Articles by Verne Maree

Born and raised in Durban, South African Verne is a writer and editor. She and Roy met in Durban in 1992, got married four years later, and moved briefly to London in 2000 and then to Singapore a year later. After their 15 or 16 years on that amazing island, Roy retired in May 2016 from a long career in shipping. Now, instead of settling down and waiting to get old in just one place, we've devised a plan that includes exploring the waterways of France on our new boat, Karanja. And as Verne doesn't do winter, we'll spend the rest of the time between Singapore, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand - and whatever other interesting places beckon. Those round-the-world air-tickets look to be incredible value...

QLD Odyssey – Part Four: Noosa

From Craftsville to Glossville; coffee and a rare gelato; not-so-rare bush turkey sighting; a peach of a beach; kraken good salad at Peregian Beach; Bistro C review

With the prospect of sunshine and a predicted midday high of 22 degrees Centigrade – in the middle of one of the coldest spells seen in these parts for a very long time – we headed for the famous seaside town of Noosa*.

Beach bunny Verne in her element – and Roy? Not so much

(* Properly pronounced by locals in a faux-posh accent as Nyooosa, with a pinched nose – or so I am reliably informed.)

Noosa is less than half an hour northeast by car from Eumundi, the crafty hinterland haunt where we were spending three nights.  But these two towns could not be more different.

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QLD Odyssey – Part Three: Eumundi & the Hinterland, 12-15 June

Eumundi’s mega-market; phrasal verbs and a self-indulgent flashback; curmudgeonly customer in a continual quest for coffee; Imperial Hotel and Joe’s Waterhole; those profusely perspiring  Poms who headed for the hills; Dr Seuss in Montville; Maleny, a supermarket kinda town; Yandina, home of Buderim ginger; other recommendations from Max

We arrived mid-morning on a Saturday, one of Eumundi’s two weekly market days – described as the biggest craft market in Australia. (It also has a permanent, covered market.) Our Brisbane friends Max and Trevor having entrusted us with the keys to their gorgeous Eumundi house, we had set off in good time for the market, which closes at 2pm.

The Eumundi house

“It’s a great place to use as a base for Noosa and the beaches south of there. Plus there’s the cute towns of Maleny and Montville just 30 minutes away.”

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QLD Odyssey – Part Two: Beenleigh Rum & Gold Coast

Yo, ho ho! – and a bottle of rum; Gold Coast in mid-winter – not too shabby; seagulls at Surfers Paradise; terrific lunch at Tropic;  Tommy Bahama, sashimi and sushi; new jacket – spoiler alert!

Trevor looks ready for a bit of tasting

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QLD Odyssey – Part One: Brisbane, 7-11 June

Queensland’s coolest couple; on the road again: back in the travel saddle; pre-Plague pics;  Are You Sleeping, Big Brother?; Like a Virgin; sightseeing synopsis; next-level street food – Luke Nguyen at Treasury Casino; trivia and pulled lamb at the Powerhouse; George’s ginormous soles

Maxine and Trevor are two of our Singapore expat friends.  Culture vultures, foodies, and probably the coolest couple we know, they’ve also lived in Saudi, in Dubai, and in China for many years.

Max and Trevor – two decades on, they still like a G&T or two, but now they’re based in QLD, it could just as well be rum

We met them nearly 20 years ago, not long after we arrived to live in the city state. The circumstances were unforgettable: on the initial night of our first Star Cruise,  we bonded with Max, Trevor and their friend Susan Beard over copious G&Ts in a private karaoke room. I seem to remember the staff evicting us at 3am.

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Perth City Break, 20-22 May – Roy’s 70th Birthday!

Three score years and ten – a biblical achievement; lawyers, tailors and chefs; Roy – a thing of beauty and a joy forever; revelry at Reveley; ferry to South Perth, lunch at Annalakshmi and all that jazz at Ellington’s; reprise of Facebook party pics, complete with cake and candles

Depending on how many spouses you accumulate in the course of a lifetime, it’s not often that your man turns 70. So now, with Roy achieving the biblical three score years and ten, it behooved me to push the boat out a bit – or at least as far as was reasonable in these travel-restricted times.

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This is the House that Roy and Verne Built: Part 1 – Breaking Ground

Boeries, bangers and snags; sangas, sarnies and sarmies; building malarkey background; turfed from the nest; Cyclone Seroja and quo vadis?

Here we are, celebrating the breaking of ground this week at 543 Burns Beach Road, Iluka!

Child labour is allowed in WA – breaking ground at 543 Burns Beach Road with Sam, Mia and Holly

Surrounded by the family – son Carl, Carrie, Mia and Holly; daughter Blaire, Colin and Sam – we broke ground today, Sunday the 17th of April 2021. Son Carl brought the spade, son-in-law Colin furnished the Weber BabyQ, and we supplied the snags* and the mimosas. Only Daughter #1 was missing, sadly – cheers, Wendy!

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Camping at Coogee, WA: Snorkelling the Omeo Wreck, March 2021

Day-tripping to Coogee Beach; Roy’s first  first sea dip in seven years; gratuitous Maldives flashback; back to Coogee; history of the shipwrecked Omeo; where to stay – then and now; feeling disloyal (again)

Is there no end to the magnificent beaches of Western Australia? I’d never even heard of Coogee Beach until a week ago. What’s more, this is supposed to be autumn – yet here we are, frolicking in the surf and bronzing our bods on the very eve of the annual collaboration between Lindt and the Easter Bunny.

Frolicking Carl

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Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees, 1-14 February – Part Four: Glamping in Yallingup

Good morning, campers!; surf, turf, and Kim’s multiple skill sets; spectacular spelunking at Ngilgi Cave; Cape Naturaliste lighthouse trivia; big lunch at Little Fish; the culpable kookaburra at Caves House Hotel; of coffee and chillies in Commonage Road; post-mask postlude

I may have mentioned before now that Roy is not a happy camper. I don’t mean it in the sense of his being generally miserable and grumpy (not in this instance, anyway). I mean he doesn’t do camping.

Upscale refugee tent in Yallingup

He doesn’t like caravans. Or even campervans. This is inexplicable to me – I love these things, always have.

Let alone those portable shelters made of fabric or other material stretched over a supporting framework of poles and secured to the ground with cords and stakes. In the 29 years since we met, I had never known him to darken a tent flap.

Yet here we were, camping out for two nights in the grounds of Lynn and Kim’s holiday home in Yallingup, Margaret River.

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Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees, 1-14 February – Part 3: Denmark & Augusta

Cabins and kangaroos in Jerramungup; power (and coffee) to the people; weather philosophy and the rejigging of Roy’s internal thermostat; Denmark’s tradie tavern; pelican brief and apostrophic catastrophes in Augusta

Esperance to Jerramungup

“We have a nice caravan park,” the cashier at the local IGA supermarket had said, when we stopped in on our way east to Esperance. And it is nice, as far as caravan parks go – it’s spacious, has plenty of shrubbery, and when I went for a walk around the perimeter I had my first-ever encounter with wild kangaroos.

Wild kangaroos – but I confess to having taken this particular picture a week later in Yallingup, not in Jerramungup

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Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees 1-14 February, Part Two: Esperance

Jerramungup, a toddlin’ town; getting lucky at Lucky Bay; there’s a tavern in the town (of Condingup); Cindy Poole, heart of a glass artist; I say Esp-eh-rance, you say “Esprintz”; three firsts in one day; reviews and summation

This trip was all about Esperance, a destination that boasts some of WA’s – or even Australia’s – best beaches. Albany, Denmark, Augusta and Yallingup were lovely to revisit, but we’d been there before.

Preview: Lucky Bay, Le Grand National Park

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