Welcome to Rob and Noline's Homepage

Remember - "There are no strangers in the world - only friends we haven't met yet".

We love exploring new places, seeing new sights and meeting new people.
The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.
 - Marcel Proust

Rob
I have had a wander-lust for as long as I can remember.  Born in England, I followed the family tradition of moving around the world.  My family on my mother's side were mainly British army officers who were used to moving around the world as part of their work.  My grandfather grew up in Bermuda where his father had been governor of the British colony.  When he retired, he and my grandmother bought a small yacht and sailed to Europe.  Eventually, in the 1950's they settled on the nearest he could find to paradise, the island of Majorca, in the mediterranean sea off the coast of Spain.  Using this home as a base, he then proceeded to tour with a car and caravan many countries on the continents of Europe, Australasia, and Africa.  He only gave it up in the mid 1970's at the age of about 82.

My travels began at the age of 4 with my move to Australia in 1957, living first in Melbourne and then in Canberra.  At the age of 18, my mother and I made a trip back to England to visit relatives and friends.  We had many adventures along the way, including being stranded in Singapore for 3 days.  After that I decided to see Australia, so made the first of several trips by car through central Australia - the Northern Territory and the states of Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.

In 1973 I went to visit the state of Tasmania for a two week holiday.  I met a girl who lived in the town of Huonville south of Hobart and decided to stay on there.  It only lasted a few months before she and I split up and as it was coming into winter and snowing already.  So I got on the ferry and came back to the mainland and Canberra.

In 1975 my dog and I travelled to Darwin to help rebuild the city which had been blown away by a cyclone (tornado) on Christmas day 1974.  I had a 4 wheel-drive vehicle this time and travelled the infamous "Birdsville Track".  This is a stock route through the desert, or actually between Sturts Stony Desert and the Simpson Desert.  I stayed in Darwin for almost 6 months then drove back to Canberra via the west coast of Western Australia

By that time I had saved enough money to go overseas, so embarked on the obligatory young persons backpacking trip around the world.  I visited the following countries:
 

Malaysia	Norway	Scotland	Morocco
Thailand	Sweden	Wales	Spain
Taiwan	Denmark	France	Andorra
Hong Kong	Germany	Italy	Switzerland
Japan	Belgium	Monaco	Austria
Soviet Union	Holland	Tunisia	Liechtenstein
Finland	England	Algeria	Canada

Highlights of the trip:

a "hard class" train ride from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Bangkok in Thailand

2 weeks in Japan.  One of the world's beautiful countries

a steamer ride to the east coast of the Soviet Union, which was just opening up to tourists

the Trans-Siberian express train to Moscow, a trip of 8 days, with no breaks

the coastal steamer all the way down the west coast of Norway.  I still believe this is the most beautiful trips in the world.

touring England, Scotland and Wales by train and coach

a ferry trip from Italy to Tunisia

a train ride across the north of Africa through Algeria to Morocco

being robbed in Morocco

the mountains in Austria

meeting a pen friend of 10 years in Canada

We had our honeymoon in New Caledonia, a few days in Noumea, then to the village of Hiengene on the northeast coast.

Family Trips

As we were buying a house, we had no money to travel except around New South Wales until 1990.  That year we gave the children their first taste of travelling overseas by having a two week holiday in Malaysia.

In 1991 Noline and Emma had their first taste of Europe with a 3 week coach tour.  We had 3 weeks seeing of the "highlights" of western Europe, much of which Rob had already seen 15 years before.  It was pretty much a disaster and has turned us off coach travel forever.  One of the real highlights of that holiday was flying Aeroflot, the Soviet airline.  In those days it was cut lunches and outside toilets.  One passenger even started a gas stove in the aisle of the plane and boiled water for his tea.  We stopped for a few days in Moscow, which Noline and Emma didn't like.  It was exciting though because we arrived a week after the mini revolution when Boris Yeltsin stood on a tank and made his famous speech.

In 1992 Rob went alone back to England to visit relatives, stopping briefly in Bangkok each way.

In 1994 Nole and Rob both went to Europe for 7 weeks and visited the following countries:
 

South Korea	France	Norway	Finland	Holland
England	Denmark	Sweden	Germany	Belgium

In 1995 Rob again went alone back to England to visit relatives.  I also visited the south of France for a week on the beach in the sun.  On the way to Europe I stopped in the Philippines for a few days and on the way back, in Bangkok for a few days.

In 1996 Nole and Rob travelled Australia in a 4 wheel drive car for eight weeks.  This was Nole's first time in central and western Australia seeing much of what Rob had already seen on his trips around this country.  We drove across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth and then up the west coast to Darwin in the Northern Territory, stopping at many of the interesting places along the way.  From Darwin we drove south to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock) and then via the outback of South Australia and Broken Hill in New South Wales back home to Canberra.  Highlights of the trip were:

• the spectacular cliffs of the Great Australian Bight
• the longest straight stretch of road in the world (about 110km)
• the magnificent Karri forests of south western Western Australia (see these now before they cut the last of them down)
• flying in a helicopter with no doors over the fantastic rock formations of the "Bungle Bungles Ranges" in Western Australia
• the beautiful beaches near Broome, Western Australia (but not the reconstructed tourist trap that Broome now is)
• the rugged Hammersley and Kimberley mountain ranges
• the reconstructed city of Darwin which Rob had helped rebuild 20 years previously
• The desolate country around Alice Springs
• Uluru (Ayer's Rock)
• the "mound springs" and Lake Eyre along the Oodnadatta Track in South Australia

• seeing parts of Bangkok we hadn't seen before
• Thailand's second city, Chiang Mai, where we hired a motorcycle and got out into the country
• a 4 day trek among the Karen, Hmong, and other hill tribes in the "Golden Triangle"
• an elephant ride through rainforest in the pouring rain
• visiting the war memorial JEATH museum in Kanchanburi, the site of the infamous "death railway"
• a train trip along the death railway and over the bridge over the River Kwai
• spending a night on a raft in the middle of the River Kwai
• the temple ruins of the town of Ayuthaya

In 1998 we went back to Europe.  Highlights  were

• the island of Bornholm, part of Denmark, but which lies in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Germany.  We stayed with friends who live on Bornholm and were able to participate in their Mid-Summer celebrations.
• staying with Swedish friends who live on a small farm beside a pristine lake in the north-west of Sweden.
• Berlin - which is more an enormous construction site than a city.  The sense of history was palpable in Berlin
• a visit to Dachau - a former concentration camp
• the magnificent mountains and the beer in Bavaria
• the history, culture and pubs of Ireland
• the history and scenery of the Czech Republic
• climbing the Hafelekarspitze, the mountain behind Innsbruck in Austria

Write and let us know if you share our interest in travelling.

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