After work one afternoon we drove up to Palm Beach to walk along the beach & watch the sunset. Being mid week & winter we had the beach to ourselves. Walking up to the light house which sits on the most northern tip of Palmy we sat looking out for passing whales which you can apparently see from there. We of course weren't that lucky! Walking down we look a slight detour from the path, clambering through the undergrowth to come out here, on the cliff edge where we watched this incredible sunset.
After work one afternoon we drove up to Palm Beach to walk along the beach & watch the sunset. Being mid week & winter we had the beach to ourselves. Walking up to the light house which sits on the most northern tip of Palmy we sat looking out for passing whales which you can apparently see from there. We of course weren't that lucky! Walking down we look a slight detour from the path, clambering through the undergrowth to come out here, on the cliff edge where we watched this incredible sunset.
The Port is a little fishing village in the south west & one of our favourite places in Mallorca. Every summer we play tour guide to the family & friends visiting, starting at the Puerto with its many attractions! Firstly the port is the closest place to us for a night out & when hitting the town Tim's Bar is always our first port of call, followed by the only club in a 15m radius, the infamous Barracuda. Both are places our parents & us have been coming to for over 30yrs! Read more...
After a very brief 5 day layover in Bath aka home we were back on the road/runway flying with good old (primarily) reliable Easy Jet on our way to our second home, Mallorca. A place we've spent summers & easters since we were born, we came back to Europe from Sydney to be there for our cousins wedding. An amazing island...photos will follow soon!
Making that looooong 10,400 mile journey back to London to see the family and visit friends briefly back in Bath before catching another flight to Mallorca for our cousins wedding. You might notice the cardboard boxes in the photo, those are filled with our luggage. Being 20kg over weight doesn't bode well with Singapore Airlines, so we had to carry the extra weight in these very trendy boxes. The cabin crew were pretty confused, 'no we are not carrying an animal in here!'
Some amazing graffiti we came across in Bondi by Australian street artist Mr G.
Keeping ourselves amused waiting for the trains. The metro in Sydney is nothing like London or New York, stations are few & far between (there's not even a train to Bondi Beach) & not particularly frequent. But because inner city Sydney is pretty small it's easy to walk to most places, saving you that $3.50 fare to spend on.... umm not sure what you can get for $3.50 here...pint of milk or a chocolate bar maybe?
On a sunny autumn day we took the ferry over to Manly & walked the coastal path to Shelley Beach Park, then went around the shoreline climbing the boulders, looking out to sea, completely alone it didn’t feel like we were in Sydney. Manly beach is beautiful, really chilled out, lined with pine trees, great for surfing & Shelley Beach around the cove on the south end of Manly is absolutely stunning. Food wise we’ve fallen in love with Mex&Co for amazing Mexican & Belgium Waffle Café.
The ferry from the city to Manly is an absolutely beautiful way to see Sydney as you sail past the Opera House, Wooloomooloo wharf, Nielsen Park & all the little bays. Apparently there are quite a few sharks in the harbour at any time so we are always on fin spotting patrol when aboard. On our way back here we managed to time the trip perfectly, leaving Manly at dusk so we came into the harbour with all the buildings lit up. It's an incredible view with the Bridge, Opera House... read more.
Our home. From Bondi we moved to The X (Aussies love to abbreviate) where after our initial bewilderment & slight fear of the place we fell in love with this strange area of Sydney. From Darlinghurst Rd with its strip clubs & homeless people to swanky Potts Point 20m down with delis & pretty houses, we now live nestled between the 2. This place is sleazy & dirty but also fascinating & entertaining, the people & culture here would make a great documentary! Read more...
With 330 shops over 7 floors, Westfield shopping centre is pretty massive to say the least & we've spend a few afternoons window shopping here. The food court is probably the most impressive, if you're looking for gourmet hot dogs, health foods you didn't even know existed, a patisserie stand that makes you want to cry & everything in between, go here just to be wowed. It also has the Tower Eye where you can have dinner overlooking the whole city, another activity we've yet to experience so far.
Maybe we've lived in a small, conservative town like Bath for too long, but this vending machine for Havaianas flip flops, aka thongs here in Australia, stunned me. I'm torn between delight at the idea and confusion. Why would you go to a vending machine for shoes? But then again getting thongs from a box that usually gives you chocolate is just so cool! Whatever I think it's a pretty novel idea and good marketing for the brand. Kudos Havaianas!
Although it may look like all fun & games, unfortunately we have to fund our jumping lifestyle. Tip to anyone looking to work in Sydney, get a bar job in the CBD. We've both managed to get jobs where you don’t have to work wkends. Yep its true, our bars close over the weekend leaving us the best 2days to enjoy living here. Moon works in Bar Luca & I work a block away in The Flynn. Both attract a lovely crowd of office workers/regulars, the foods really good & of course the service's 2nd to none!
In every Sydney travel guide, the Coogee to Bondi walk always seems to make it into the top 10. And after 3 months here, we finally did it. On one of the last days of summer we walked the 5km with all the other tourists and runners along the cliffs, past hidden coves and busy beaches. It is a really beautiful walk with amazing views and some great places to swim in calmer waters. It is a great thing to do and would totally recommend it to anyone visiting Sydney.
Here we are leaping along the pier in Husskinson. The town is really cute, very small, little bit hill billy- the pub serves Bundaberg rum from a soda gun! We slept in the car park over looking the pier and this beautiful view, and spent a night here drinking Goon, jumping into the (really cold) water with the stingrays. If you go to Huskisson make sure you have a pancake breakfast or cake at Fresh at the Bay, it's amazing! I also want to visit again in November for a whale watching trip.
Parking in an empty car park and walking down a forest track we came out here... Long Beach, stretching white sand, beautifully wild and completely deserted. The water is so flat here and stays shallow for ages, perfect for snorkelling (although having just seen a massive shark an hour earlier we were a little reserved about swimming too far from the safety of the shore!).
A morning jump outside the juice bar, Vejuiceria, right by our apartment in Potts Point. It's a pretty hard decision choosing which one to have from the list of 70, all named and whisked up by Mark, the funny little Italian owner.
Walking down some dirt tracks in the national park we came across these amazing cliffs, a sheer drop into the Bay. Looking for adventure, we weaved our way down coming out at the water where a group of extreme fisherman were camped. Having already caught a 2.5m Marlin that lay on the rocks, within 5mins of being there we saw a 350kg shark eat the line & buoy. We chatted to the guys that live on the cliffs for up to 6wks at a time, catching just for fun! Robson Green needs to check this out!
One of the greatest feelings when traveling... you're driving along with friends, music's playing, windows open, roads empty and you feel like you've discovered somewhere completely new. I hope everyone gets to feel this at some time.
Possibly my favourite beach that we went to, Orion’s Beach was so beautiful and basically deserted every time. Actually quite small, the forest comes right down onto the sand and the waters really shallow, calm and the snorkelling is supposed to be pretty good. We stayed the night here, parking up so we over looked the water. It was amazing waking up to this.
We have yet to formally introduce our camper van…Meet Moonbat. Hired from Spaceships for our road trip, the (just about) trusty, obnoxiously orange van came equipped with fridge, cooker, DVD and bed that wasn’t really big enough for the 3 of us to sleep comfortably in. In this photo Moonbat is parked up by Blenheim Beach. The eucalyptus forests around Jervis Bay are really beautiful, filled with kookaburras, parrots and foxes, which we managed to makes friends with one night using left overs.
Currarong is a funny little town in the north of Jervis Bay where we stopped for some food when driving around. Sitting on the grass by the water eating our 'medium' fries, that were no jokes the size of a small child, we tempted in the seagulls and watched the sun set over the bay. It was pretty amazing that with all the birds flying around only one of us got pooed on - some good luck for me!
On our last day in Jervis Bay we rented a kayak & canoe and paddled up stream from Huskisson into the creek. We went in and out of the mangroves (attempting to find a snake whilst not getting wedged), followed pelicans and spotted some pretty big stingrays in the shallows. The creek is so beautiful and peaceful, even though it was Easter weekend we had the river to ourselves.
The one overcast day of our road trip we swapped our bikinis for sneakers and hit the National Park. We drove down dirt roads to explore some of the beaches. Honeymoon Bay was our first stop and was actually quite a let down, being far from deserted and nothing like the beautiful post cards we'd seen. However around the corner (where this was taken) we felt more impressed, with the cool rock formations and we even spotted pelicans.
We parked our van over looking the ocean in the morning and cooked bacon and egg sandwiches with this incredible view. Australia is great for camping, there are lots of areas with public BBQ's and toilets so we didn't need to pay for any camp sites, the hardest decision was choosing which view we wanted to wake up to.
This was the first beach we went to in Jervis Bay. We were looking for Hyams Beach which is in the world records for having the whitest sand but we ended up here instead, right next door but much longer and we had it practically to ourselves. So so beautiful.
Our drive down continued... and with traffic looking increasingly bad we took a purposeful wrong turn in search of an adventure. Unfortunately all we found was Mount Keira Road, which is now closed for the foreseeable future due to loose rocks! However it was nice to stretch our legs before the second half of the 4 hour drive to Jarvis Bay.
Setting out on our big Easter weekend road trip to Jervis Bay, our first stop was this look out which we stumbled upon over looking the town of Bulli. Up on the hill, the sunset views were pretty spectacular of the ocean with loads of huge container ships passing and the forest below. There were also lots of cockatoos and parrots, and no other tourists to be seen!
Australia Day!! One of the best of our Sydney experience so far. The party was an inflatable party in the shallow water of Rose Bay. It was at least a thousand people and even most inflatables, with Triple J's Top 100 blasting from the speakers on shore. We didn't even remember we had this photo until reminiscing the other day! But here it is, a jump on the world's best party day.
Macquarie Street, Sydney Bucket List, jumping with a Koala! Ok not a real one but a lot more lively and less, (well hopefully less) Clamidia ridden! Which all Koala's have.
oulburn- known for it's slightly dodgy streets and massive high security prison. Luckily we were at a safe distance just out side, between the roads that head to Canberra, Melbourne. This was the day after the party so we feeling a little shaky, but we still wanted to get a jump in to show off the beautiful and deserted farm land on which we left the remains of the party hanging! Our first night into the near wildness of Australia: snakes, spiders and sharks avoided successfully.
A friends 21st on his family's property, the theme was 'fancy dress or dress fancy'. Of course we went for the former, dressing in animal onesies, which we bargained for at Paddys Market, Chinatown. This was not only a popular choice with other party goers but a smart one with the costumes doubling as sleeping bags. All held in the barns, the night was amazing fun with an unlimited open bar, lots of food, cupcakes, live bands and DJ's, and even a hidden UV room! Big thanks to the Webb family.