A Turtle Eclipse of the Sun....

Exmouth at last....After a lot of planning and exploring we finally settled on where we would watch the eclipse from... and it turned out to be a winner!

We got up even before the crack of sparrows loaded everything we thought we might need into the cruise mobile and headed around the very tip of the peninsula to Yardie Creek. This was right in the centre of totality giving us the full 62 secs this amazing phenomena was going to last. There was alot of traffic heading the same way and we were concerned because the park officials were restricting access to all the parks to crowd manage and protect wildlife... hence the early start... It paid off by the time we got to the park we were waved through and when we got to Yardie Creek it was already pretty busy. Its a big area so plenty of room for all takers and most people were heading either for the shaded picnic area or walking up the gorge but we headed for the dunes.

Its really useful having a Dr Fred who knows what might happen and why having a slightly elevated spot with expanse of sand and sea around might help to see the shadows and a flat horizon will show up the sky changing. We sat down and waited .....

As the moon moved over the sun we got quite silly taking pictures of our shadows making pinhole images. It was a brilliant spot - beautiful sands and the sea crashing below the dune and a huge turtle swimming around the reef... bobbing up and down while he fished for his lunch.

The whole experience was quite amazing. The Eclipse itself was incredible.... Obviously we all wished it could lasted longer but the sky went quite dark and being next to the sea this was more pronounced... the shadows rippled across the dunes... the wind dropped... the temperature changed quite dramatically and slowly the moon covered the sun. And then Totality! Pictures never work welĺ and the time was so limited so this just gives a flavour

Stunning!! A most beautiful corona... like a halo but with a clear line of red prominences all down the west side. It was fabulous a fitting finale to our amazing trip... because thats how it feels now we are back at camp... we are heading home to the Uk now.

I have loads more to post about this week but we may not have internet access for a few days and I wanted to post Eclipse...

More will follow because we are having a fantastic time here in Exmouth.. al sorts of shenangians.. I've got more pics of eclipse antics and we've done some really interesting stuff..(to us anyway🤣) I'll post as soon as I'm back on line...

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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