Travels WithJohn and Janice

Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

Showing 9 of 236 posts

Kobus at KnysnaSouth Africa
6 min read2006

Our Guide and Friend in South Africa, Kobus de Jonge

Years before we started this blog, in the South African autumn of 2006, we took a trip we have never stopped talking about, planned and guided by a remarkable man named Kobus de Jonge. From Table Mountain and the Cape wineries to an Easter dinner with local farmers, the steam train to Knysna, and the Big Five at Kruger, Kobus showed us the South Africa the locals love. This is the story of the guide who became a lifelong friend, with much more of the trip still to come from Janice.

#South Africa#Kobus de Jonge#Jewel of Africa Safaris
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Kookaburras on the electric wires at Narooma, New South WalesAustralia
8 min read2015

Dateline March 2, 2015, Melbourne to Sydney

We enjoyed our final breakfast at Robinsons with Stanley saying his goodbyes, packed the car, and Paul gave us directions to the M-1. His suggestion for the first night was Metung, a small fishing village where Paul's family had summered when he was a boy. From there it was Eden (with golf among the friendliest kangaroos we had met yet), then two nights in Narooma at Anchors Aweigh B&B with Heather and Kerry, where the train ran through the ceiling, the kookaburras on the wires had two chicks, and a crow at Narooma Golf Club stole John's yellow ball and flew with it out over the ocean. A picnic on the way at Bega Valley with prawns, leftover steak, and the last bottle of Lambert Estate sparkling. The Blow Hole at Kiama as we drove north. Then Pete behind the wheel for the run into Sydney, and the keys to our final room at The Russell Hotel on the Rocks. We returned the car to Avis and closed out 4,200 miles of driving between New Zealand and Australia.

#australia#victoria#new-south-wales
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The Great Ocean Drive coastline, Victoria, AustraliaAustralia
4 min read2015

Dateline February 26, 2015, The Great Ocean Drive

As we left Port Fairy we knew we were close to starting one of the most beautiful drives in the world. John and Janice had done the drive in 2009; this was Pete and Bunny's first time. The Great Ocean Road is more than a string of fabulous beaches, cute towns, and spectacular cliff and rock formations. It is also a war memorial. Survey work began in August 1918, and thousands of returned WWI soldiers descended on the area with picks, shovels, and horse-drawn carts. The first stage, linking Lorne and Eastern View, was completed in 1922, and the full route was officially opened on November 26, 1932. We drove toward Apollo Bay with frequent stops: Bell's Beach for the surfers, the Bay of Islands for the rock formations, London Bridge (which famously broke off the mainland in 1990 and stranded a few tourists who had to be helicoptered out), the Grotto for the ocean-level view, the Twelve Apostles (which is, historically speaking, a kind of marketing miracle), and the Otway Lighthouse in the Great Otway National Park, where we watched a mother koala let her baby out of her pouch and onto its own little perch in the tree. Apollo Bay for dinner at Casalingo. Onward in the morning.

#australia#victoria#great-ocean-road
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The kangaroos at Anglesea Golf Club, Victoria, AustraliaAustralia
3 min read2015

Dateline February 27, 2015, Anglesea Golf Club

We drove out from our motel in Apollo Bay with a planned stop for breakfast at the Wye Cafe, about twenty minutes up the coast. John and Janice noticed on arriving that it was the same cafe they had stopped at on a previous Melbourne to Adelaide drive — a small coincidence to start the day. Then on to Anglesea Golf Club for the round we had been waiting for. Anglesea is famous for the kangaroos who share the fairways with the golfers. Looking out from the clubhouse before our 1:15 tee time, we couldn't see a single one. The pro told us they sleep in the heat of the day and start feeding as it cools. We started on the 10th hole. By the 11th green, our first mob. From there, it was constant. Many of the kangaroos wore collars with names — permanent members of the club, we figured. The course was a good test of golf, except for the part where there are kangaroos everywhere and you cannot stop taking pictures of them. The pictures tell the story.

#australia#victoria#anglesea
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A koala at the Parndana Wildlife Park on Kangaroo Island, South AustraliaAustralia
7 min read2015

Dateline February 15, 2015, Kangaroo Island, Meet the Koala

We left the Lambert Estate Retreat, headed over to Jim and Pam's to buy a few bottles for the drive to Sydney, and pointed the car at the Cape Jervis ferry through the Adelaide Hills route to Hahndorf, the oldest German town in Australia, settled in 1838 by fifty-four families escaping religious persecution. We strolled the shops and had lunch in town, then caught the 4:00 ferry across to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island. We were based in Kingscote for two nights. Over a motel dinner that turned into wine and conversation, we met Terry Modern from Victor Harbor, who was on the island for the Kangaroo Island Cup Carnival. The next morning we drove to the Parndana Wildlife Park, fed the smaller, darker island kangaroos in the enclosure, and met Dana, the conservationist who walked us through the koala — marsupial, related to kangaroos not bears, threatened more by drought and chlamydia than by predators, sixteen thousand on the island and ten thousand sterilized to keep the population in balance with the foliage. Two of Dana's rescues had been raised in a burlap bag with formula. Then on to Flinders Chase, where koalas sat in the trees right above our car, and out to the Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch, and Weirs Cove on the wild south coast. A wonderful two days.

#australia#south-australia#kangaroo-island
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Coming down the road into the valley toward Queenstown and the Millbrook ResortNew Zealand
8 min read2015

Dateline February 10, 2015, Millbrook Resort and Queenstown

We came down into the valley to our final base in New Zealand, the Millbrook Resort, just outside Queenstown. The one-lane bridges in this part of the country are a queueing art form, watching the arrows to figure out who has the right of way. We checked into a two-bedroom cottage on the golf course. It was Pete's birthday on the 6th, so we let him pick dinner; he wanted to eat in. Janice and Bunny made the grocery run and came back with the most beautiful rainbow we had seen in a while. The week that followed was a series of rounds at Millbrook, a side trip to Arrowtown for Stephanie's recommended tapas at La Rumbla, an introduction to New Zealand's Blue Duck vodka, an extra night that Will Owen rescued for us when we found an error in our own schedule, a rained-out tee time at The Hills (refunded), a visit to the Kiwi Birdlife Park, the Queenstown gondola, and two old men attempting the Haka in front of an All Blacks poster. We close out New Zealand at Jack's Point, in the next post.

#new-zealand#south-island#queenstown
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Sheep mowing the side of the highway on the South Island, New ZealandNew Zealand
5 min read2015

Dateline February 3, 2015, Christchurch

We left the Marlborough Valley early in the morning and drove south toward Christchurch. We made a roadside stop on the way and discovered we were at the Ōhau Point Seal Colony, a New Zealand fur seal breeding ground about twenty-five kilometers north of Kaikōura. Pupping season had just passed, and there were many babies playing on the rocks and in the tidal pools, and a few having lunch with their mothers. In Christchurch we checked into the Classic Villa B&B, an 1850s home where the lovely Alisa met us at the door. The city was four years out from the February 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people and demolished much of the center. The recovery was slow. The shops had moved into temporary buildings on the edge of the reconstruction zone. A San Francisco infrastructure expert who was staying at the B&B told the hostess that Christchurch had taken more damage than San Francisco's quake. We ate lamb burgers for dinner. Janice was wiped out from driving and called it early. At breakfast the next morning, Janice fell into a long conversation with two sheep farmers, and we got a whole education on the NZ sheep and beef business. Then on toward Terrace Downs, where we encountered a herd of sheep doing the highway maintenance work.

#new-zealand#south-island#ohau-point
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Old Faithful erupting, Yellowstone National ParkUnited States
6 min read2013

Dateline July 4, 2013, Yellowstone National Park

Out of Cody on the morning of the 4th, the short drive west into Yellowstone. Through Shoshone National Forest, in past Yellowstone Lake with its hot pools steaming along the shore, an elk in the trees. Two days of southern loop and northern loop with everything Yellowstone is famous for: Old Faithful erupting (Artemisia Geyser around the corner, easily as beautiful), a grizzly on the road, a 5:00 AM Janice drive up to Hayden Valley with John still asleep in the back, a bison herd that brought their late-season babies right past the rig within touching distance, Tower Falls, a pair of black bears crossing the road, and a Saturday morning so quiet that you could see a female elk just grazing alongside the lake. Then south to the Tetons.

#wyoming#yellowstone-national-park#yellowstone
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A Northern Gannet soaring along the cliffs at Cape Saint Mary's Ecological ReserveCanada
3 min read2012

Dateline July 12, 2012, Arriving in Newfoundland and Cape Saint Mary's

The overnight ferry from North Sydney to Argentia, Newfoundland. A huge ship, ten decks, cabin with two bunk beds and an easy crossing. From Argentia, a 90-minute drive south to Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve at the southwest tip of the Avalon Peninsula, one of the most accessible great seabird colonies in North America. We arrived in dense fog, almost gave up, and got pointed out the mile-long path to the colony by a ranger who promised the fog would lift at the end. He was right. 70,000 birds in the air and on the cliffs: Northern Gannets, Black-Legged Kittiwakes, and Common Murres. The lighthouse finally came into view on the way back.

#canada#newfoundland#argentia
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