Aussie Adventure - Melbourne Part 1

Wednesday 13th January

All ready to check out of our Sydney hotel at 8am we walked across the road to the taxi rank and made our way to the airport for our flight to Melbourne (pronounced Melbun).  It was only about 28 degs so a bit different to the previous two days of 35 plus!  We were sad to be leaving Sydney wishing we'd had another day at least - so much more still to see.

We had a lovely short flight with very comfy seats for a budget airline - probably more comfortable than the Malaysian A330.   Andy picked us up the other end and took us back to their house to pick up the girls and head out for lunch at the Bean Counter (a cafe we would frequent many times during the next couple of weeks).   When we arrived it was an extremely hot 44 degs - even the breeze was warm, like a hairdryer on full!   After lunch we headed back home to unpack and celebrate our arrival with bubbles and a sit in the pool, and then dinner outside!

me & my gorgeous friend Lou - water was a bit mank but the bubbles went down a treat

That night was hot and sticky, the aircon wasn't working properly, but luckily we woke up to a fresher, cooler day on the Thursday.   Lou unfortunately had to work for a couple of hours so we spent the day running errands with Andy picking up school stuff, stocking up on alcohol and sorting out our bikes.

At dinner time Imogen & Miah were picked up by Kel, Lou's dad, and we headed into the city for drinks and dinner with Lou and Andy - a chance to get dressed up and have some adult time.  Lou had arranged for us to have pre-dinner drinks at the Atrium Bar Level 35 at the Sofitel so we could have a view of the city from the high skyline - totally amazing.  Lou and I picked a "Champagne Flight" - 3 tasting measures of different champagnes and Shaun & Andy chose a bottle of red wine.  The view was great - especially from the ladies toilet!

All frocked up 

Lou had booked Taxi Kitchen - lots to choose from on the menu and I decided to go for a Barramundi fillet.  Lou also ordered some oysters (which I've never eaten).    After dinner we walked along the banks of the Yarra to watch "the Flames".  I'm being lazy here, we didn't manage to get photos so Google is my best friend at the moment!  The Flames are quite impressive.

Short journey back to Northcote and time for bed - tomorrow is Winery Tour Day!

As promised by Luxury Yarra Valley Tour Company we were picked up by Becs in her lovely silver Chrysler

As we drove towards the wine region of Yarra Valley she explained the itinerary for the day.  We would be tasting a bottle of sparkling white, 3 whites, 3 or 4 reds and at a couple a dessert wine.

The first stop was Dominic Portet to taste some wines with a French influence.   The rose was so nice and reminded us of holidays in the south of France, we bought a bottle!

Next stop was Pimpernel where we seemed to spend quite a lot of time tasting a lot of wines and chatting to the grower.   I did manage to upset him as I didn't like any of the whites until we got to the Viognier which I'd never tasted.    He also knew of a vineyard we'd been to in Kent and described the winemaker we'd met!  

Testing the same grape, two different years! I'm not a total alcoholic

After testing all that lot we needed a break.  Bec suggested that we headed to Soumah (our next stop anyway) and have a coffee before we tasted their wines and ordered our lunch. 

Soumah was a lovely venue for lunch, great views out to the vineyard and after our coffee we tasted the wines to decide what we would have with our lunch.   Shaun and I had chosen a rabbit dish and a glass of 2014 Syrah (formerly known as Shiraz).  It was great to know that we could order a box to be shipped home later in the year!

From Soumah we continued on to Maddens Rise a lovely little winery - Emma was a little worried about my white trousers and the red wine!  

Next stop was De Bertoli wines (chosen by Lou & Andy as they had been there before a few years ago),

the Yarra Valley Dairy where we bought some lovely fresh cheeses and then the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie for some yummy chocolate !

An absolutely brilliant day finished off with a slob in front of the telly eating cheese and biscuits and lots of water!!!!!   Our wine stock was replenished and we agreed to save our purchases until we went to the Grampians.

On Saturday we went back to the bike shop to pick up the bikes, the deal was we buy them and then he bought them back at the end of the holiday less £50 each bike.   We ended up buying a £50 bike which Andy wanted to keep and a £200 bike for both of us to use.  We couldn't quantify buying two bikes when I'd probably only cycle with the boys a couple of times so that was the best deal.   

After the bikes were loaded into the car we headed off to Lou's dad's house at Patterson Lakes.   It's a beautiful area - if I moved to Aus this would be one of the places I'd live in.

Andy suggested a bike ride before dinner so off we toddled, Shaun on the £50 bike and me on the hybrid - 20k in 25 degs - at least it was flat!

do you like my new glasses - £50 for a pair of Tifosi!

When we got back Lou was starting to get a lovely spread together

Time for some well earned wine

and the boys took the girls out on the kayaks

The sunset from Kel's decking was amazing!

On Sunday Lou, me and the girls walked the dog down to the beach and Shaun and Andy went out on the bikes.

For lunch Lou had booked Doyles - she'd told us about the amazing food, especially the seafood platter - I had no idea how huge this was going to be

Calamari, barramundi fillet, moreton bay bugs, prawns, oysters

mahoosive mussels

Think the expression on my face says it all !

 One enormous platter served with fries and a huge salad between 5 of us - that's what I call a Sunday lunch!  The girls had calamari and chips.

After lunch we went to Carrum beach and cooled off in the sea!

On Monday morning we headed back to Northcote to do some washing & repack for the next part of our adventure - Hall's Gap in the Grampians!

Aussie Adventure - Sydney Day 2 - BRIDGE CLIMB DAY !!!!!!

Bridge Climb Day has finally arrived - one of the highlights of our trip!

Thanks to jet lag I had a terrible night's sleep and was wide awake at 4am, luckily Shaun had bought a 24hr pass for the hotel wi-fi so I caught up with FB, Twitter & Skype, as it was only 2pm in the UK everyone was up and about!

Shaun woke about 7 so once we were sorted we headed out to find some breakfast.   We'd seen a programme where Rick Stein had found breakfast at the famous fish market so decided we'd do the same.  Wish I'd paid more attention - no idea where he ate but we could only find fish and freshly made sushi - not quite what I had in mind for breakfast.   It was a pretty amazing place though and I'm glad we did the walk, even if it was already 30 degs by 9am!   Probably better for lunch though!  We then headed down towards Darling Harbour where we found Rob's Cafe off the beaten track at Pyrmont Bridge and ordered scrambled egg on toast and coffee.  After breakfast we headed into the Harbour area for a look around and then back to the Town Hall where we needed to be to pick up the free walking tour.   We got there a bit early so went into the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) to enjoy some welcome aircon and to find the Pandora shop.

At 10.30 we went back to the meeting point at the Town Hall where we met our guides Ross & Justine (the founders of I'm Free).   There were a lot of people for the tour so we were split into two groups and we were taken by Justine on a 3 hour wander of the city learning about the history and seeing sights that you probably wouldn't see if you were on your own, like the birdcage alley

There's no birds in them but you can hear birds singing - they were put there to replace the lost birds in the city.  Extremely clever.    At the end of the tour you pay the guide what you think the tour was worth - hopefully we weren't too stingy!

After the tour we headed to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a wander and some lunch.   We made it all the way out to Mrs McQuarie's Point and had a sit down on her chair.

The Botanical Gardens were on the must-do list and they didn't disappoint - a haven of quiet and somewhere to take part in sport or family activity - even found a bootcamp class working out in 37 degs!

We weren't due to climb the bridge until after 4 but we decided to head back to The Rocks to recce where we had to go.   It was only about 3pm when we found the building which holds Bridge Climb Sydney so we decided to see if they could take us up earlier.   We were told that there were spaces on the next climb due to go out in 15 minutes so we went for it.   Glad we did because the group was lovely and small - only 8 of us in total plus our climb guide, Nick.

Sydney Bridge Climb is not a cheap activity but when you see how much goes into making sure climbers are safe and comfortable it's not hard to see why.   We booked ours in the UK via our travel agent which made it a little cheaper.  Once we'd be given our very fetching boiler suits and other equipment we were taken through a safety talk and a practice run and then Nick took us out onto the starting point of the climb.  As soon as my safety wire was fitted to the rail the tears started.  I'm not sure if I was scared, anxious or excited but there they were.   We slowly made our way out to the girders of the bridge and the ladders which led us up to the top.  The worst point is where you come out level with the road which carries the cars.  It's very noisy and the cars seem awfully close.  The train thunders by too but luckily I managed to miss that passing as we climbed up.  At certain points Nick stopped us to chat and answer questions and he took photos.   The views out across the harbour were amazing, the height didn't bother me at all.  Once we reached the top most point of the bridge we stopped and everyone had photos taken and a short video message.   Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take our own cameras up so I can only share with you the two photos and video given to us.

Copyright Bridge Climb Sydney

 On top of the world - in our sexy climbing kit

Copyright Bridge Climb Sydney

Our tiny group of amazing people - normally groups are anything up to 16, so we were very lucky. 

Hope the video works once I've posted, if not apologies!

Going down is a little bit more scary as it's on the side where the rail track is - time it badly like I did and the train goes thundering past your right ear just as you're on a ladder!   Not gonna lie - I did freeze for a bit and have to take a very deep breath before I continued down.   The whole climb takes about 3 hours, once you're back into basecamp you can get changed out of your kit, collect your photos and souvenirs - you get to keep the baseball caps - and have a wander round the gift shop.  I can't wait to wear my tshirt!   I'm so pleased Shaun talked me into doing this - I would've been really pissed off if he'd done it on his own!

Back on Terra Firma we made our way back to our hotel, on the way stopping off for a cold cider and pick up some Tiger beers and a kangaroo burger for dinner with the salad we had leftover from the previous day.

After dinner we repacked the suitcases ready for our flight to Melbourne

What an amazing day - Day 2 done!

Aussie Adventure - Sydney Day 1

Monday 11th January - our first full day in Sydney and I'm having to pinch myself that we're actually here!  We both slept well, waking up at about 6am, unfortunately I had the mother of all sinus headaches (probably from drying out on the flight).   Luckily I'd packed a box of Sudafed.   We had a lovely apartment at the Break Free situated on George Street.

We didn't realise how central the hotel was until we went to search out some breakfast.   Our apartment had a small but extremely well equipped kitchen with fridge, hob, oven and microwave and "living room" area which we later found was a major plus.

Breakfast in Sydney, maybe like most major cities of the world, is an "on the go" affair - lots of food halls selling breakfast in a wrap, but nowhere to really sit and relax and enjoy something to eat.  I wasn't coming all this way to run into Maccy Ds (or Maccys as the Australians call it).   It didn't take long though to spot down a quiet little alleyway 1 Abercrombie Lane

- a cafe/bakery which serves breakfast to go but also allows customers to sit down and enjoy poached eggs with avocado (Avo) on sourdough with a decent cup of coffee - alternatively I went for an apple bircher with a lovely cup of "English Tea".   This place is a little gold mine, the staff are very friendly, the food is fresh and it seems very popular with the Sydneysiders too!

Once breakfast was done we headed to Circular Quay - we'd booked a 24 hour ticket for Captain Cook Cruises to take us on a trip of the Harbour, mainly to get to Manly but maybe also hop on and off at various other stopping points within the Harbour.   Once we'd swapped our voucher for tickets at the kiosk and worked out which ferry we needed to catch we headed off to explore the quay area which includes one of Sydney's most famous landmarks - the Opera House.

Wow, what an amazing piece of architecture.   It's not stunning but is definitely a bit mesmerising!

Seeing the Bridge on the other side of the quay was a bit of an exciting moment, with the realisation that the next day we would be climbing it.  Watching the tiny figures walking up and down it was fascinating!

After some must have photos of the Opera House and the views of the City we headed back to the quay to board our "ferry" to Manly.  There were also stops at Watsons Bay and Taronga Zoo but we decided we would come back and do those if we had time - our main objective was to get to Manly, hire a couple of bikes and head out to the North Head Nature Reserve.  Getting off the ferry the other end we headed straight to Manly Bike Tours shop where we hired a couple of hybrids.   Manly Bike Tours come highly recommended - the guy who runs it is extremely helpful and makes sure you're comfortable on your bike, the hire charges are very reasonable and you can hire a bike for as short a time as an hour or for a day.   They also cater for families too with baby seats, kids trailers and bikes and tag alongs.  There are also lockers for hire if you don't want to carry all your belongings.  Each bike comes with a cycling helmet, bike lock and a map of Manly.   There are a number of rides you can follow - if you let the guy know where you want to go, he will mark the best route on the map.   You do need to carry your own water though, which you can either carry in the bottle cages or in the bike bag on the handlebars.    One word of warning, Manly is not flat!  I'm not brilliant on hills and in the heat I did struggle a bit, probably not helped by the tiredness from the flight!

North Head Nature Reserve is a lovely area - but it was very warm, about 35 degs we found out later.

After North Head we headed back to the bike shop via the beach, it was great to see Cabbage Tree Bay and the very impressive Shelly Beach, it was packed as it was still school holidays.  We didn't do much cycling because it was so busy on the cycle path.  Once we'd handed the bikes back and had some lunch and an ice cold beer at Crinitis, we headed back to the ferry.  

Our next planned stop was Fort Denison - actually wished we hadn't bothered and got off at Watson's Bay instead!  There's only a ferry to Fort Denison once an hour so once you are there you are stuck.  It's much smaller than I thought it would be and whilst there is a museum about it's history it's not big and takes all of about 20 minutes to walk round.   There is a very nice restaurant so we were able to get an ice cold drink (no beer unless you buy food), but it wasn't cheap!
Great chance for Shaun to use his telescope though

The ferry picked us up and took us back to Circular Quay.  

Top tip : there are other ferry companies on the Quay and the Manly Ferry.  We only booked ours in the UK because we didn't know what else was available.  Depending on what you want from your day in the Harbour you could probably do it cheaper than we did.  We could've spent a lot longer at Manly, a sit on Shelly Beach and a dip in the sea would've been nice.

During our walk back to our hotel we spotted a Woolworths (a major supermarket in Australia), we needed some water, snacks and cold drinks for the room so decided to go in an investigate.   Walking round we found freshly cooked chickens so decided to buy one and some salad stuff and take it back to our room for dinner instead of trying to find somewhere to eat that night.  We'd been on the go since 8am and with the heat were both exhausted.  We bought some Tiger beers from the bottleshop (offy - you can't buy alcohol in Australia supermarkets).

Our first fantastic day in Australia was over!

Aussie Adventure - London Heathrow to Sydney

After our overnight stay at the Hilton Garden Inn we checked in at the Malaysian Airlines check in desk, made our way through the security checks and into the departure lounge.  We'd booked in to the Plaza Premium Lounge - we both like to have some peace and quiet, something decent to eat and drink and the Plaza didn't disappoint.  The food has a lovely oriental twist, so don't book if you like a traditional full english cos you ain't gonna get there!

I'd read loads of advice about what to do to prepare for a long haul flight - some of it was very confusing and conflicting so I guess it's all personal choice and you learn from your own mistakes.

• don't sit down before the flight - you're going to be sitting down for a very long time when you get on the plane, keep the blood circulating through your legs for as long as you can.
• hydrate and eat a light meal
• if you're on an early morning flight don't sleep before you get on the plane
• listen to some relaxing music or meditate

Some of the above I took on board - like eating and hydrating (I'd paid to eat and drink as much as I could!)  We just sat and chilled, walked a bit to look round the duty free.  We couldn't buy much as we only had 7kg of hand luggage and were right on our limit for checked in for our internal flight from Sydney to Melbourne.

Our long flight from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur was on an Airbus A380 - an absolute monster of a plane on two decks!  Once we sat down it was obvious that the flight was practically empty so a good chance to juggle seating and get some decent sleep at some point lying down!

No sooner had we taken off than the flight attendants were offering juice, water and salted peanuts, and not long after that lunch!   Because I've had far too many bad experiences of chicken dishes on flights I'd ordered "Western Vegetarian", outward bound lunch was Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni & ratatouille with a pasta salad(!) and a fruit salad which was very quickly swapped for Shaun's strawberry gateaux (Western Vegetarians obviously aren't partial to a bit of cake!)  I should really have taken a photo of my tray of food but I was too hungry to fiddle about trying to find my phone!  It wasn't too bad, bit dry in places but it tasted great!

One of the great things about long haul flights is the choice of in-flight entertainment - there was certainly lots to choose from.  Shaun was actually more fascinated by the interactive map than the 60 odd films to choose from. My first choice was the Man from U.N.C.L.E with the very gorgeous Henry Cavill - Shaun decided on a nap!    I then watched The Gift - when I say watched, I missed a whole section and had to rewind it thanks to falling asleep!  At some time after that I had a full on sleep which was great and somehow with only 3 hours to go before landing in KL I was being served breakfast.   I think there was some mix up as I ended up with omelette, potato cake and a meatball!  Veggie Fail!!!!!   Having said that it was very tasty and no ill effects after.

Two pieces of advice I would give for these flights is to make sure you have plenty of water. After my long sleep I woke up feeling a bit rubbish - either take on board a bottle which you can ask the flight attendant to refill or just keep buzzing for them to bring you a cup of water.  Stash the pots of water you get on your meal tray and never say no if liquid refreshment is offered.  You also need to get up and walk about.  One tip is to walk the long way to the toilet (walk the length of the cabin and back up the other side) it's not a great distance but long enough to get the blood flowing in your legs and alleviate any stiffness in your joints.   On the flight back (when I thought the whole plane was asleep) I actually managed to go through a whole leg & back stretch routine in the aisle - much to the amusement of one passenger who then did the same! 

During take off I got chatting to a young man who was travelling to Jakarta - quite useful when we got off at Kuala Lumpur as he offered to show us where to go for our onward flight to Sydney.  It was quite simple in the end but KL is a huge airport and it was a bit daunting at first.   We now wish we'd stayed in KL for a night so I think we'll be back!

We only had about an hour and a half before we boarded our next flight, but enough time to have a quick freshen up and change clothes (top tip - pack a change of clothes if you're not doing a stopover - it's a wonderful thing to be able to change into fresh underwear and a tshirt).   I'd packed baby wipes, toothbrush & a mini tube of toothpaste, compact deodorant and a some smelly for each of us - oh and a hairbrush for me and some moisturiser!   It's a good idea to pack these in separate bags if you can, it saves it all getting lost in your hand luggage bag.   That goes for anything electrical you might need too - my ipod, earplugs and phone and charging cables were in a small make up bag.  Obviously you need to keep all your liquids and gels in the see-through plastic bags for checking at security.

Our flight from KL to Sydney was rammed - no room in the overhead lockers to put our hand luggage and seemingly less leg room than on the A380.  We spent the next 8 hours with our hand luggage bags at our feet!   The A330 is also much noisier than the A380!  I started to watch 12 Years A slave but didn't get very far with it.  As soon as we'd reached cruising altitude the flight attendants came round with landing cards to be filled in - always my job wherever we go!   I think we had lunch served soon after take off - mine was a fish dish in some bland lemon sauce.  I'm not sure what meal it was as it didn't seem like 5 minutes before we had breakfast!  I then managed to nap (upright) for a while and watched the Book Thief and before we knew our 8 hour flight was nearly over and we were being served a snack before landing at Sydney - a funny little bread roll with a few salad leaves for me!   Shaun had a full on sub roll with egg mayo in!

The entry into Sydney had been the one thing I had worried about most - we've all watched the Border Patrol programme on the TV and of course I was worried the suitcases hadn't made the connection at KL.   In reality arrival at Sydney couldn't have gone better and before we knew it we were out into the taxi rank to transfer to our hotel.  A lot of blogs/articles will tell you that the taxi fare from the airport to the City is about AUD50, ours was only AUD30 (about £15 at the time of writing).   I have never been so pleased to see a hotel bed in all my life, but first we needed to walk a bit to get the blood flowing again and even though it was getting on for 10.30pm we walked a little way up from the Break Free on George Street (our hotel for the next 3 nights) and bought an ice cold cider each.  That cider was sooooo refreshing.   It's a good idea to shower before you go to bed too, after all it's been 24 hours since your last one!

The long flight definitely is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a means to an end and that is all you need to focus on - the amazing adventures ahead.

Next post I'll tell you all about the Break Free on George Street where we stayed and our amazing experiences in Sydney.   If you've got any top tips for long haul travel or experiences come and say hi in the comments.

We're home - The Aussie Adventure is Over!!

It's hard to believe that a week ago today we were on our way home and our Aussie Adventure was over.   We've got some fantastic memories of our time down under, I'm not really sure how I can best share them with you so to do it as well as I can I'm going to write several posts covering the different parts of our time away.  Luckily I kept a handwritten journal so I haven't got to rely on my rubbish memory. 

Having just read my last post I realise I never did post our itinerary - it was all a bit stressful between New Year and our departure, making sure that Danni had everything she needed (extra lightbulbs, money for food, emergency telephone numbers for the plumber) and getting work as up to date as possible!

Our basic itinerary was as follows :-

Friday 8th - Drive to parents with dog and Danni, visit mother-in-law in the nursing home, lunch with parents and Danni and then travel to Heathrow thanks to brother & sister in law.   Night at Hilton Garden Inn.

Saturday 9th - Check in at Terminal 4.  A couple of hours in the Plaza Premium Lounge - I hate the hustle and bustle of the departure lounge!  Board flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Sunday 10th - Arrive Sydney at 8pm - straight to Hotel - Break Free on George Street.

Monday 11th - First full day in Sydney - explore & ferry trip around the harbour

Tuesday 12th - 2nd and last full day in Sydney - Harbour Bridge Climb booked for the afternoon.

Wednesday 13th - Fly from Sydney to Melbourne.  Staying with friends in the suburb of Northcote.

Friday 15th - Yarra Valley Winery Tour

Saturday 16th - Weekend in Patterson Lakes 

Monday 18th - Back to Northcote

Tuesday 19th - Travel to Hall's Gap in The Grampians

Friday 22nd - 5 hour drive to Victor Harbor to watch finish of stage of Tour Down Under

Saturday 23rd - Short drive to Willunga Hill

Sunday 24th - 5 hour drive back to Hall's Gap

Monday 25th - Back to Northcote

Tuesday 26th - Australia Day


Thursday 28th - Entertain Imi & Mia

Friday 29th - Solo day in the city

Sunday 31st - Fly home

Looks like a full packed trip doesn't it?  Luckily there was some down time, otherwise we'd have needed a holiday to get over it.   Hopefully, I won't bore you to tears over the next few posts.