and evening of food, drink, great company and family time.
We had the pleasure of meeting their wonderful daughter Nadine last year when we were there on another cruise and this time we got to see her again and meet her lovely partner Stephen and his grand parents who incredibly were on our cruise.
The next day Tony and Judy once more picked us up and took us shopping for the few things we wanted then we enjoyed a wonderful wine or two, ok three at the waterfront oyster bar before it was time to hug them goodbye and sail off towards Singapore.
On the last few days of the cruise we finally got to enjoy some chilling by the pool days which had been sadly lacking due to the weather.
We also grabbed some great sunset shots.
SINGAPORE APRIL 13-16, 2019
And then just like that we were off the ship and taking a taxi van to our hotel where Janine and David’s friends Mark and Jay were also staying having flown into Singapore a few days earlier.
We managed to share one breakfast with them and a fabulous high tea at the Fullerton Bay hotel, highly recommended. Both couples were leaving the same day as us but they would be headed home to Australia and we to Bali.
Our time in Singapore was mostly to spend time with daughter Allison and it was wonderful to see her and enjoy some quality time together. Unfortunately James had caught a cold on the last few days of the cruise but he managed a few of the outings and also got to rest as well.
We had a lovely dinner with her partner James and his family as well as time relaxing by the enormous pool area at their apartment.
Allison lives and works in the same four tower complex. It has some pretty incredible architecture and the most amazing pools. Other than the Olympic size swimming pool there is a smaller heated one and even one that has gym equipment in it, such a great idea. You can use a rowing machine and bicycle etc while keeping cool in the water!
Allison and I also did a pretty extensive walk around town and all the way to their place with a little stop for iced coffee atop of the art gallery which had a great view.
Dinner at a local hawkers market ended a great day.
Although it was sad to say goodbye as we left Singapore to fly to Bali it wasn’t as difficult, knowing we would be back in just over two weeks to enjoy a family long weekend reunion with her two brothers and our grandson Jett.
Offtolivetheworld 