Tag: Photos

Far North Queensland Highlights

We spent our last months in Australia sailing north along the east coast before heading west to Darwin. From Townsville up the coast to Thursday Island, we visited memorable spots and met cool people. We stopped in fun cities and beautiful islands, our Far North Queensland highlights.

About Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the sprawling but not very populous region north of Townsville. Its biggest city is Cairns, and it is best known for The Great Barrier Reef, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and a UNESCO heritage site.

Map of Far North Queensland
Map of Far North Queensland

Off the mainland coast of Far North Queensland are many islands in the Great Barrier Reef, some of which we were lucky to visit.

Stops in Far North Queensland

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A Week in Singapore

We’ve spent over a year in Australia, and are looking ahead to our next cruising destinations. Yet, we still have a lot of ground to travel in Australia to set ourselves up for that next jump. Once we got to Townsville, we decided to take a trip out of the country to reset our visas. We looked at flights from Townsville and chose to spend a week in Singapore.

Singapore Visa Run

This is not our first time making a visa run, leaving a country for a short time to extend our stay. To extend our Australian visa, we left our boat in the Townsville marina, as we did for last year’s visit to North America, and hopped a plane for Singapore.

Why We Chose Singapore

We explored all the international places we could fly to from Townsville. All options take several hours and two flights (from Townsville and then Brisbane). Even flying to Auckland was a 6 hour journey, plus we’ve already been there and it’s winter. We’ve had enough of winter. Singapore was close, warm, and a new destination. So we booked it.

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Our Tokyo Adventure

We arrived in Tokyo at the break of dawn after two flights and a layover, a long day. After taking the train into the city, we dropped our bags at a hotel (not our hotel, but close enough), and started exploring. Our Tokyo adventure began with a free walking tour and continued with lots of fun in Japan’s sprawling capital city. Our introduction to Japan, Tokyo is overwhelming and enchanting and we loved it.

About Tokyo

Tokyo is so big that all the neighborhoods are their own cities. It is massive, both physically and population-wise. In fact, Tokyo has the largest population of any city, with 37 million people. I have lived in big cities, including NYC, and Tokyo still overwhelmed me. It’s bigger and busier and electric. The good news is, it is very safe. If we got lost, we found help, and if we lost something, it was returned to us.

Overview of Our Tokyo Adventure

We had five days and nights for Tokyo, and we did a lot but also barely scraped the surface. Since we planned it so last minute while waiting on our boat insurance, we didn’t book any of the big attractions in advance. Our Toyko adventure was more about experiencing the city.

Free Walking Tour

We arrived in Japan early in the morning, so after dropping off our luggage and fueling up with much needed coffee, we took a free walking tour. The three hour tour hit a couple of neighborhoods, including Akihabara and Ueno Park. Still, the guide gave us some great tips and we got some exercise after our long trip from Australia.

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