Thursday 27 December 2012

Kangaroo Island

Day 15


We left Adelaide for the final part of our trip, Kangaroo Island. At Adelaide airport James made a special purchase. For ages, he has been looking for one of those old man Australia hats, the wide brimmed leather ones. But thus far none fitted him big head. I was in Witchery at the airport browsing the rails when James came rushing in saying he had made friends with a lady in the shop next door and a hat had ‘found him’. Yes that’s right, the hat found him. He looked like a kid on Christmas day when he put it on!


James in his new hat
After the shortest and most expensive flight of our trip we arrived, new hat in tow, on Kangaroo Island. The latest rental car was a Nissan Micra, Auto – so no more bad boy racing for James.


Our first stop was Seal Bay, where the beach was covered in sleeping Seals. They go out to sea fishing for three days and then return and sleep for three days to recover. It’s hilarious when they come in from the water, the waddle up just beyond the waters edge and collapse, there is a video of one girl returning below and the phone directly below is a Seal and her Pup sleeping under the stairs, so cute.









We then saw some wildlife on the Koala Walk and more seals at Vivone Bay. James had booked us in at a Wilderness Retreat for the night, which was basic but luckily did not involve camping. After all the wine I was planning on a soft drink night but James had other ideas. 

We settled in at the Retreat Restaurant and proceeded to have a four course dinner, it was all sourced from Island produce and was amazing. James even tried Yabbies, usually he hates shell fish!


After tasting his way through the port list, James decided it was a good idea to go for a nature walk in the pitch black with his new hat and new torch… the walk highlight was seeing a Wallaby weeing.
James and his yabbies

A late night drunken nature walker
Day 16

On our last full day we drove to Flinders Chase National Park and saw the Remarkable Rocks, Admirable Arch and lots more Seals! It was a very windy day – hence the hoods!



It was very windy!


Remarkable rocks





Day 17
For our final day of our trip we decided to go out with a splash and went out swimming with 35 wild dolphins! The water was about 17 degrees which felt freezing at first but as soon as I put my snorkel under and saw a big group of smiling dolphins coming my way I stopped feeling the cold! They are so curious, it was an amazing experience.







 


And that was the end of our trip… we had the best time, James planned it all so well and I don’t think we could have hoped to have seen or done more in 17 days. Now we just need to plan trips to WA and NT and we’ll have seen all the states of Australia… how lucky are we!

Thursday 20 December 2012

Great Ocean Road and Adelaide


Great Ocean Road

Day 11

After a boozy day, I woke up feeling really knackered but we had to get going early to pick up the next hire car and set off for the Great Ocean Road.

It was a really windy day, with lots of stops to take in all the famous sights. There were some stunning rock formations and dramatic views but overall it wasn’t quite as amazing as I was expecting it to be. Maybe it was because I was so tired and the wind didn’t help! I think James got the most enjoyment from behaving like a boy racer in our Holden Cruze.

However, it did have one amazing feature – WILD KOALAS. I love those furry little things and there was a patch where we saw about 15, including one little fella who was very low down and friendly.




Totally know where I am going...




It was pretty windy...





Day 12

This day was dedicated to driving to Adelaide. For once I managed to stay awake all day as I was DJing on the iPod. Mainly there was a lot of James singing Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ very loudly.

After some successful map reading we hit Adelaide and had to move onto the iPhone to find our destination and all our city navigation problems from Brisbane transferred over to Adelaide. After an hour and a half of taking wrong turns (that blue dot on the map can be very confusing) we finally found West Lakes, where we stayed with four lovely girls, Arlene, Jen, Jenny and Katie. After nearly two weeks of moving around it was really nice to have some home comforts, do laundry and chill out.  

Day 13

We ventured into the city and could not believe how dry the heat was – I feel like we’ve acclimatised to the humid heat now but Adelaide at 37 degrees was a new experience.

The heat also creates a major fly issue. It is so dry that hundred of flies flock around you and try to invade your mouth, eyes, ears and nose. Apparently they are trying to get some moisture. It’s so gross. If you watch people walking down the street you can literally see them swatting away flies. Hundreds may be an exaggeration but that’s what it felt like.  

We really liked the east side of the city centre and also stopped by the botanical gardens and art gallery. In the evening we went to the beach at Henley and were planning on having fish and chips on the beach and watch the sunset. However the flies were, yet again, such persistent buggers that we ended up sat in the car, with the A/C on, eating our dinner and watching the sunset. Romantic!

While we’ve been here we’ve been streaming some TV shows from the UK, we told the girls about this and they were pretty excited at the idea of watching Take Me Out from Australia, so we cracked open the sparking Shiraz (actually very yummy) and had a chilled night in.

Day 14

After tasting the delights of Tamar Valley in Tassie and Yarra Valley in Victoria it was only fair that we went to Barossa while we were in Adelaide. The girls were seasoned experts on the area so we went to the big famous wineries Jacobs Creek and Wolf Blass, but we also did a tasting at Murrey Street which was a smaller boutique winery. It was a really fun day and we finished it off with a BBQ.







James and the blonds



Next stop… Kangaroo Island

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Melbourne

... Following on from the Tasmania post...


Day 8
Out of this 17 day trip I was given the sole responsibility of organising the 3 days in Melbourne – as I’m more of a city girl and James seems to be all about the outdoors. Did I mention he spent $500 on new hiking gear for himself prior to this trip and has decided that ‘hiking chic’ is going to be his style for the next few years?

Anyway… we arrived in Melbourne and something strange was going on. James was in a bad mood. We’re not sure why exactly, perhaps it stemmed from the airhostess in Launceston making him throw away his just bought coffee before boarding. I would like to admit that it is usually me that has ‘irrational’ bad moods – you know the ones where you feel pissed off but you can’t quite pin point why, or you know it’s over something silly but you can’t help being moody.

We were on our way to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) to do a tour, when we passed Zara. Zara!!! We do not have Zara in Queensland and I like this store very much. We popped in but it was not an enjoyable experience as I had grumpy James in tow saying how silly all the clothes were. Now, I’m not ready to adopt full on ‘hiker chic’ yet so I told James that from then on we just shouldn’t shop in stores that I like together as he ruins it. (I was very patient in BOTH the Hobart and Melbourne branches of Kathmandu.)

The MCG Tour did manage to cheer him up and I actually found it really interesting. We had a lovely older chap named Ray taking us round and he was a fountain of knowledge on all things AFL and Cricket.


MCG


That evening we caught the tram up to Brunswicks St – which is the ‘cool’ area of the city. We had drinks and dinner at Little Creatures Dining Hall, which was awesome.


Day 9
In a plan to redeem himself for the Zara episode, James directed us to DFO shopping village – in fact he was so keen we got there before the shops opened!

After some purchases and a walk along Southbank, we went up to the Eureka Skydeck viewing floor, walked the botanical gardens and saw the Fashion and Ballet exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria – luckily for James it was quite small! At sunset we returned to the Skydeck to watch the sun go down with a glass of sparkling. After the ‘trendy’ dinner the night before, we went ‘classy’ and dined at Spice Lounge on Southbank, delicious!

I really enjoyed Melbourne as a city. So many people have told me that it is their favourite city in Australia and I can see why so many Brits love it. It reminds me of a compact London, it has a district for any taste or need. But as an honorary Queenslander, it did feel a bit chilly at times! I'm headed back there when my friend Nikki visits in April and I can't wait to explore more, and maybe pop back to Zara. 

Daytime views from the Skydeck

Sunset from the Skydeck

Day 10
I had booked us onto a Yarra Valley Wine Tour so that neither of us had to miss out by driving. It was a full day of drinking, visiting 4 wineries! The tick cross system continued and we shared it with a few lucky people on our trip, including a really nice American family. Yet more wine was sent back to Queensland... including some sparkles, spot a trend?





By the time we got back to the city in the late afternoon we were both feeling on the sleepy side of drunk. So we had a nap followed by a low key evening as we had an early start the next morning, it was time to drive the Great Ocean Road…