June 2015

Hello everyone,

News from down under...

If only all the months of the year could be like the month of May, in France at least where it is full of holidays ! While our friends that had remained in France blithely enjoyed a large number of them, we slowly proceeded along the Queensland coast. A few days in the small marina of Tin Can Bay gave us the opportunity to renew Banana Split's settee with a superb material received from Tommy Bahama, a US manufacturer best known for its Polynesian shirts (I have owned several of them!).

Then we slipped into the narrow and winding and divided inlet between Australia Island Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island, where we have seen crocodiles or dingos, but it seems there are; and we stopped a little further north, at the entrance to Bundaberg River in another human scaled marina, flanked by a beautiful "fish market" where you can buy fish and shellfish brought by the trawlers belonging to the company. If you go there, do not miss: the delicious plate pictured here cost les than 30 dollars for two or three people!

40000 km around Australia

One day we went to Bundaberg Airport to welcome my daughter Vaimiti, 23, and her boyfriend Stéphane, both chefs; they met at the Bristol in Paris where Stéphane was Vaimiti's "chef de partie"; one day they decided to take advantage of the offer "work and leisure" of the Australian government, and they just completed a journey down under for nearly 2 years during which they worked in Sydney and then in a dream island of the west coast, but also traveled 40000 km, driving a "van", visiting natural wonders infinite in number, swimming with whale sharks, meeting kangaroos, koalas and adorable quokas. With Stéphane and Vai, we sailed through the "Narrows", another spectacular fairway lined with mangroves, and reached the magnificent island of Great Keppel Island; then they took a plane, to live other adventures in Vietnam and Cambodia, while we sat for some time in this island, time to finish editing our film about the Caribbean.

Great Keppel is beautiful, very sparsely populated, but a large tourist projectis on the horizon ... So let's enjoy its charms before they fly off in the wind.

I wish you a Jolly month of June.

Antoine