Roon and Family around Oz

T+ 85      The Butterfly Ball. “Love Is All. Everybody's got to live together. All the people got to understand. So, love your neighbour. Like you love your brother.”  Love is everything it can make you sing at the Butterfly Ball Love is all love is all love is all.” (Roger Glover - Love is All) Now, not exactly known for being one of life’s incurable romantics you would have concluded, reading or possibly even singing the above, that isolation and social distancing in the Beast has had the inevitable consequence and that I’ve lost the plot. Quite possibly, but here in Paradise (pop 2,200 + 3 and a dog) the most amazing thing is happening. We are surrounded, enveloped and otherwise embraced by cloud upon cloud of Blue Tiger butterflies. It’s like a benign and startlingly blue version of a plague of locusts, except they don’t eat everything in sight like teenagers and border collies. The sky is literally full of them and has been for weeks. Talk about bl...

T+  62        Lady Musgrave Island We’d missed out on Lady Musgrave when we were in Bundaberg due to the tail end of a cyclone making the crossing impossible. Bundaberg and 1770 are the only ports which offer trips to the Lady. The good news is we’re now in 1770, possibly for ever, and to our pleasant surprise the tour to Lady Musgrave is running. The not so good news is that the Bundy operator runs a large boat with stabilisers. The 1770 operator has a much smaller catamaran which whilst fast, has a reputation for inducing people to search the ocean for hugheee on a regular basis. Not ones to be put off by such scaremongering we purchase our tickets, a large quantity of Quells and set off  at crack of dawn by bicycle to the marina for the 2 hour trip out. The first thing we noticed on boarding was a large and visible quantity of airline style sick-bags. The safety briefing by the young and enthusiastic crew was predomianently in-depth t...

T + 58 to now.      Repelling all boarders or is that borders? 1770 and Agnes Water Borders are in the news these days. Toby’s not too happy. He’s a Border and doesn’t want to be closed, inspected, patrolled or fined for not social distancing from the Labrador next door. I have no doubt that soon Borders will be banned from crossing borders or even boarding a stranded motorhome. Hard to comprehend really that Australia now has real internal borders, although to be fair you always had to dispense of your fruit and veg in a bin when crossing one. Annoying when you’ve just stopped at a roadside stall for fresh veggies and didn’t know any better. Borderline crazy. When it comes to borders, I’m old school. A border should be a border. Now, the Iron Curtain – that was a border. Jane & I lived in Bulgaria from 1987 to 1990 and had to negotiate it on a regular basis. It was seriously and excitingly intimidating. Just like a cold-war or WW2 movie, Great ...

T+51     Bundaberg , Bargara and Mon Repos I've been a jogger since my early 20's. A long time ago. I run and run but sadly have never been able to hide. Jogging, though masochistic and knee destroying, is a great and cheap way to get to know a new place.  So on arrival late afternoon in Bundaberg where most people would be heading for the distillery tour and a rum and coke, I go for a run through the town centre and along the river. It was very quiet, almost eerily so. Hardly anybody on the streets or in the shops, not even the Bundy polar bear. Nobody seemed to smile as you acknowledge them with a quick hi when jogging along. Unusual, as a sweaty and clearly out of condition elderly runner like me is usually rewarded with a pitying smile and a howyadoin. And then belatedly it occurred to me - the virus and the measures are taking hold. Like everybody we're immersed in the news and TV, but being on the road it hasn't quite registered as to the immensity and speed...

T+ 46       Hervey Bay & Flying Tales Q.    What has a Mary Poppins museum, Mary Poppins statue, Mary Poppins festival and wait for it … Mary Poppins traffic lights? A.    No, not Disneyland but Maryborough!   Aptly named, but not alas for Ms Poppins or even the Virgin, but for the fact that it lies on the banks of the previously mentioned and most attractive Mary River. Turns out that Pamela Lyndon Travers, the creator of our Mary was born and raised here back in 1899. Who would have thought it. And I always thought Julie Andrews wrote it or was it Dick Van Dyke?          Anyway, Maryborough is the perfect stopping point halfway between Noosa and Hervey Bay. Not only can you immerse yourself in Poppins-lore but on a more sombre note explore the excellent ANZAC outdoor memorial, a 200 metre long, interactive history of Australia’s involvement in WW1. Even on a hot day with nobody else around i...