Update:  I am re-instating our blog so you can know where we are and what we are doing.  You can check in from time to time if you are interested, rather than my invading your email space or trying to keep up with informing friends and relatives of our movements.  I will try to keep everyone informed in a timely matter.  Note:  When friends are mentioned, we did not write last names to protect their privacy.

Another year has flashed by!  We are off to Europe for 3 months from April 6th, 2025, to July 8th.

Catching up on a bit of history (the following is not mandatory reading):  Our property in the Hunter Valley is now surrounded by 'Aria', a 'Luxury Land' development.  All blocks must be 2000m square or bigger.  The developers, 'LWP', have a bare-earth policy.  They say in their pamphlet, to paraphrase, "No tree will stand in the way of your future house."  At times, so much dust was raised that work had to be stopped!  We were shocked to realise that streetlights are now in our sightline.

They have blocked our access road, and now the main Aria entrance is the one we use.  So after 40- some years, our Street address, Suburb, and Post code will change.  It will no longer be 1443 Wine Country Drive, but 30 Crown Line Drive, Rothbury, 2320.  For non-balloonists, a 'crown line' is the rope line that attaches to a hot-air balloon's top (crown) to assist in inflation and deflation.  We didn't choose this street name, and we don't know who or how it has come about.
I will send out a notification when this new address is in use.  It is supposed to be in action now, but no one seems to be aware of it yet. 

Past Travel:  A highlight of our 2023 boat season in Valence, France, was a trip to Annonay. (For non-balloonists, Annonay was the town SW of Lyon where the Montgolfier Brothers (paper-makers) built the first hot-air balloon in 1783.)  We met 'Captain Ludo' who operates Ardèche Montgolfiers.  He introduced us to other balloonists, not to mention a table-load of local delicacies and wine.  Ludo Guicherd also has a small museum full of '1 and 2-man balloons (no basket, just a single or double chair hung under a balloon), the best historic collection we have ever seen.

We travelled up the Rhone on our boat, through the Ardèche region, famous for its Shiraz wine, which we love in the Hunter Valley, where we live. The towns of Tain l'Hermitage and Tournon-sur-Rhone were interesting places for us to visit, considering we live in the Australian equivalent. The Hunter Valley is famous for its Hermitage wine, now called Shiraz.

And now on to the following '24 boat season:  We had flown over to the UK to hook up with friends,  balloonist Tony and his partner, Alison, for a 2-week trip from Bergen, Norway, up the coast on a Hurtigruten postal ship.  The object was to see the Northern Lights.  This was not successful, i.e., there was no Aurora, solid cloud cover with wind and rain, and a ship full of sick people when the Norovirus successfully arrived.  After that experience, we flew back to the UK, then onto Switzerland to stay with Sally, a ballooning friend near Crans-Montana (home of the rich and famous), then across to our favourite French farmhouse loft apartment, L'Abbayotte.  We ended the season back in the UK, visiting other ballooning friends, Chris and Phillipa, in their beautiful, stately, picture-perfect home in Norfolk.  We hired a boat on the Norfolk Broads for a week and had great fun on this 'plastic fantastic', visiting multiple pubs along the shoreline.  Following our boat trip, we visited another friend, Elizabeth, at her amazing home in London.  We immensely enjoyed her showing us her favourite haunts around Hamstead Health and other historic areas near her, not to mention a fabulous luncheon at the House of Lords!  We felt very privileged.

After two years of battling with blood pressure and pulse problems, which seemed to have a mind of their own,  I (Judy) had 3 heart ops to calm everything down. I am now back to exercising and am in good health.  Peter has been doing wonderfully well since his surprise quadruple bypass 3 years ago.

Which brings us to this year! We are planning to get serious about selling our boat.  April, May and June will see us travelling around Europe, visiting friends, and enjoying the food of France but not the wine.  Sadly, we have both become teetotallers due to medication and weight gain and what better place to test our willpower than the country of food and wine!

We both realise we are slowing down and will not have the stamina or strength to continue such a hectic pace.  Our mental Rotary index files are getting rustier with each passing year.  But when all is said and done, we consider ourselves blessed with the life we have.

The next blog update will probably be from the boat in 3 weeks.  Thank you for bearing with us and reading this.

We are in the U.S.

Peter and I are in the U.S.  My mother died on August 12th, at 4:03 in the afternoon.  It was a peaceful passing with relatives surrounding her.

We were in Switzerland when the phone call came through at 4:00 in the morning.  We were on a plane a bit more than 24 hours later.

Back home.

We are back in the Hunter Valley.  Easy trip home if you can call sitting on an airplane for 16 hours 'easy'. It is now June 11th. We crossed the timeline and lost a day, so June 10th didn't exist for us.

I will now sign off this blog until our next trip, whenever that may be.

Taste buds are weird.

Something very strange has happened to my taste buds. I don't seem to have any.  I can distinguish temperature and texture of the food, but not taste. Toast, eggs, and coffee all taste the same...awful.  I am hoping it is because of the Medecine the local pharmacy gave me for this terrible cough and cold I have.  And now Peter has the start of a cold.

We took the bus back to Lima today. 

Ataca Desert

We are in the Ataca Desert, the driest place on earth with 0% humidity. The scenery is like a lunar landscape. The town gets their water from the Andes Mountains via an underground aquaduct, over 100 kms long, built by the ancient Nazca people over 2,000 years ago and still in use! Today, we saw a sand dune that was 6,000 feet high. And deep in the desert, we visited a Necropolis where the ancient Nazca buried their dead, perfectly preserved mummies due to the dry atmosphere. But this remarkable site is in very poor condition with human bones scattered everywhere and looting still going on. 

Nazca Lines

We are on another bus trip down to Nazca. Eight hour trip, but seats reclined, they showed two movies, and the bus had wifi. 
Upon reaching Nazca, we were taken straight to the airport and flew over the Nazca Lines for an hour. The hieroglyphs, some miles long going over hill and dale, are remarkable. How and why they did it is still a mystery, although one theory for the 'why' is that they were an ancient calendar. Again, ancient civilisations and what they accomplished still amaze us. 

Another airplane.

We left our jungle lodge via trek, boat ride, bus ride, then taxi to the airport. We had 3 hours to kill before our flight left so we went into Puerto Modanaldo and found a 'Chifa', which is a Chinese Restaurant. All four of us (we are traveling with David and Roberta Levin) ate beautiful, fresh Chinese food for $5 each. Got to Lima and we are staying at the most beautiful guest house called Antigua Miraflores. 

Jungle Treks

Day started at 4:30 am with a trek to a 'Canopy tower' in the jungle, followed by breakfast and then a 2 1/2 hour trek through the jungle. Saw different species of birds, monkeys, insects, and learned about plants in the rain forest. Ground was muddy, decaying matter everywhere, and leaves and tree trunks were wet. So were we by the time we finished but is was a really interesting expedition.  In the afternoon, we visited a farmer from the local tribe.  He wore blue jeans and a tee shirt, had a wife and four children, and had a farm for papayas and bananas.  His local garden for his family contained corn and other grains.  

Busy every day...

Unfortunately, I have developed a bad cough, a virus or bacteria which is sapping my energy. It started on our Galapagos Cruise and has slowly gotten worse. Today, I did the dawn trek, but then went back to our room and slept most of the day. We did a late afternoon trek to visit a Shaman, the local village doctor, which was very interesting.  We tried his remedies for arthritis, ulcers, and a love potion. Didn't work too well as we both fell asleep as soon as our head hit the pillow. 

Flew from Cusco to the Rainforest.

We are now in the Peruvian jungle, camped beside a tributary of the Amazon.  I am sitting under mosquito netting.  Our 'room' has 3 Bamboo sides, the 4th side is open to the jungle.  But we have electricity and a very slow wifi between 6:00 and 9:00 each evening!  They have warned us not to have any food in our room at any time as it will attract animals during the night.

Our day tomorrow starts at 4:00 a.m. when we have breakfast and then go on a jungle trek.  We come back at 9:00 and do some bird watching from a 'blind' erected in the jungle.  They said it is too hot and steamy to do anything much between 10:00 and 4:00.  We can watch the monkeys playing in the trees while we sit on our bed. 

Walking Tours are good!

Did a Walking Tour of Cusco. Saw streets we otherwise would never have walked down. Had lunch at a local café.... lots of pig and potatoes. It was very tasty, but I still can't eat very much. Also, the miriad of steps did me in. 

Easy day of meeting friends...

Visited a history museum in the morning, and then met David and Roberta Levin, friends from the U.S., for lunch.  Had ceviche, a local specialty of raw fish marinated in lime juice.  Spent most of the afternoon doing 'chores', ie, writing and mailing postcards, finding a fax machine, doing banking, etc.

Praise The Lord and pass the pig...

We wandered into the main square this morning, hoping to visit a museum or two.  We didn't realise today is a huge public holiday, Corpus Christie and the Festival of the Guinea Pig.  Thousands of people gathered in the square as the day went on.  A mass was held on the steps of the cathedral with 51 priests, 2 cardinals, and 1 bishop.
We met another Australian couple and ended up spending a very enjoyable day with them.  We joined in the festivities and ordered the traditional guinea pig for lunch at one of the stalls.  Peter abstained as his stomach still wasn't up to par.  The meal was surprisingly good!
We then witnessed the main parade with religious floats so large on platforms, they were each carried by up to 40 men.  We have never experienced anything like this before.  Great fun.  We hope to visit museums tomorrow!

Returned to Cusco

We took an 8 hour, 'luxury' bus trip back to Cusco today.  We had upper deck front seats with a good view, but we were in full sun, like a glass house.  Shades did not work, seats did not incline, and air conditioning was woeful.  Started at 8:30 am and hit some sort of road protest...hundreds of people had put large rocks on one lane on the one road out of town.  Huge traffic jam.  Once clear of that, we had a flat tire.  Now, being two hours or so late, the driver drove like a maniac and Peter and I, having an upper front seat, saw all the near misses.  Because we were late, the driver did not stop at the lunch place, but drove straight through.  Then we were stopped by police, who came on board and dragged a Peruvian lady off the bus amidst loud protests with braids, hat and skirt flying in all directions.  (She, so the gossip went, was smuggling goods in from Bolivia.) All in all, a very hot, unpleasant trip!  We arrived safely.  I was hungry, Peter felt sick.  We are now back in our comfortable hacienda.  Peter is asleep.  I am catching up on emails and blog.

People living on Floating Islands

We did a day trip on a boat, out to Uros, the floating island people.  Incredibly interesting, but their way of life and culture is doomed.  They subsistance live and supplement their lifestyle with tourism. But I can't see the younger generation continuing this tradition.  They make the base of their community on a bed of reeds that float.  Hundreds of years ago, they did this for protection of not being found by the Spanish invaders.  No reason to live like this now, except these are the poorest of the poor with no land and only fishing skills to exist.  There are 5 to 10 families living on each island, 56 islands, 2000 people make up this culture.  Each family on an island has a bed hut made of reeds, but everything else is communal on that island.  The communal kitchen is the only fire, and this is built on a clay pot base.  One island holds a school, another a hospital, and another...a 7th Day Adventist Church.  Their boats are reeds and this is how they travel between islands.  The islands are not tied to each other, but anchored to reed beds for safety in times of storm.

Can't get more basic than this...

Slept in this morning. We are at 13,000 feet or more and we both feel sluggish and can't eat.  We did a tour this afternoon of a pre inca site and also visited a 'farm' if you could call it that.  Rock huts in a walled complex...a bedroom, a store room, a guinea pig house, a corral for the alpacas, a hut to store alpaca poo (used for fuel), and a sort of indoor/outdoor kitchen hut.  Their diet is corn, potatoes, and a sort of carrot, oats, and quinoa, alpaca and guinea pig on occasion.  No electricity or Running water.  Really basic living. And it is freezing cold.  No fire or warmth in the huts..  The whole family sleep in one bed for warmth.
The bed is a base of rocks, then two layers of reeds, then a layer of alpaca skins, then blankets.

Lake Titicaca

Did a 10 hour bus trip today, from Cusco to Puno, a city on the side of Lake Titicaca, 11,000 ft., going over a 14,222 ft pass.  We saw big herds of alpacas and llamas above 12,000 ft. All of the inhabitants of this area live on subsistence farming, using bullocks to plow their fields. There is not a car, tractor, or vehicle of any kind in sight. Some dwellings have electricity, most do not.  No running water to be seen. Trip was interesting as we stopped in many places learning about the history of the people. We visited Museums, villages, archeological sites, and churches. 

It seems to me that the jihad Muslims of today are following the same path as the Spanish took with 'Catholicism' 500 years ago in this country. Anyone who did not give up their faith and accept Jesus as the only saviour were savages, infidels, and deserved to be punished. Terrorism through religion reigned supreme. 

Filling in details...

When we were on the Gapagagos Islands, we had no Internet. I took notes, and now I am filling in those dates, I.e. May 12th-19th.  So if you want to know about our trip there, go back to those dates.

Today, in Cusco, Peru, we visited some amazing Inca sites.  Their knowledge of construction, astronomy, agriculture, teaching methods were all remarkable.  They had no alphabet so no written language. They used strings with knots to count, a precursor to the abacus.  Their culture, buildings, and lifestyle were totally destroyed by the Spanish conquerors in the name of Catholicism, but really it was to claim gold and silver for the Spanish crown.

Machu Picchu is not for the faint hearted or the elderly.

Words can't possibly describe this place.  I have seen countless pictures and read about it, but nothing prepares you for the setting and the scale of this ancient city sitting on the top of a mountain.
I am so glad Peter and I have seen it now, because climbing all over the area at this height is quite difficult.  We took it slowly, but after four hours, we were exhausted.
This isn't the high season, yet the amount of people viewing the sight was staggering.  They only allow 2,500 people per day, but a bus arrives at the gate, disgorging people, every 5 minutes.
Peru is a third world country, but they have this tourist thing down to a fine art.
And you need a strong constitution to be on a huge bus, careening up or down the mountain on a one lane track.  Corners became quite interesting, not to mention traffic coming the other way!

Agua Caliente, base of Macchu Pichu

We took the train through the Andes to this amazing tourist trap.  All streets are lined with accommodation places, restaurants, or small trinket shops.  But it seems to be carved out of the base of the mountains, as they rise steeply on either side of the small village.  Tourism is the only way they can eke out a living.