Sri Lanka January 2025Sri Lanka is an interesting place to visit. Our 2025 tour was group of 25 people ably led by our local tour guide Waruna and driver Roshan and assistant Sammy. We saw a mixture of cultures including the local and a colonial background which are reflected in much of modern life . This tour covered some beautiful scenic places, historical sites of significance, a very wet wildlife safari and viewing, some interesting gardens and landscapes, local cuisine and the range of natural landscapes that Sri Lanka is famous for.
The tour had a Geoffery Bawa flavour with many of the hotels that we are staying in designed by this world famous local architect and landscape designer. We also visited his estate that has been well preserved by a trust. The hotels really qre quite stunning. All in all a great tour and enough to provide inspiration for the next one in 2027! |
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Victoria - Melbourne to Mildura MarchOur Victoria Melbourne to Mildura tour was timed to coincide with the Melbourne Flower show. I was very impressed with the quality of the show gardens and of course the beautiful Exhibition Hall. We again used Ballarat Coachlines and Bernie Wilson as our host and driver. Bernie was well known to many on the tour from previous tours and for those new to him impressed as a top shelf operator and lovely person to travel with. Bernie was a great help in suggesting activities in the MIldura area (his home town). After the flower show in Melbourne we headed into the Victorian countryside firstly to Ballarat to see the botanical gardens and then a personal favourite, Lambley Nursery and Garden. 2 nights in Swan Hill followed with the main focus being the Pioneer settlement. We then had a heap of interesting local places to visit as we had 4 nights in Mildura. Australian inland Botanical garden, Lake Mungo, Murray River cruise, wineries and a few surprises. Our group of 25 got on well as always!
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New England - April
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Our short tour to the New England area of NSW was run over 3 days with 2 nights in Glen Innes. It perfectly timed to coincide with lovely autumn colour that the area is well known for. It was lovely! An inteprid group of 16 set out with my driving a Coaster type bus that soon became packed with plants and other goods....
We saw some lovely gardens and a very interesting view points. Tour highlights were of course the autumn colour, Rosecroft garden, Black Mountain Nursery, Saumarez House in Armidale, Glen Gowrie Gin distillary and Ron and Annelles garden in Stanthorpe. |
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Japan Spring Festivals tour April/MayThis tour was timed to coincide with some amazing spring festivals that Japan has become famous for. Our local Japanese guide, Mai did a wonderful job to make sure we got the most from what is a wonderful country to visit. We had plenty of tour highlights including some beautiful gardens with azaleas, wisteria, paeony, Nemophila and phlox all starring. We had a lovely group of 26 people who all seemed to get on really well. Included in the group were 3 sets of sisters, a mum and daughter duo and a few other assorted relatives! We did visit some world famous spots and also a few of my favourite secret locations....
Cities and locations visited included Nagasaki, Kokura, Hiroshima, Matsue, Kyoto, Nagoya, Mt Fuji and Tokyo |
