Definitely not going to Dubbo

Well, the Dubbo and Cowra trip has now officially been cancelled as there's no chance I'll be able to drive. I'm still wearing the moon boot and have been referred off to see an orthopaedic surgeon, whose first available appointment is in January.  No-one seems to think that missing a trip to Dubbo is that big a deal, but I was looking forward to it - I've never been to the Western Plains Zoo, and there were other interesting things to do there and in Cowra too.  But, it's definitely not an option without a car  :-(
So, Adam and I are going to go to Sydney instead.  Not 100% thrilling, but we'll find things to do.  There are a few shows on, and no doubt there'll be post-Christmas sales to look at.  And, the Carnival Spirit - the ship Paul and I are sailing on for our anniversary cruise - will be in port on 27 December, so I might wander down and have a look.
About later holiday plans - I have come across another way to see Gallipoli which looks really interesting.  It's a special deal from a cruise holidays company which we have used before (they organised most of our 2010 US 'holiday and cruise home').  This one is a 21 day Mediterranean cruise which ticks off at least three bucket list items - Gallipoli, Santorini and Pompeii - as well as a stack of other places that may not be on the bucket list but will still be worth a look.  I'm going to send them an eMail about it and see where it takes us, but to be honest I think it's still more likely that we'd do it in 2014 rather than next year.
Anyway, I'm heading back to Flickr to finish uploading the holiday photos.......

Turkey....

The country, not the bird.
The cruise on the Carnival Spirit is our only planned holiday for 2013, although we'll probably both request leave for September 2013 and see if any super-cheap cruises or package holidays show up closer to the time.
However, 2014 is a bit different - I'm already looking at options for another overseas trip that year, hopefully without broken bones this time  :-)
Four main things we'd really like to do

• a coach tour of Turkey - maybe like this one - this is a must do for us since we decided to cancel our booking for the Gallipoli 100th anniversary cruise
• a Baltic cruise
• a battlefields tour of the Western Front
• see some more of the UK

No idea yet of how to wrap these all together, but I've got plenty of time to work it out - assuming that we aim for September 2014, I couldn't start booking any of this until late next year.  No doubt, we'll have come up with plenty of other ideas in the meantime!!!

Sprains and fractures.......

Apparently whenever someone sprains their ankle badly, the standard medical procedure should be to at least take an xRay, as there's a risk that a bad sprain can actually cause a sort of fracture to the ankle (an avulsion fracture).
Turns out, that's what happened to me in London when I fell, back in August.  The doctor I saw in London didn't mention this, and obviously the bone didn't have a chance of healing without the proper treatment.
Result:  from the knee down my right leg is now in a 'moon boot', holding it immobile in the hope it will heal.  After that - with any luck - I'll only need about 2 months of rehabilitation to get it back into shape.  Ouch.
The real problem of course is that I can't drive with the moon boot on, which means that my next little holiday - the trip to Dubbo and Cowra that Adam and I have planned - is seriously unlikely to happen.  There's just no way to get to Dubbo from here on public transport.   So, it's back to the planning board!

28 to 30 October - day 69/70 - the long flight home

Of course, we lose a day flying home from Los Angeles.  We started off flying with Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to Auckland.  When we checked in, the lady at Air New Zealand could see that I wasn't really using the crutches and offered to check them in for me - that was really nice of her, but I wasn't sure I'd ever see them again!
Anyway, on this flight we had a Skycouch - three seats for the two of us, and with footrests that lock up level with the seats to create a couch. Success with this was mixed, to be honest.  We did manage to both lie down and even get some sleep, but Paul can't sleep on his side for too long (because of his shoulders) and there really isn't room for sleeping on your back.  I had no problem with the small amount of sideways space, but not being able to stretch my legs out was quite uncomfortable.  In the end we put the footrests up on two of the seats and took turns - one of us would sit up and the other would lie across the two seats.  It wasn't too bad, and certainly more comfortable than sitting up for 13 hours.  I'm still not sure if we'd do it that way again though.  It would be quite ok for one person, and I think still a lot cheaper than business class.
Anyway, the plane was quite clean and comfortable, the in-flight entertainment was good - basically it was as good as you can expect a 13 hour flight to be.
The transit in Auckland was fine, in fact it was excellent compared to the chaos of our transit in Dubai at the start of the trip. Of course, the fact that there were far fewer passengers going through transit may have helped.  Anyway, the flight across to Sydney was also not too bad.
Arrival in Sydney was ok - even my crutches showed up!  Only one problem - at Customs, they decided that we should use the automated arrival machines.  I don't think it's sensible to ask two 50+ year olds to use new technology after 15 hours on a plane!  We managed ok, although we had to answer 'yes' to the question about whether we had been in Central/South America in the last 7 days, and this machine came up with a list of about 40 countries and we had about 10 seconds to say whether or not we had been to one of them.  I was pretty sure that 'No' was the right answer.  The next time I was asked about this was by a person, and I used the magic words "it was on a cruise" - as I suspected, they were looking for people who had been trekking in the jungles, and she waved us on through!
After that, no dramas at all - caught a train to the domestic terminal, lazed around in the Qantas Club for a few hours (waiting for the next flight on a jet, as I had no desire to fly on one of those tiny Dash planes, and anyway I always knew our carry-on would be too big for one of those flights) then finally a pre-booked limo ride home from Canberra Airport.

Sunday 28 October - day 68 - Los Angeles

Arrived in port on time - got up and had breakfast, left our cabin just before 8am (everyone had to be out of their cabin by then).  Because of our "platinum" status we got to wait in a "dedicated" lounge rather than having to wait with the crowds in the other lounges.  Good thing too because departure was delayed - the first people were due to leave the ship at 7:00am but it was almost 8:30 before they could leave.  We were due to leave at 9:40; by that time they had caught up a bit, but it was still after 10am before our group was called.  Often those people looking for a 7:00am departure have taken the risk of trying for a 9:00 or 10:00 am plane out of LAX - I suspect that more than one of them might have missed their flight. No such risk for us - our flight out of LAX wasn't until 11:00pm.

After a good deal of thought about this, I decided that the best way to fill in some time was to go on a tour.  The cruise line used to offer these, but they don't have them in Los Angeles any more.  So, I booked a private tour with Tours By Locals.  Basically, they have a bunch of local people who have pre-determined tours of varying lengths - usually between 4 and 12 hours although I've seen at least one 11 day one! - covering all sorts of different sights in the city in question (they're all over the world).

Our particular tour was actually called "Explore LA your way", which is one that isn't actually pre-organised - as it says, you see what you want to see.

It was really good - the guide (Emily) picked us up in her car at the cruise port with no problems.  She had already asked us to name some places we wanted to see, and she took us to them and also to a bunch of other places that fitted in with where we were going, with a lot of explanations about all of the places we went to.  Basically for places we went into, she'd park the car outside, explain anything we needed to know about where to go etc, then she'd either wait for us or come back and get us when we called.  While we drove from place to place she would talk about Los Angeles - the history of the places we were going to, or information about places we drove past - she was just a mine of information (as you'd have to be in her job!)

These aren't in the order we saw them - the first six are the ones we asked to see, and the rest are the extras she showed us anyway.

USS Iowa - this was really easy as it's docked right beside the spot where the Coral Princess docked.
We did a quick tour and took some photos - later they'll have some different organised tours but for now
it's all pretty much 'show yourself around'.
Here's a photo of the Coral Princess as seen from the USS Iowa, and vice versa:

And a photo of Paul:

Walt Disney Concert Hall - I didn't take any photos because they don't do it justice, I just wanted to see it for real.

The Griffith Observatory - this was an incredible drive - apparently half of Los Angeles wanted to go to Griffith Park or to the observatory for the afternoon and there were cars parked all along the (narrow and winding) approach road.  Emily drove the entire way without a blink about the traffic while at the same time explaining the history of the park and the observatory to us. There's a really interesting back story to Griffith Park including a curse and a long history of financial failures.  However the park itself now is apparently a really popular place for hiking, and the observatory of course provides excellent views of land and sky.

California Science Centre - a bit closer to Questacon than I expected, but currently has a really good exhibition on Cleopatra. Here's one of the recently unearthed statues:

Santa Monica Pier - another place I just wanted to see for myself.  You see lots of bits and pieces of it in TV shows etc, but now I have seen it I know what it really looks like!

Le Brea Tar Pits - what more can I say?

Architecture of Los Angeles - Emily showed us some of the buildings around downtown, including the Millenium Biltmore which has some really unexpected and beautiful features.  Have a look at the link - it really is a beautiful hotel (with room prices to match - $500 to $5000 per night for a random night next week!)

Spanish settlement - we stopped and had a break at Olvera Street which is a very old part of downtown Los Angeles.  There's a Mexican marketplace (where we bought a very non-Mexican icecream), a very old Fire Station and church, and the Avila Adobe house which is the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles.  We also saw some of the celebrations leading up to the Day of the Dead.  Emily assures us that this area is more Mexican than anything we saw in Mexico!

Houses - we got to see a small area of beautifully maintained Victorian era houses - I had no idea there'd be such houses in Los Angeles.  Also on the way to see the Hollywood sign, we got to see some quite beautiful houses in the "Castle" and "Fairy Tale" styles.

Hollywood Sign - we got to what is apparently the closest spot from where you can see the front of the sign.  Emily also explained the history of the sign and showed us the Real Estate Agency - Hollywood Land Real Estate - that started it all off.  No zoom here - we really were that close!

Emily finally dropped us off at LAX for our flight.  Even if we were brave enough to drive in the USA, we would never have known to to even look for some of these places.  This was a really good way to spend the day - much better than waiting at LAX for more than 12 hours! - and was really worth the cost.

Saturday 27 October - day 67- Coral Princess Panama Canal Cruise Day 13 - at sea

Another lazy cruise day today for the last day on board.  For the first and only day, the temperature is low enough that we could both comfortably sit on our balcony for more than a short time, so we did!
The only other effort we made today was of course packing - bags have to be left out tonight for departure in the morning.  I was quite worried that we'd have problems with the size / weight of our bags for the flights home, but in fact it all looks ok!

Friday 26 October - day 66 - Coral Princess Panama Canal Cruise Day 12 - Cabo San Lucas

Arrived at Cabo San Lucas early in the morning.  We went on shore and went for a walk, but the heat really hit Paul hard so we cut the walk short and came back to the ship.
It's a lovely place if you like beach resorts - all sorts of beaches and water sports and lots of duty free shops and hotels.
Rest of the day was a proper cruise day - laze round and do nothing.