I know I refer to a lot of places we visit as being ‘on the list’. But if we were to talk true bucket list destinations then Egypt has to have been at the top of that list.

About 3-4 years ago we looked at Egypt and seriously considered going, however there was still political instability in the country and the odd terrorist attack and so we shelved it for a while longer. But mid-last year when we were planning future coming trips, Egypt finally felt like a ‘go’ and so we booked it in.

Then to the itinerary. Because there are so many historic sites in Egypt and they are quite spread out we struggled to come up with a plan and certainly one that was easy to execute. We are not tour group people and we spent months fighting what appeared to be the easiest way to do it. We tried re-creating tour itineraries and honestly, I think it can be done if you have a bit of time to spend on the planning and booking processes, but time is something we’re generally quite poor in and so after months of indecision we capitulated and booked ourselves on a tour.

The company we chose was G Adventures as they have a number of tours in Egypt. We were looking for something that was just short of 2 weeks and covered as much ground as possible, leading us to choose the Egypt Upgraded tour. The tour went for 12 days, although the first and last days were really nothing days that you could use how you chose. We also added a day to see some more of Cairo, not something we’d generally recommend, but more about that below. The other thing we liked about G Adventures was that the guide is a qualified Egyptologist, something that is difficult to access when organising the trip on your own.

For this post I haven’t broken it down on a day by basis but rather location. However if you are interested in the itinerary we followed, or the hotels we stayed in, please refer to the Egypt Upgraded itinerary for further details.

We’ve also provided some final thoughts and potential tweaks you could make towards the end of this post should you want to use the itinerary as a base for your own trip. But for now, let us show you Egypt!

CAIRO

Our time and tour in Egypt started and ended in Cairo and we had added a day at both ends.

Cairo is massive and has a population of around 20 million people when you include the ‘greater Cairo’ area. Like any city of this size it suffers from traffic gridlock and high levels of pollution. Also evident when getting around Cairo are the low income levels. But the people are generally nice and very willing to help tourists.

As we knew that the Pyramids and Museum would be covered on our tour we decided to check out other parts of the city. Our hotel (the one designated by G Adventures) was located in Giza. It turns out the hotel was great for seeing the pyramids but not seeing anything else as it is quite a way out of the city.

We spent a good part of one of our free days checking our Khan el Kalili and surrounds. Khan el-Khalili is an ancient bazaar adjacent to the Al-Hussein Mosque.

In the bazaar we wondered around checking out the many treasures for sale and drinking Egyptian coffee.

On a different day we took an Uber to the Egyptian Museum and went for a walk around the local neighbourhood. We then walked across to Gezira Island via the Qasr al-Nil Bridge. As a side note we had planned to look around Tahrir Square, the centre of the Arab Spring protests, but were advised to come on a different day by a local man. We were there on a Friday (day of prayer) and he told us that Friday’s can get a bit ‘political’ and didn’t want us to get caught up in anything. He said it was ‘safe’ just better to come back on a different day.

Gezira Island felt like a more ‘upmarket’ area with its sporting clubs and embassies. We did a lot of walking on the island, walking from one end to the other, via the Cairo Tower (we didn’t go up the tower). At the other end and after many hours of walking we had a late lunch at Left Bank, a cozy cafe with delicious food and a beautiful view of the water.

The rest of Cairo we saw on our tour.

Our tour started with the Pyramids of Giza. Given the close proximity to our hotel, we arrived there early and listened to the history of the pyramids from our guide and Egyptologist Sa’id before having time to go for a wonder and take a ton of photos.

The pyramids are amazing and I had to keep pinching myself to believe we were actually there. That said, they were actually not the most amazing site we visited in Egypt and we were a little disappointed to see how close the city gets to the site with new buildings and housing estates starting to encroach on the sandy area.

We also paid for entrance to the Great Pyramid to see what was inside (you could also pay for entrance to the second pyramid). Inside the Great Pyramid it was very crowded and if you are claustrophobic I’d strongly advise against going in there as the descending passage is extremely narrow and dark. We did make it to the centre but truthfully I was really glad to get back out. Others in our tour did the second pyramid and if we were to do this again we would definitely go for the smaller pyramid where entrance was cheaper and there were less people.

Following our inspection of the pyramids we wondered down to see the Sphinx. Again the experience felt a little surreal after seeing this structure so many times in photos and documentaries but it is smaller than I’d expected.

One tip and it is a kind of an obvious one - get to the Pyramids and Sphinx as early as you can. We actually made a return visit on our final day in Cairo as we wanted to try and get photos without all of the people, and we were mostly successful as most tourists and groups start at the Great Pyramid and spend quite a bit of time there before moving to the other monuments. We definitely felt it was worth the return visit.

The Egyptian Museum in central Cairo was amazing for the amount of pieces it holds and based on what our guide Sa’id explained, the public only ever see a fraction of everything that gets stored there. That said, while we were there a lot of work was under way to move major pieces to the new Grand Egyptian Museum located in Giza. This new museum was still under construction when we were there, but judging by its size, it looked like it would be easy to spend a whole day there.

For the existing museum, I would note that without our guide this museum would be very difficult to make sense of. There are so many pieces on display, most without any explanation. We spent a couple of hours with our group and Sa’id before having another couple of hours on our own to explore, including a visit to the Mummy Rooms where for a small additional cost you can view the ancient remains of some of Egypt’s most important rulers. Truthfully I found those rooms a little creepy but glad we checked them out all the same.

The (existing) museum should take a half day visit but do try and get a guide to take you through it before exploring yourself in order to get maximum value and appreciation of what you will see.

ALEXANDRIA

Not actually in Alexandria, but on our way from Cairo to Alexandria, we stopped by St Bishoy Monastery in Wadi El-Natrun.

This monastery is the most eastern surviving Christian monastery in the Wadi el-Natrun and the most famous of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and was found by St. Bishoy (hence the name).

The monastery is amazing and dates back to the 4th century. It is made up of five churches and clearly a very special and sacred site for Coptic Christians in Egypt.

In Alexandria itself we were greeted by freezing cold temperatures and winds. Winter had definitely hit the city.

Alexandria is Egypt’s second largest city but felt quite different from Cairo with its Mediterranean location. Even the buildings and streets felt old (and run down) Europe, more than the Arab feel of Cairo.

In Alexandria our tour got very ‘touristy’, visiting a number of key sites.

We started with the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa which date back to the 2nd century AD. The catacombs seemed to merge Roman, Greek and Egyptian styles and apparently after not being used since the 4th century were rediscovered in in 1900 when a donkey accidentally fell into the access shaft.

Our visit to the catacombs was followed by a visit to the close by Pompey's Pillar, a Roman triumphal column and one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing in Alexandria today. We learned that the name "Pompey's Pillar" is actually a misnomer, as it has nothing to do with Pompey, having been erected in 293AD for Emperor Diocletian.

Next we took a look at the new Library of Alexandria, The Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The library was inaugurated in 2002 near the site of the old Royal Library of Alexandria, what had once been the largest library in the world. That said, the new library was pretty impressive in its own right.

We also made a visit to the Citadel of Qaitbay, a 15th-century defensive fortress located on the sea coast. Another impressive structure, the citadel, was erected on the exact site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and has undergone significant restoration work after years of damage and neglect. We enjoyed the sea view, restaurants and coffee shops that line the street up to the fortress.

While in Alexandria we also had a bit of a birthday celebration for me!

Next door to our hotel was what our guide described as a ‘dodgy bar’ but good for a drink close by. So that is what we did at ‘The Spitfire Bar’, enjoying a couple of cold Sakara beers, followed up by a seafood dinner at the Fish Market Marina where you can select your piece of fresh fish from the display.

ASWAN

A day or two later we flew south to the Southern city of Aswan which had a much warmer climate than the two cities up north.

Aswan felt a lot more like Africa so we immediately loved it. The city centre itself is small enough to walk around and we enjoyed leisurely walks around the city and market with the beautiful Nile in the background. Aswan felt much slower and relaxing than where we had just come from.

The highlights of Aswan were visits to Philae Temple, dinner in a Nubian Village, the felucca trip to the Nubian village and strolling the market.

Philae Temple (pictured above) is located on Agilkia Island, although this was not it’s original location having been moved (yes moved!) from another island in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser. The area had been flooding since the construction of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902 and in the 1970s a UNESCO ‘rescue mission’ took place to move the entire temple to its new home on Agilkia Island. The thought of moving a whole temple blew our minds… until we saw Abu Simbel (further below) where they had done a similar thing.

The boat trip to Philae Temple was lovely and the temple amazing, albeit very crowded by the time we got there.

The visit to the Nubian village started via a felucca trip on the Nile River, taking us up and across the river to a couple of pick up trucks.

On the water we had views of the Aga Khan Mausoleum and Kitchener Island and enjoyed the sun.

In the Nubian village our trucks drove us through the village, always with the Nile not far away, before having dinner. This was the kind of thing that would be difficult to organise outside of a tour.

ABU SIMBEL

Our stay in Aswan was also used as a base for Abu Simbel, as well as the Nile River Cruise (more on that further below) and I have provided our thoughts on this in the itinerary section below.
Abu Simbel was the site we were most looking forward to and I have to say that it did not disappoint. It is incredible!

We left for Abu Simbel from Aswan at 4:00am so we could get there by around 9am (it’s about a 4 hour trip). The road to Abu Simbel from Aswan doesn’t open until 5am but we actually ended up sitting waiting for the road to open for at least 20 minutes. There were a ton of buses waiting with us and although the road is now considered safe (it wasn’t 5-6 years ago) the Egyptians seemed to still be keen to move in a convoy.

The trip to Abu Simbel is consistent desert the whole way and was quite pretty as the sun began to rise. But I must admit I slept most of the way there, minus a quick coffee/toilet break.

There are two temples at Abu Simbel both built by Ramses II between 1274-1244BC: the larger temple, The Great Temple (pictured above), and the temple of Hathor and Nefertari, also known as the Small Temple.

As alluded to earlier, the Abu Simbel temples are another site rescued from flooding with the help of UNESCO in the 1960s, this time from the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Without this rescue the temples would today be under Lake Nasser.

The temples are incredible and you can find out more about their construction and history here.

In terms of actually viewing and photographing them, when we arrived sometime after 9am there were a ton of people just like us who had arrived on bus tours. We then spent about 30 mins or so listening to our guide who gave us the history, a huge positive about being on a tour. Then the negative to being on a tour, we wanted to take photos at the same time as everyone else and it was chaos in and outside the temples as we got in peoples photos and they got in ours. So here is a hint: have a look around the temples and take them both in and then sit outside in the sunshine and just wait. At about 10:30am everyone starts to slowly leave and you can get good photos minus the crowds. Our tour guide had agreed to hold back an extra 15 mins so we could do that and it’s definitely the only way we could get the photos we did with the itinerary we were on. And as an added bonus we had time in between to really enjoy the temples.

NILE CRUISE

Back in Aswan we boarded our accommodation for the next few nights, a river boat on the Nile.

There were at least a dozen boats lined up ready to take tourists. It really is a well oiled machine with boats ready to go, groups of tourists directed to their boat, their luggage already on the way to their room. We are not cruise people (at all) but this was kind of exciting. Chilling out in our room or on the rooftop while floating down the Nile River was a calming experience and we got to see some very pretty parts of Egypt.

The boat also acted as a moving hotel. The first evening we stopped at the Temple of Kom Ombo (pictured below).

The temple was partially dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek and next to the temple is a Crocodile Museum where you can still see the remains of an ancient crocodile mummies discovered in the vicinity, but the temple was definitely the highlight of that stop.

LUXOR

The river boat moved slowly to Luxor where we docked for a further 2 nights, the boat as our base.

Luxor offered some of the sites we were most looking forward to. The first being the Valley of the Kings.

We left the boat early in effort to beat the crowds, seeing the morning hot air balloons in the sky. When we arrived we were the first group there.

Valley of the Kings works in a funny way where they have about 6-10 tombs open at any one time/day and your pass gives you access to your choice of three. You can then pay for additional tickets to select tombs, e.g. Tutankhamun. Because we had an Egyptologist guide with us he chose the best three for the day and gave us the run down. Only one person in our entire group paid to see the Tomb of Tutankhamun and was actually disappointed with what he saw.

The tombs we went into were: Ramesses IX, Ramesses III and Merenptah.

The tombs were amazing and in excellent condition. It was difficult to remember at times what the tombs were built for as we studied the most incredible paintings and decorations.

From the tombs we travelled not too far to the Temple of Hatshepsut which as you approach it appears to rise out of the surrounding limestone rock.

Hatshepsut was one of the few female pharaohs from the ancient kingdom and despite her power in life, her son systematically destroyed all evidence of her legacy by crushing her statues and erasing her cartouche (a hieroglyphic name plate). Nonetheless, the temple has since been restored and was packed with school groups as eager as us to see it.

Next up was a quick stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two huge stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III who reigned in Egypt during the Dynasty XVIII. Both statues have extreme damage and are the little that remains today of Amenhotep's temple, destroyed by in earthquake in 1200 BC.

Our group used the statues as a photo opportunity to ‘walk as an Egyptian’.

Off the boat and now in hotel accommodation just outside of the Luxor city centre, we continued to explore Luxor and the surrounding area.

Karnak Temple was next on our itinerary.

Karnak Temple is huge, having been built by successive generations of rulers. Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom (around 2000-1700 BC) and continued into the Ptolemaic period (305 - 30 BC), although most of the surviving buildings date from the New Kingdom.

For me personally, Karnak Temple was one of the highlights of our trip to Egypt. You could spend many hours at this site wondering around and enjoying the amazing architecture, massive columns and painted hieroglyphs. And because the site is so big, even with the crowds it was still possible to get a nice photo with a little bit of patience.

Luxor Temple was a much smaller site than Karnak, but still impressive.

The temple is located on the banks of the Nile and right in the centre of downtown Luxor. Like Karnak it consists of several temples, built be successive rulers.

It has been used as a place of worship all the way from its conception in 1390 BC to present day with an active mosque still located within the temple.

Luxor Temple, like Karnak, gets incredibly crowded. I guess its central position in town and close proximity to the Nile river boats adds to its popularity. So like a lot of sites in Egypt, try and get there early to enjoy it without the crowds.

We had a bit of time to also check out the Luxor city centre.

Luxor has a bustling local bazaar where you can pick up gifts and souvenirs. We had a bit of a look around but were quite limited on packing space so it really was mostly just a look.

One place that we did buy from was Moses Jewelery, good for silver jewelery. I got a silver Cartouche with my name and the owner put a rush on it as we were leaving early the next morning.

Not too far from the bazaar and Luxor Temple is the Winter Palace, a five star hotel with British colonial-era buildings, surrounded by beautiful landscaped gardens.

Even for those of us not fortunate enough to be staying there, a visit to the hotel grounds for a drink or cup of tea is still enough to lap up a bit of the luxury the hotel offers and get away from the hectic Luxor city streets.

ITINERARY THOUGHTS AND TWEAKS

We couldn’t finish this post without giving our thoughts on the itinerary that we and our tour followed.

For a start we would limit the time we spent in Cairo. While you definitely need to spend some time in Cairo, if for no other reason than to see the Giza Pyramids, it is just a big, chaotic city. It is difficult to get around, crowded and quite dirty. We were pretty annoyed we had actually added a day!

Also, our tour accommodation put us in Giza which wasn’t great for getting around, so maybe look more central if staying there longer than just to see the pyramids. A further tip: use Uber to get around. It’s extremely reliable, we felt safe (well as safe as you can in Cairo traffic) and there was no messing around with money, prices and haggling.

The next thought we had is in regards to visiting the city of Alexandria.

We liked Alexandria and there are some great things to see however we would recommend against going in the cooler months as it’s actually quite hostile to walking around. As a coastal city it would definitely be much nicer in the warmer months. Uber also worked well in Alexandria.

Down south is where most of the cool stuff to see is.

To get to southern Egypt we went by plane, as opposed to bus or train, flying Nile Air one way and EgyptAir the other. Both airlines were good when we flew them, on time and fairly efficient. I know bus or train would be cheaper, but if you are strapped for time and also as a DIY option where you can book online, flying works well.

What I would do differently from our tour itinerary, is fly to Abu Simbel as opposed to Aswan, stay for a night in Abu Simbel so that you can see the temples early before the crowds, and then arrange a transfer to Aswan. I don’t know about organising buses in one single direction although, in my experience, Egyptians always find a way to make things happen for a fee. Your other option is to fly from Abu Simbel to Aswan, a short (and from my understanding), fairly inexpensive flight. That way you can enjoy the town of Aswan for a night or two and continue to use it as the starting point for the Nile River Cruise.  

Luxor was a great place to see a lot. We had two full days there which was probably spot on.

One thing we didn’t do and regretted later was to visit Saqqara and Memphis. Saqqara is the site of Egypt's first pyramid and we had the option of doing it on the final day of our tour but opted against it in order to get some rest (I wasn’t feeling well at this stage). However others in our group did do the day visit and it looked pretty awesome, so something worth looking into as a day trip.

If we had extra days another thing that would be great to build into an itinerary would be the southern coast of Egypt, known for snorkeling and diving opportunities, e.g. Wadi EL Gemal National Park, Hurghada, etc.

There are also places such as Sharm el-Sheikh, although Australian Government directives on where is safe to travel impact such itinerary decisions.

Final word

Obviously when you chose a group tour provider you are tied to a very specific itinerary and there’s always going to be some hits and misses. We were lucky in that it was mostly hits but as you can see, there were definitely some things we would change if we were do this trip again/ourselves.

As alluded to in part one of our Central Australia trip post, the second half of our drive underwent a major change. Our original itinerary had us heading to Alice Springs and then further north before turning back east on a scenic journey back to Sydney. However a combination of extreme heat, advice from locals in regards to the state of the Plenty Highway and the lack of vehicle preparedness (e.g. only a single spare tyre) added up to the very difficult decision to turn Fran around at Alice Springs and head back South. We’ve included a bit more detail on this below in our itinerary section. But for now, we had a trip to continue on, next stop Alice Springs.

Alice Springs to Sydney

Alice Springs

The drive from Uluru to Alice Springs was a pleasant one. For once we had what was a relatively short distance to drive (only 450km and 5 hours compared to the 10+ hour drives we had been doing) on a good road with nice scenery.

For example, check out this guy below. He is a Thorny Devil and looks much scarier than he actually is. He sat on the side of the Lasseter Highway and we were so excited we turned Fran around to go back and see him. He sat really still so we could photograph him too 😄

The next fun stop was to see Mount Conner. We had actually seen this mountain on the way to Uluru and for a brief moment were tricked into thinking it was Uluru. I guess that’s why they call it ‘Fool-uru’.

Shortly after that we came across a caravan of camels, right in the middle of the road. I was a bit slow with the camera this time, but we did manage to catch them as they moved into the bushes.

In Alice Springs we went directly to our accommodation, the Crowne Plaza Alice Springs Lasseters.

When we booked this hotel back in Sydney we didn’t pick up on the fact that it was linked to a casino and normally would not have been thrilled about that, but the hotel felt quite separate from the casino. We were also there for NYE which actually worked out well as that was where most of the party action was happening.

Oh, the other really great thing about this hotel was the laundry room which has DIY coin-operated machines and was super economical. The timing was perfect as we had saved up a bit of washing by this point.

Alice Springs itself was a pretty chilled town. It had all the amenities you would expect for a town that size in addition to a ton of art galleries displaying local artist’s work. Disappointingly, because we were there during the holiday season, a lot of them were closed. Still we visited what was open and were impressed.

Also cool was all of the street art around the town, which kind of made up for some of the closed galleries.

There’s not a ton to do in Alice Springs itself (especially in early January when we were there) but we had a bit of a look around as well as checked out a decent sun set on ANZAC Hill.

We did a half day trip out to Ellery Creek Big Hole about an hour out of Alice Springs.

The waterhole is a picturesque spot for swimming, walking and picnics. It also has camping facilities. However we only really went for a swim, that is until we got there.

The waterhole itself was quite pretty and the water not as cold as we had been led to believe. But the green, murky colour of the water changed our minds about the swim.

There were a few people in the water but a couple of locals that we spoke to there advised against swimming as the water levels were so low. They noted that the water levels in the past had actually covered most of the sand you can see in the below photo (RHS) and that they didn’t feel comfortable swimming in it at present. We felt the same. Still, it was a nice place to be and hang out for a while.

As mentioned, we were in Alice Springs for NYE which we spent at a bar in the local casino. While I don’t think I’d go all the way to Alice Springs to celebrate future NYE’s, it was a pretty fun night and the locals were very welcoming and fun to party with.

Clare Valley via Coober Pedy

Our departure from Alice Springs brought some difficult decisions as well as the realisation that we were going to have to back track a little and do another night in Coober Pedy (680km). We considered driving as far as Port Augusta (1227km) but that just seemed silly. So another night in Coober Pedy it was, except this time we stayed above ground in the local BIG4 Holiday Park and cooked our own food.

The following day we made the journey south to our next destination, the Clare wine region (730km). We chose Clare because it was one wine region in South Australia we had yet to visit and had limited exposure to the bushfires.

On the way we made a couple of stops. The first in Port Pirie where Mike’s ancestors had worked and lived, making it a good place to stop for a quick beer on yet another hot day.

The second stop was at Lake Bumbunga in the town Lochiel, in the Clare wine region.

Lake Bumbunga is famous for its bubblegum pink colour which it gets from a salt-loving algae that is attracted to the high salinity levels found in the water. The colour does vary according to the seasons, cloud cover, salinity levels in the water and the time of day and while we got a pretty good tone of pink for our visit, it wasn’t as strong as in some of the photos we had seen. Still, it was pretty amazing to see.

Clare is a beautiful little town and we were so glad we had decided to stop there.

We had one whole day there as a part of a two night stay and used it to walk part of the Riesling Trail. The Riesling Trail is a 35 kilometres long walking and cycling track that runs between the towns of Clare and Auburn. The trail travels past a number of cellar doors and is named after the grape that the region is famous for.

The trail was an opportunity to get our legs moving while checking out the Clare Valley’s wine offerings.

We set out on the trail after mid-morning and in the end only made it to three wineries.

The three we visited were: Tim Adams Wines (great Pinot Gris), Sevenhill Cellars (beautiful cellar door and grounds) and Kilikanoon (reds that punch above their weight).

We spent a couple of hours at Sevenhill Cellars enjoying a cheese board and wine and enjoying their amazing location. Sevenhill Cellars was the first winery established in the Clare Valley and was settled by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1851 to produce sacramental wine. Some of the old structures and cellar are still there.

We also ate extremely well in Clare (and surrounds). We had a stellar meal at a place called Seed Kitchen (pictured below) however we have since found out that they have moved location and changed menus to burgers which is a bit disappointing.

Other gems we discovered included the Olive Bus Clare for a nice quiet place to enjoy a coffee and light breakfast or snack, Velvet and Willow for the excellent coffee and muffins and the Watervale Hotel which had been recently taken over by new owners with grand plans. We can’t wait to go back and check it out when they’re done.

Adelaide

After we left Clare we headed down to Adelaide super excited to have a short drive (140km).

We’ve been to Adelaide a couple of times before and just wanted a quick night stop before the long drive back to Sydney. We didn’t do a whole lot there but did check out Glenelg for the first time, having lunch and a walk on the pier. I think we had literally the worst weather we encountered on our trip that day but it was still good to have a look around and imagine how nice it would be to have a drink on the beach on a sunny, warm day.

We didn’t get pictures of anything we ate in Adelaide but can highly recommend The Moseley in Glenelg for a drink or pub lunch, and EST Pizzeria in the Adelaide CBD for awesome Italian pizza.

Return to Sydney via Hay

Our return to Sydney was long and uneventful (1375km).

For a good overnight stop try Hay where we stayed. I can’t remember the exact motel but there were a couple on the main street and they both looked ok. It was quiet when we were there with not a ton of eating options but a couple of pubs/RSL and cafes for breakfast in the morning.

Also still around was the smoke from the NSW bushfires, as evidenced in the below photo taken in Tooleybuc, on the NSW/SA border and not far from Hay.

We loved our Central Australia trip in spite of the extreme heat. If we were to do it again I don’t think we would go at that time of the year although it did mean less people/ tourists which has its upsides. Next time we will also make sure Fran is ready for those super bad roads and explore more of the Australian Outback.

Itinerary Our planned v actual itinerary

We have included a bit more of a detailed view of our itinerary, the planned version versus what we actually ended up doing.

As mentioned several times in our posts we had to change the second half of our trip (post Alice Springs) and head back south as opposed to the original plan of heading further north and then east to get back to Sydney. While the extreme heat was a factor, we would have managed that. it was really the advice from locals in regards to the state of the Plenty Highway that changed our minds. We had done research prior to our trip and learned that the road conditions do vary throughout the year, but nothing indicated to us just how bad it actually would be.

We had planned on averaging somewhere between 60-80km/h on a corrugated but consistent surface meaning the 750km road could be done in a long day, but recent reports from locals indicated long sections with speeds down to 30km/h. Combined with a lack of vehicle preparedness (e.g. only a single spare tyre) and lack of experience with Fran’s fuel consumption, we made the difficult decision to turn around at Alice Springs and head back South. Refer to the Boulia Shire Council website for latest conditions if you are planning on travelling along the Plenty Highway.

We are still keen to get to places like Birdsville and Mudgee so we’ll have to plan those into future trips (and Mike still has an appointment with Big Red).

If we were to re-do this trip we would re-jig our Uluru and Alice Springs time, removing a night from each, so that we could add Kings Canyon. Missing the Canyon was a bit of a disappointment but I guess that’s just another reason to visit there again in the future.

Central Australia is a trip we had talked about forever and the purchase of Fran made us all the more eager to get out there and explore it.

Normally we spend our Christmas and New Year in Melbourne with family and friends however with forced leave from work we decided to use the holiday period a little differently this time around. So we pulled together a rough plan, ignored all of the warnings about how hot it would be, and set off to see parts of Australia that neither of us had seen.

I will note here that our itinerary did have to change part way through, as did our accommodation options given the heat. But more on that later in part two of this post.

Sydney to Uluru

Originally we intended to create a single post for our Central Australia trip, however we realised when starting to put it together that we had so much information to impart, stories to tell and photos to share, that we were going to have to split the trip into two posts. So as this post is titled, this is the first part and covers our drive from Sydney to Uluru and our stay in the towns along the way, including Uluru itself.

Below is a map of the route we took.

Trangie

Our departure from Sydney was a mixture of happiness, relief and sadness. In the days and weeks leading up to our trip Sydney had been covered in a heavy smoke haze from the most horrific bushfires that NSW (and Australia) had ever encountered. Even as we drove out of Sydney and through the Blue Mountains we were reminded of what was still taking place (and about to get much worse) as the road was clouded in smoke and visibility poor.

Originally when planning our trip we had been a tad ambitious with our first stop to be in Broken Hill. But as the day came closer and we gave this more thought a 13+ hour drive seemed a bit unrealistic so we built in an additional day and stop and made our first stop in a town called Trangie (approx. 460km). This was even more sensible give the heat we were driving through was in excess of 40C degree temperatures (~104 F).

We arrived in Trangie early evening, opting to stay in Trangie Caravan Park. As noted in our introduction, we opted not to use Fran’s tent accommodation due to the extreme temperatures we were staying in (around 40C at midnight). At the caravan park we checked-in to a very comfortable and air-conditioned cabin for 100AUD before heading out to the local RSL for a cheap and cheerful dinner. Truthfully it felt a tad strange to walk through town with its quiet streets after coming from Sydney. But Trangie was a good place for an overnight stop and 5:30am the following day we were back on the road in an effort to beat some of the worst of the daytime heat.

We found driving through country NSW interesting. Besides the little country towns we made stops at along the way, e.g. Cobar, we also found the change in landscape and scenery fascinating. Starting our drive in Sydney on coastline, moving through forest and farmland and eventually coming onto red soil and desert landscape. The contrast was amazing and happened much quicker than we had expected.

Broken Hill

Our next stop was in Broken Hill (approx. 680km) where we stayed for a couple of nights, timing that was actually pretty spot on in terms of things to do and see there.

The town itself felt quite deserted, I think given the heat and time of year (Christmas), many people had taken the opposite approach to us and headed towards the coast (see picture 1 below, photos L-R where 1 is top left and 6 bottom right).

Highlights of Broken Hill for us included:

• The Palace Hotel (famous from the film ‘Priscilla - Queen of the Desert’) where we stopped for a beer
• The Broken Hill Miner’s Memorial which also offered up some great views of the town (photo 4 and photos 2, 3 and 5)
• Pro Hart Gallery where we learned a lot about an artist we only really knew from a carpet ad. Highly recommend this gallery
• The Broken Hill Sculptures & Living Desert Sanctuary is about 10km out of town and would be a great spot to watch sunrise or sunset. We actually went during the day and as a result had the place all to ourselves. There is a small 6AUD entry fee and this provides access to the sculptures as well as picnic areas and walking tracks (photo 6).

In Broken Hill we stayed about a 10 min drive outside of the main town at Broken Hill Outback Resort. The resort offers both camping and cabins and has an onsite bar/ bistro which offers a small breakfast menu in addition to lunch and dinner. The resort was fairly recently refurbished and both the accommodation and food was of very high quality. The kangaroos grazing on the camp ground late afternoon/evening was an added bonus of our stay - but you can see how the heat kept the campers away.

Coober Pedy

Following on from our stay in Broken Hill we made another early exit to embark on one of our longest days of driving (approx. 950km), this time to the town of Coober Pedy. This drive was a little precarious at the start as we drove cautiously to avoid early morning Kangaroos and then took us across the NSW/SA border and through some of the most extreme heat throughout our trip. Also a word or warning for crossing the state border into SA: remember to eat any fruit or vegetables you have before the crossing as we lost all of our apples and bananas.

We made a couple of stops along the way but the harshest by far was where we stopped for lunch, Lake Hart Rest Area. We ended up eating our lunch in the car, partly to avoid the extreme heat, partly to avoid the ridiculous amount of flies.

Seeing the ‘Welcome to Coober Pedy’ sign as we arrived in the town was definitely cause for excitement. Besides the fact that our long drive had finished for the day, we had made it to a town we had both been curious to visit for a long time.

Part of that curiosity had been around the underground houses that the town is famous for. So of course we had to stay in one of Coober Pedy’s underground hotels. We had booked The Underground Motel, located in a quiet spot on the edge of the town and were pleasantly surprised at just how cool the rooms stay. In spite of the extreme heat outside (44C/111F degrees in the shade) and no air-conditioning inside, the rooms were always a cool, pleasant temperature. The rooms were basic but the motel does offer a complimentary breakfast as well as facilities to cook your own meals, which we’d actually highly recommend as the food options in town were not great.

We only had a day in Coober Pedy and picked 3 things that we wanted to do. One was a visit to the Kanku Breakaways & Dog Fence, a 70km round trip that consists of colourful low hills which have broken away from the Stuart Range, hence their name ‘The Breakaways. There is a permit required for this (although not at the time we were there) so remember to purchase at the Visitors Information Centre in town before heading out.

The second item on our list was to the Umoona Opal Mine & Museum. They offer free tours, including a short video on the history of the town and discovery of opals and obviously have a well stocked opal store. I really enjoyed this stop and learned a lot about opals.

Our third stop was by far the cutest, visiting Josephine’s Gallery and Kangaroo Orphanage. The gallery has some cool local art for purchase and they do kangaroo feeding sessions at regular times throughout the day (check their Facebook page or contact for more information on this). The orphanage takes in rescued and injured wildlife in the Coober Pedy area (mostly baby kangaroos, but some other animals and older kangaroos as well). Even if you decide not to purchase any of the artwork you can also donate directly to the cause. The below joey had been found in the pouch of its dead mum on the side of the highway but was looking pretty healthy due to the care it was receiving.

Our visit to Coober Pedy was probably not at the best time of the year. It was super hot preventing us from walking around for long and as the town was quiet coming into Christmas, a number of businesses were closed. As a result we missed out on seeing a couple of things, e.g. Opal fields, and in terms of food options the best ones we tried were John Pizza bar and the Outback bar & Grill. We didn’t rate the ‘go to’ bar in the town at the Desert Cave Hotel, it was just weird, so we found it better to BYO.

We liked Coober Pedy but equally were keen to head further north after 2 nights in the town and super excited to make our way to Uluru.

Uluru

Christmas morning and another early start as we tried to take advantage of the slightly cooler air. Again we needed to be careful of kangaroos although there we saw fewer around Coober Pedy than we had in some other areas we had driven through.

Excellent roads and next to no traffic allowed us to do the 390km to the Northern Territory border by mid-morning, a triumphant moment. Australia really is a big country.

From there we continued towards Uluru and our accommodation at Ayers Rock resort.

Ayers Rock Resort is like a little oasis in the middle of the desert, except that it’s actually quite a large complex and is hot and dry much like the environment it is located in.

The resort is made up of 8 accommodation options, catering for different price points and experiences. We had originally booked 3 nights in The Lost Camel Hotel (as a Christmas Present to ourselves) and the last 2 nights in the Ayers Rock Campground. However with minimum temperatures still in the high 30s at night we cancelled the camping and increased our hotel stay to 5 nights. Yes we are weak, but after all, it was Christmas!

The Lost Camel Hotel is one of the resort’s mid-range budget options with a pool and located next to the Resort Town Square which was good for stocking up on snacks and some cheaper food options. The rooms were compact but comfortable and of course air-conditioned. We also had breakfast included in our first few nights, provided at the Ilkari Restaurant in the Sails Desert Hotel.

The resort itself felt a little mismanaged. The first thing we noted when arriving was the lack of shade in the car park. Poor Fran spent the next 5 days cooking outside on an asphalt parking lot. I know we were in the desert but some trees or shade cloth would have been useful.

The air-conditioning broke multiple times in their communal areas/restaurants and also on the hottest bus ever to transport us to the Sounds of Silence dinner: not a great impression to make on foreign tourists paying hundreds of dollars for the experience. We suggest you bring a nice bottle of wine (or two) as the bottle shop offers a very limited, bad wine range at expensive prices. Food outlets and restaurants are the same.

All of that aside we did enjoy our stay and the staff at the resort were all amazing, working hard to provide the best experience possible, when they themselves were sweating from the lack of an air-conditioned work environment.

Our days were built around avoiding the peak temperatures of the day as afternoons were just too hot to do anything productive. So we usually had something planned for the mornings and evenings and spent the middle of the day not too far from the pool :-)

One of the highlights was definitely the Sounds of Silence dinner. While it’s certainly not a cheap night out, it was a good night. The evening starts with drinks and canapes at a spot with a good view of the both Uluru and The Olgas. We stayed there until sunset and then walked down a short path to where dinner is served under the stars. The dinner is a buffet but the food was actually pretty good and catered for all dietary requirements. Wine and beer was also free flowing. After dinner is a ‘guided tour of the night sky’ (their words, not mine) which was a great experience except maybe a little rushed. Overall it’s an experience we would recommend if you can part with the money, even if it does feel like the organisers are phoning it in a little at times.

Obviously you can’t come all the way to Uluru without seeing the rock at both sunrise and sunset. We did sunset multiple times (easy if you have your own vehicle, but also possible to organise through he resort) and sunrise just the once.

Passes to Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park can be purchased through Parks Australia and cost us 25AUD each for up to 5 days.

Our sunrise was on a morning when there had been a rare case of rain. Fortunately the rain cleared as we headed out to the rock. Unfortunately we didn’t really get a true sunrise because of the cloud. Still it was beautiful and worth the early start.

Tip: The best spot to photograph the rock at the sunrise viewing area (Talinguru Nyakunytjaku) is actually not on the platform but from the ground closer to the rock. We found the platform to be crowded and had obstructions in the view.

We also did a couple of walks, again in the mornings before it got too hot.

One morning we did the walk around the rock (approx. 8km), a pleasant walk with a designated path. Walking around the rock also got us wondering how anybody ever dared to climb it as it was certainly a lot steeper than we had expected.

Another morning we headed out to the The Olgas (Kata Tjuta), around a 45 min drive from Ayers Rock Resort. There are two walks available to the public, Walpa Gorge and Valley of the Winds. We did the later but skipped Walpa Gorge as it was already crazy hot by the time we completed the first walk.

We had 4 full days at Uluru in total and for us that was about right. We were there partly for a bit of relaxation over Christmas so didn’t do a stack of activities. We did miss out on the Field of Lights display due to bad weather which was disappointing. In hindsight we shouldn’t have left that until the last night as we had no opportunity to reschedule when it did get cancelled. Other than that it might have been good to leave a day earlier to add Kings Canyon into our itinerary (see part two of our trip for further details on that).

We loved Uluru and while it feels a million miles from Sydney, I don’t think it will be our last trip there and I’m really glad we finally got to see it.

But the trip wasn’t over and we had Alice Springs as our next stop. Although not before some blooper photos like the one below.

We have been to Singapore numerous times as it makes a great stopover destination on the way back home to Oz, but equally is a fun long weekend kind of place as well. There is so much to see and do there, especially given it’s size.

Every time we visit Singapore we do something new that we haven’t done or seen before. In time we may make this post the 15 or 20 things to do in Singapore, or even more than that!

GARDENS BY THE BAY

When looking up Singapore some of the images you are most likely to see will be that of Gardens by the Bay, in particular the Supertree Grove.

Gardens by the Bay actually consists of three waterfront gardens and several attractions, in addition to the Supertree Grove, including a Flower Dome, Cloud Forest, sculptures and more.

However the Supertree Grove night show is our top choice and is a unique experience of lights and music that should definitely be at the top of any list when visiting Singapore. Shows are scheduled every evening and for more information on times and some of the other attractions, refer to the the Gardens by the Bay website.

SENTOSA ISLAND

Sentosa Island is a man-made island accessible by a small bridge from the main Singapore island.

Sentosa has a ton of stuff to do, many directed at families and children, but there is still something for everyone and all budgets. Relax at one of Sentosa’s beaches (Palawan, Siloso and Tanjong), get back to nature at one of Sentosa’s nature or aquarium parks or check out one of the islands’s theme parks such as Universal Studios or Adventure Cove Waterpark. Get a birds eye view of Sentosa and Singpore’s main island on the Skyline or take in a museum or show.

SHOPPING

If Singapore is known for one thing it has to be shopping! Singaporeans almost treat shopping as a sport and therefore it is no surprise that there is no shortage of great places to shop.

Orchard Road is perhaps Singapore’s most famous shopping destination and this street alone provides many hours of opportunities to spend money, the street lined with malls featuring designer brands and department stores, as well as a variety of bars and restaurants. VivoCity is Singapore’s largest shopping mall, again filled with a variety of shops as well as outlets and entertainment. Another favourite is The Shoppes at Mariana Bay Sands, the architecture adding to the impressiveness of the high end names and designer brands. Singapore has also cemented its name as a shopping destination by adding The Jewel (pictured below) to it’s Changi Airport.

If malls are not your thing, do not despair. Singapore offers plenty of outdoor and unique shopping opportunities via its outdoor markets (e.g. Bugis Street Market, Chinatown), busy roads (Serangoon Road, Little India) and little laneways such as Haji Lane (more on these further below).

MARINA BAY

Marina Bay is an upscale area of skyscrapers, posh hotels and luxury malls all on a waterfront promenade featuring the iconic Marina Bay Sands; three towers topped off with an infinity pool that has become a well known feature of Singapore’s skyline.

Marina Bay has plenty to see and do, offering a bit of everything from shopping and food, to gardens and cruises.

But we can’t talk about Marina Bay without including more on Marina Bay Sands itself. Firstly, this hotel gets super busy and it is not cheap. The infinity pool located 57 stories up is only available to hotel guests, so if you’re like us and can’t fork out the cash for your entire Singapore stay at the Marina Bay Sands, book in a single night only and get your Instagram pics in the famous pool. And if a single night is still a bit out of your budget then don’t worry - you can still get the same incredible view for a small entrance fee at the Sands SkyPark Observation Deck, on the same level as the pool.

VISIT ONE OF SINGAPORE'S NEIGHBOURHOODS

Singapore is home to an array of diverse neighbourhoods, each offering something different in the way of history and attractions, food and culture. Each time we visit Singapore we try to visit at least one or two that we haven’t been to before, or sometimes just re-visit an old favourite.

Below are some of our favourite and most recommended neighbourhoods, as well as others to check out.

Favourites:

Little India - Colourful and vibrant. The little lanes make walking easy while exploring the fascinating street art and historic temples, taking in the smells of spices and food.

Chinatown - The streets of Chinatown are a blend of old and new. The evidence of old Chinatown are evident via the buildings and temples and there is a Chinatown Heritage Centre to learn more about the early Chinese migrants to Singapore. Chinatown is perhaps the best area to steal a bargain if you’re a shopper but the attraction for us is definitely the food. A mix of cool restaurants and market/ hawker centre stalls mean there are food options at all price points and to suit everyone’s taste.

Kampong Gelam - Quirky, colourful and interesting, this neighbourhood is my personal favourite. The area, sometimes referred to as the Arab Quarter, is located around the Sultan Mosque and there is no shortage of cool bars and eateries, funky boutiques and unique stores and it’s difficult to not fall in love with the vibrant laneways such as Haji Lane.

Others to check out: Colonial/ Civic District for the historic buildings, memorials and museums; Joo Chiat for the vibrant shophouses and Peranakan culture; and Tiong Bahru for its architecture, history and hip shops.

INDULGE IN SINGAPORE’S FOOD CULTURE

Singapore has an amazing food culture. Choose from traditional dishes to every international cuisine imaginable, with a choice of fine dining, hip restaurants or cheap and cheerful in one of the many Hawker markets. Food in Singapore is fun!

While you can eat pretty much anything in Singapore, it is famous for certain dishes, so if you can, give one or more of the following a try:

• Chilli Crab (Try one of the many Jumbo Seafood outlets)
• Hainanese chicken rice
• Laksa
• Char kuay teow
• Barbecued stingray

Some of our favourites places are shown below. Wantons in Chinatown at Wanton and a mix of dishes from the Hong Lim Market & Food Centre (hawker market)

Our favourite streets and areas (aside from the aforementioned neighbourhoods) include Robertson Quay (pubs, bars and food variety), Hongkong Street for Amo (great Italian) and Cuppage Road (shopping relief near Orchard Road)

Singapore also has great coffee and brunch options. Our favourite Ronin Cafe, had actually closed at the time of writing, however we understand that they have created a new option called Gather in the Raffles Hotel Arcade and we can’t wait to check that out on our next visit. Their coffee was amazing!

For other coffee options try Toby’s Estate and Common Man Coffee Roasters. Another winner we discovered was Wild Honey which has yummo food and a liquor license, great for a boozy brunch.

CHECK OUT THE AMAZING BAR SCENE

Any list we provide here for Singapore’s bars we know is going to be out of date pretty much as soon as we write it. That said, there’s a few bars we’ve made repeat visits to that we have included below, as well as a link to a really good resource that is kept up to date.

Singapore’s bar scene really is amazing with its top quality drinks, inventive fit outs, ambiance and just outright coolness. That all said, drinking in Singapore doesn’t come cheap which is why if you are ready for a good night out, choose well.

Our two repeat bars are 28 HongKong Street and The Other Room.

28 Hong Kong Street is one of Singapore’s first speakeasy bars and can be tricky to find behind the unmarked shopfront door on Hong Kong Street. But go inside and you’ll find cool tunes and shelves lined with top shelf drinks ready to mix up creative cocktails.

The Other Room is another bar hidden away behind an unmarked door, this time inside the Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel. Press the buzzer and you’ll be welcomed into an intimate bar with an almost overwhelming choice of cocktails and quality liquors.

Not a bar, but also one we have given repeat business is Boomarang in Robertson Quay. We like this place not because it’s an Australian bar but because it is a bit more casual and has a lovely location on the river, great for a quiet afternoon drink. I’ll also admit we came across Boomarang when I was looking for somewhere to watch an AFL game that I really didn’t want to miss. Boomarang is also good for live sport.

Just for a completeness we’ve added a few bars that are currently on our wish list and as we do finally get to them, will update this page. Our wish list is (in no particular order): Atlas Bar (Rochor), The Old Man (China Town), Employees Only (Chinatown), LeVel33 (Marina Bay) and Raffles Long Bar ( the home of the Singapore Sling)

Also refer to Timeout for an up to date list of the best bars in Singapore.

ENJOY SINGAPORE’S PARKS AND GARDENS

One of the most surprising things for many visitors coming to Singapore is the amount of green. A couple of decades ago the government set out to raise the quality of life and green in the city with a goal to transform its ‘Garden City’ to a ‘City in a Garden’ (Source: Wikipedia) . We think they did it too.

We’ve already mentioned Gardens by the Bay however there are so many more gardens and areas where you can enjoy trees, walking/ running paths and just nature in general. Refer to this list of parks for some ideas. Some of our own favourites that are city central are the Singapore Botanic Gardens and Fort Canning Park.

CLARKE QUAY

Clarke Quay might seem an odd choice to go in our top ten and we won’t lie, it’s very touristy. But we’ve included it because it is a nice place to walk along during the day (and you can also include Boat Quay for that as well), and it’s a great place for a drink in the evening.

We usually stay around the Clarke Quay area because it feels so central to other places we will visit while in Singapore. Chinatown is within walking distance, Roberston Quay is close for more food and drink options, Marina Bay is not too far and there’s also great transport options with the MRT. But Clarke Quay is nice within its own right because you can stay local and still take in all of the energy of the party goers in the evening. You have lots of food and drinking options, you can take a boat ride on the river (admittedly we’ve never actually done this), it’s great for a morning run and there’s some good shopping options there as well. #winning

TAKE IN THE ARTS & CULTURE

Something that is less spoken about (well at least from a tourist’s perspective) is Singapore’s arts and culture scene, which makes sense when you think about Singapore as a mix of cultures and histories.

Singapore has a wide choice of galleries, museums and temples and we have barely made a dent in all that it has to offer.

Some of the temples we think are worth checking out include : Thian Hock Keng Temple (Chinatown), Sri Mariamman Temple (Chinatown), Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple (Little India/ Rochor) and Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum (Chinatown).

For art try the Opera Gallery, Gillman Barraks (made up of 10 galleries) and Deck for photographic art.

Oh, and don’t forget about the urban street art in some of Singapore’s Neighbourhoods. Haji Lane and Little India are particularly awesome for their street art.

For museums try the Asian Civilisations Museum which provides insight into the various Asian cultures that make up the base for Sinagpore’s multi-ethnic society (this is on our list for our next visit but believe you can easily spend a half day there). There are three main heritage centres that will give you the history and insight into the country’s main cultures - the Indian Heritage Centre, Malay Heritage Centre and Chinese Heritage Centre. Finally there is the National Museum of Singapore which was established in 1887 and is Singapore’s oldest museum.

As you can see, there is a lot to see and do in Singapore and every visit we make we find more. Hopefully this post is helpful when planning your next trip or stopover to Singapore and we will try to add to the list as we discover more. Happy travels!

Cambodia, and more specifically Angkor Wat, had been on my bucket list for quite some time. I’m not too sure why we didn’t get there earlier but I’m certainly glad we have been there now.

Cambodia is an amazing country. From the history and monuments, to the food, culture and people, everything delivered above our expectations.

We had just over a week to squeeze in as much as possible so focused our visit on SIem Reap and Phnom Pehn, with the majority of our time in Siem Reap and surrounds (see our full itinerary further below).

WHERE WE STAYED

We stayed at a fairly new hotel called Blanc Smith.

The hotel is about a 5 minute walk to the main areas of Siem Reap such as Pub Street. The location was perfect because although we were in a quieter area (good for sleep) there were still plenty of food options and amenities near by and the party area was still really close. Siem Reap is not a very big town and felt perfectly safe to walk around at night.

We paid approximately 65AUD p/n without breakfast but the hotel did offer complimentary shuttles to/from the airport. It also has a good value cafe downstairs - Coffee Today- so breakfast and coffee wasn’t far (although we did tend to venture out most days).

The hotel was super clean and also had a reasonable size pool for a quick dip.

HOW WE GOT AROUND

Our hotel helped us a lot initially with working out a good itinerary for the Angkor Archeological Park, as well as a visit to the floating village of Kompong Phluk. They also helped with organising transport which was a motor taxi with the loveliest driver.

I think we may have paid a little over the going rate at the equivalent of 30AUD per day - in general expect to pay 20-25AUD. For us the cost was worth it to have someone who was tied to the hotel, super reliable and a little bit flexible.

WHERE WE ATE AND DRANK

There is no shortage of places to eat or drink in Siem Reap. Actually the most difficult part is getting to as many as possible, there are so many fun and tasty options.

As noted above, we did have a cafe in our hotel however we found coffee more suited our tastes at Fifty 5 Kitchen Bar (illy coffee) and Sister Srey Cafe. Both of these cafes also served incredible breakfasts, so good that I forgot to get photos of our food, only have photos of the coffee.

We ate local food at a few different places including the Khmer Kitchen (food pictured below) and The Brothers ( including The Brothers Plus). Actually we ate at the later a couple of times as they were also close to our hotel.

For a change from Cambodian food we ate burgers at Jungle Burger Sports Bar and Bistro and had really good Italian food at a hidden away restaurant called Il Forno.

As for drinks, I lost track of all of the places we stopped by at for a quick beer. The Brothers offered 50 cent beers and we certainly took advantage of that on our arrival night. Then pretty much a pub and bar crawl over the following days up and around Pub Street. One place that did stand out and a little away from the main area was Temple Skylounge.

Temple Skylounge has a mixture of businesses in the complex including a bakery (ground floor), restaurant and then a rooftop bar. The view is of the town is great and the cocktails were impressive. We were there pretty early in the evening but it looked like it might get pretty party later in the night (Note: Do not confuse this Temple bar with the Temple Nightclub in Pub Street).

WHAT WE DID

SIEM REAP TOWN (INCLUDING PUB STREET)

We generally like to start our time in a new location getting a feel for the place and just walking around, which is what we did in Siem Reap.

The main tourist area is pretty laid back during the day and becomes party at night. We checked out the little lane ways in the main tourist area, visited the old market, walked along the river up to the Royal Residence and Preah Ang Chorm Shrine and basically just took in the town.

Pub Street is blocked off to traffic at night which is great for the hoards of people eating, drinking and having fun at one of the many bars, clubs and restaurants along the strip. The area felt very safe although as with any poorer country we did spot homeless people and children selling goods way past their bed time.

ANGKOR ARCHEOLOGICAL PARK

First thing first. There are a few ticket options for visiting Angkor Wat, so choose according to how much time you want to spend there. Passes are sold in one-day (37USD), three-day (62USD) and seven-day (72USD) blocks that must be used on consecutive days. Passes are also specific to you and a photo is taken on the spot to attach at the time of purchase. We did a 3 day pass which worked well for the time we were there and gave us more than enough time to see what we wanted to see. Before leaving I read blogs with people spending a week or more there and travelling to some of the further out temples - that was not for us. By day 3 we were a little ‘templed out’, as much as we loved the temples because they are pretty awesome.

Also, the ticket office is a 15 min drive away from the Angkor Wat main gate, so make sure you or your driver remember to stop there first before heading to the main site.

Angkor Archeological Park has two main circuits that people generally stick to - The Small Circuit which consists of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, plus the Ta Prohm (Aka. the Tomb Raider temple) and a few others. Then there is the Grand Circuit which covers some of the further away temples. If you are there for only a day then the Small Circuit is definitely your best option. Start with the main two sites and choose from the rest based on time. If you have 2-3 days then you will have more than enough time to cover the Grand Circuit and maybe a coupe of others outside of it, like we did.

Going in our plan was to complete the Small Circuit on day one, sunrise at Angkor Wat Temple followed by the remaining temples in the Grand Circuit day two and a couple on the way to visit a floating village on day three. Mostly we stuck to this plan except that on day one we ran out of time for some of the temples on the Small Circuit so had to push them to day two, and our sunrise at Angkor Wat was a bit of a disaster.

#sunrisefail

The sunrise at Angkor Wat on day two was a non-event with foggy conditions and obviously, no sun. Disappointing (especially given the early morning 4:00am start) but still a nice experience. Also note that you do want to get there as early as possible because there are some serious crowds and we almost missed out on a waterside spot.

The temples across the the Angkor Archeological Park were built in different eras and represent different beliefs, generally Hinduism and Buddhism. Also noteworthy is that while many people use ‘Angkor Wat’ to refer to the entire site, ‘Angkor Wat’ itself is a single temple, the main temple and starting site. For further background on the history of the temples, as well as tourist information for the site, refer to the Tourism of Cambodia website, a really helpful reference that appears to be kept up to date.

On day three, on our way to Kompong Phluk (see below), we also visited a couple of temples further outside Siem Reap, referred to as the Roluos Group. There are 4 temples of which we made it to two. We had planned to do the others on the way back but a sudden downpour changed those plans.

The two we did go to were Preah Ko (pictured below) and Bakong, both 9th Century Hindu temples.

In regards to our favourites over the three days, mine was actually the site of Angkor Thom and in particular the Bayon Temple (i.e. the temple with the large Buddha faces). A bit cliche perhaps but it really was an amazing site and temple.

Mike rated Preah Khan as his favourite, an expansive ruins where you can wonder the jungle covered walls and (almost) get lost.

KAMPONG PHLUK FLOATING VILLAGE

Kompong Phluk is located 16km southeast from Siem Reap as the crow flies but takes about 45mins when traveling by road (if you don’t stop along the way like we did).

A bit like the Angkor Wat sites, the ticket office is before the village and you need to purchase your ticket prior to arriving at the boat pick up. This boat ticket cost us 20USD per person and the return trip is meant to last about one hour (ours went for longer).

The main boat stops at a mangrove forest (the largest mangrove forest of the Siem Reap floating villages) and you can jump on an optional canoe that goes through the flooded forest. The boat ticket costs USD 5 per person, and the ride lasts about 20 – 30 minute. The canoe option is part of a rowing boat cooperative.

We chose not to do the second boat but probably should have given we ended up having to wait for a third person on our main boat to complete her ride. Tip: If you are forced to share your main boat with another person(s), make sure you have all agreed on doing or not doing the second boat. We got sucked into sharing our boat (the boats are attached to a party of people) not realising it meant waiting around half an hour for a different itinerary.

Seeing the floating village was pretty interesting, although at times it felt weird looking into strangers’ homes. We saw people going about their day to day lives doing things such as washing hair over a basin, cooking, doing laundry, etc. It’s worth seeing but again, just be clear on what you want to do with your boat driver and definitely try and include it with other activities (such as seeing temples) on the way there.

We loved our time in Siem Reap and were sad to leave it. Fortunately we still had Phnom Penh to look forward to.

CAMBODIA ITINERARY

It’s not often we travel to a place or country and leave feeling like overall, we pretty much got the itinerary and timings right. Cambodia was the first in a long time where we left feeling like had seen most of what we wanted to. That said, there’s always more to see and we would definitely love to make a return visit to Cambodia in the future! There’s so much history, culture, delicious food and the Cambodian people are such lovely people .

OUR ITINERARY:

Day 1 - We flew into Siem Reap via Bangkok from Sydney. We arrived in the evening, checked into our hotel before a late dinner and beers.

Day 2 - We could have scheduled Angkor Wat to start this day but instead we opted to check out the town of Siem Reap. We like to do this to get a feel for the place we are staying before jumping straight into ‘tourist’ type activities.

Day 3 & 4 - Explore Angkor Archaeological Park. We started with the Angkor Wat Temple and then Angkor Thom on the first day, moving around the Angkor ‘Small Circuit’. On the second morning (day 4) we began with sunrise at Angkor Wat Temple and then moved our explorations to the ‘Grand Circuit’.

Day 5 - This day we visited a couple more temples, Preah Koh and the Bakong Temples, on the way to visit the floating village Kompong Phluk.

Day 6 - Morning transfer from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Afternoon exploring the Phnom Penh historic district.

Day 7 - Explore Phnom Penh City.

Day 8 - Half day visit to Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Free afternoon for further exploration.

Day 9 - Fly out of Phnom Penh airport.

WHAT WOULD WE IF WE HAD MORE TIME:

• Sihanoukville Beach and the southern coast - We were keen to explore the beach town and nearby islands and would do this in any future trip to Cambodia. We had a couple of days we could have added but felt we actually probably wanted more like 3-4 days.
• Battambang - Cambodia’s second largest city and from our research has plenty to see and do if you have a couple of extra days. The local culture, countryside, temples and French architecture are all noteworthy.
• A Cambodian food cooking class (next time for sure!).
  

Phnom Penh is a vibrant and bustling city. We went there for a 3 night visit after our time in Siem Reap and were pleasantly surprised at how cosmopolitan it is all the while retaining the energy of a South-East Asian capital city.

HOW WE GOT THERE

This a heading I don’t always include however we had such a good experience with the transfer company we used that I feel like they deserve a mention.

First I should note, we had actually planned to take a bus for our transfer from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, but as with most of our trips, we were time poor and didn’t want to lose an entire day of our week in Cambodia to a bus ride. So we did a bit of research and came across a local company called BookMeBus, a leading bus ticket booking site, and start up, in Cambodia. As the name says you can book buses, however we used them to book a private taxi. Following what was a painless booking process and confirmation, our driver turned up 15 mins early with a comfortable and clean car. Our driver didn’t really speak any English but that also wasn’t a problem as he used a translation app to communicate with us and he drove incredibly safely. The cost of the transfer was around 100AUD, possibly on the pricer side but with only one quick stop we made it our our accommodation in Phnom Penh in 5 hours and had the entire afternoon to start checking it out, so we bought quite a lot of time back. Worth it!

WHERE WE STAYED

We stayed at a small hotel in the historic district of Phnom Penh, Blue Lime. The hotel is down a quiet lane and is a bit of an oasis with its pool and gardens, all the while located close to key landmarks and great eating options. I think we paid around 80AUD per night with breakfast, again not super cheap but good value for its comfort and location. We would stay there again.

WHERE WE ATE AND DRANK

One of the most surprising things about Phnom Penh was the food and bar scene. We knew there would be places to have a beer, and we thought we’d probably get some pretty good food there, but this city delivered well above our expectations. The bar scene in particular was a ton of fun and we unfortunately just didn’t have enough time to get through what could easily be a very long list of bars you MUST check out. Below are the ones we made it to, along with some of the places we ate at.

David’s Homemade Noodle Restaurant

The place to go for super fresh noodles and dumplings and watch as the noodles are made. So good.

Romdeng Restaurant

Set in a beautiful colonial villa with a pool, this is the place to go for traditional Cambodian food done with elegance. The restaurant also acts as a training centre and employs former street youths and their teachers. At Romdeng we ate traditional curries, including Fish Amok and Mike tried the deep fried Tarantulas (or really just tarantula, singular).

Other restaurants we visited are: Friends Restaurant, Connecting Hands Training Cafe (good coffee) and Piccola Italia Da Luigi (for something different from Cambodian cuisine).

Your go to area for cool and hip bars is definitely the Bassac Lane/Street 308 area. I can’t remember all the bars we visited as we made our way through a number of them but key standouts were:

Hangar 44, Le Boutier, Red Bar, Harry’s Bar

Not too far away, down the end of Langka Lane is speakeasy bar, BattBong (look for the Coca-Cola machine at the end of the lane-way). We had great cocktails at this bar as well as food.

Also cool to have a drink at was VEHAA. This rooftop bar and restaurant offers amazing views of the city all while relaxing with a drink (or two).

WHAT WE DID

We knew we had limited time in Phnom Penh and had to therefore pick the key landmarks and places we wanted to visit carefully as not to miss out on anything. That said, we felt that the 3 nights and 2.5 days we had in the city was pretty spot on. We could have probably done an extra day/night but at in the end didn’t feel like we had missed out on anything we were desperate to see.

PHNOM PENH CITY CENTRE LANDMARKS

Our first afternoon in the city was spent strolling around, checking out our hotel surrounds, the historic district of the city. This covers the National Museum (although we did this the following day), the Royal Palace and Sisowath Quay Boardwalk.

The Sisowath Quay Boardwalk was a pretty chilled area to go for a walk (once you managed to cross the road and avoid the bikes). The Mekong River is not especially beautiful as rivers go but it was nice to go for a walk and would be a great place to run if you are a keen runner.

I’ll admit now that we didn’t end up going into the Royal Palace. We did walk around the outside of it and stopped out the front to get a few pics, but after our many temple visits in Siem Reap were just not feeling it on the day. It did look like a beautiful Palace and if we had the extra day we would have gone in.

The National Museum of Cambodia is definitely worth a visit and we spent a few hours there. When purchasing tickets (10USDpp) we also purchased a couple of audio guides (5USDpp) which was worth the extra money. There are so many sculptures, pottery, bronzes, etc from various ages and even though the museum does work in a chronological direction, it would be incredibly difficult to follow without the audio guide. The museum is set around a beautiful, peaceful courtyard garden which is a nice place to sit for a short break.

We also made a visit to the Central Market and if you are a keen shopper you could easily spend the good part of a day there. We wrapped it up in an hour or two but there was definitely a good variety of cheap knock off goods and clothes and an endless variety of clothing, accessories and more.

KILLING FIELDS OF CHOEUNG EK

The Killing Fields was a must on our list for Phnom Penh. In preparation for our Cambodia trip we had tried to brush up a little on our Cambodian history, but even so nothing can fully prepare you for the stories shared at the Killing Fields and the S21 prison (see next paragraph). I’m not going to go into the story of the fields on this blog as you can get a much better understanding via one of the many books or movies that covers the history of the Cambodia genocide. What I will say is that the site is a peaceful place today and well worth a visit. The admission fee, which was about 6USD, includes a really great audio tour and the tour overall is respectfully put together.

We hired a motorbike taxi for half a day to do both the Killing fields and S21 and paid around 20USD, good value considering the fields are about 45 mins out of the city.

TUOL SLENG GENOCIDE MUSEUM/ S21 PRISON

We visited the Killing Fields prior to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and just when you think the stories can’t get more horrifying comes this high school turned prison.

The cost of the museum entrance for a non-Cambodian citizen was 3USD plus another 3USD for an audio guide, the audio guide once more well worth the extra few dollars.

Again, I won’t go into the history of the site or the Khmer Rouge regime as there are much better, more reliable sources you can refer to than anything I would put together. I will say that the stories, photographic records and remaining evidence on the tour are horrific and the complex still feels haunted.

It is a somewhat depressing experience (and that’s on top of the Killing Fields) but in-spite of all of this, a visit is a must to truly understand the tragic history of Cambodia. We would definitely recommend visiting the prison and killing field sites together on the same day.

CAMBODIA ITINERARY

It’s not often we travel to a place or country and leave feeling like overall we pretty much got the itinerary and timings right. Cambodia was the first in a long time where we left feeling like had seen most of what we wanted to. That said, there’s always more to see and we would definitely love to make a return visit to Cambodia in the future! There’s so much history, culture, delicious food and the Cambodian people are such lovely people .

OUR ITINERARY:

Day 1 - We flew into Siem Reap via Bangkok from Sydney. We arrived in the evening, checked into our hotel before a late dinner and beers.

Day 2 - We could have scheduled Angkor Wat to start this day but instead we opted to check out the town of Siem Reap. We like to do this to get a feel for the place we are staying before jumping straight into ‘tourist’ type activities.

Day 3 & 4 - Explore Angkor Archaeological Park. We started with the Angkor Wat Temple and then Angkor Thom on the first day, moving around the Angkor ‘Small Circuit’. On the second morning (day 4) we began with sunrise at Angkor Wat Temple and then moved our explorations to the ‘Grand Circuit’.

Day 5 - This day we visited a couple more temples, Preah Koh and the Bakong Temples, on the way to visit the floating village Kompong Phluk.

Day 6 - Morning transfer from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Afternoon exploring the Phnom Penh historic district.

Day 7 - Explore Phnom Penh City.

Day 8 - Half day visit to Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Free afternoon for further exploration.

Day 9 - Fly out of Phnom Penh airport.

WHAT WOULD WE ADD IF WE HAD TIME:

• Sihanoukville Beach and the southern coast - We were keen to explore the beach town and nearby islands and would do this in any future trip to Cambodia. We had a couple of days we could have added but felt we actually probably wanted more like 3-4 days.
• Battambang - Cambodia’s second largest city and from our research has plenty to see and do if you have a couple of extra days. The local culture, countryside, temples and French architecture are all noteworthy.
• A Cambodian food cooking class (next time for sure!).

For as long as I can remember, friends and work colleagues have been telling me to get across the Tasman and check out New Zealand. I'm sad to think it's taken me so long! True, I have only been to Queenstown, but if this is any indication of what the rest of the country is like we need to get Fran over there ASAP and do a drive across the country. 

In the meantime however, I have been only to Queenstown and I'm glad we went. Even if you're not a great skier like me (and if you are like Mike), there's so much to do in Queenstown and the surrounds, it's a great introduction to New Zealand regardless of season. 

Probably one thing I was surprised about (and now I'm not sure why) is how touristy the town is. It's not cheap and the service often reflects the fact that it is a tourist hotspot. However the beauty of Lake Wakatipu and the surrounding mountains makes up for it, as does the quality of the food and wine! 

Flying in (and out) of Queenstown is also pretty amazing. We arrived at night time on the way in and couldn't see anything, however flying out over all of the snowcapped mountains was truly incredible. 

WHERE WE STAYED 

We stayed at Lomond Lodge. 

The location was really good, close to all amenities and the rooms were nice. Would we stay there again? Probably not. To be fair, in the lead up to the stay, the hotel provided us with some good information. But the service at the Lodge itself was not great, there was rarely anyone in the office who could assist us. We only hired a car for the day, but if you had a car, there is a daily rate for parking. The bed was extremely hot to sleep in and housekeeping was 'opt in' not the usual 'opt out'. Oh, and they had a Nespresso machine there but only provide capsules for the first night of our stay. Strange?! Probably should just remove the machine altogether.  

In short, we knew that Lomond Lodge was mid-budget for Queenstown and our expectations were in check, but due to really bad sleeps and just poor guest experience, I'd opt for somewhere else next time. 

WHERE WE ATE 

It's a good thing we were in Queenstown for less than a week because the holiday calories were adding up fast with so much good food and drink. 

On the night we arrived we did the mandatory Fergburger stop. Unfortunately we didn’t get a photo of our burgers but they were epic! This place is an institution and the burgers are pretty damn good. It's not where you go for a relaxed meal, it's kind of eat and leave which you understand when you see the line out the door. 

Probably the best meal we had in Queenstown was at The Fat Lamb. We ordered the roast lamb for two because it seemed the thing to do and we were not disappointed. While it wasn't cheap, there was so much food and the lamb was cooked well, so it was good value. We also made a good attempt at getting through their drinks list 🤭 tasting some great pinot noirs. The staff were very knowledgeable on their menus and probably the best service we received in Queenstown itself.

The one place we had booked in advance was Botswana Butchery. I had read some reviews and really just loved the name given our time in Southern Africa. 

Botswana Butchery is located in what appears to be an old style house that looks out onto the lake. As we were there at night and it was dark, a lake view seat wouldn't have been much good anyway, but if I went back, I'd definitely request this. 

Food here was pricey but good. They have some less common meats on their menu so for anyone looking to try something a little bit different, this is definitely the place to do it. They also have a great wine menu! 

Our day in the Otago wine region we lunched at Gibbston Valley Wines, ordering their cheese and charcuterie board. We also ordered chips which we really didn't need. There was so much food, all really great quality. 

Where we did less well was on breakfast. We frequented a couple of the cheap bakeries on our snow days but on the other days didn't really come across anything noteworthy (or with great coffee). I'd say there's a good business opportunity in that space for anyone who is keen! 

WHAT WE DID 

 OUT AND ABOUT IN QUEENSTOWN 

Our first day was spent just wandering around the town itself. We hadn't hired a car at this point and we had a couple of errands to run to prepare for our ski days, so we took the opportunity to just explore the town. 

A lot of the key spots in the town are based around Lake Wakatipu, so we went for a long walk around the lake area, taking in the surrounding mountains and hanging out with the ducks. 

In Queenstown Gardens we actually were a little confused by these weird looking contraptions, initially ignoring them but realising later they were for 'Frisbee golf' (or disc golf). If we had worked it out a bit earlier we would have had a go; you can hire the discs for Frisbee golf for $5.00 each from the Queenstown Ice Arena. But by the time we had gone all the way around the gardens we were keen for a coffee. 

Back in town we walked around to the wharf and watched the ferries come in and out. In hindsight we should have jumped on one as I think this would be a nice relaxing way to enjoy the lake, definitely something I would do next time. 

As we were there on a Saturday, the Creative Queenstown Arts & Crafts Market was on with the perfect waterfront setting, located in/ around Earnslaw Park. It's not a big market but was interesting to look around. 

After we had sorted all of our ski errands we went back to the wharf and settled inside the Public Kitchen and Bar for a quiet drink, so we could warm up, followed up by The Lodge Bar for mulled wine. 

SKIING 

We skied at Coronet Peak and given I'm not much of a skier it was a bit of a risk scheduling 2 days of skiing at a resort we were not familiar with. All in all it worked out ok, but below I have included a couple of hints/ tips that I would abide by next time. 

Before we left we had booked all of our ski equipment, bus transfers and lift passes through Info Snow. It made it easy to do from Australia but didn't come cheap. I think for 2 days we paid AUD765 for the 2 of us.  

What we didn't realise until we went to pick everything up, is that basically they are just coordinating it for you. We were handed vouchers for the lift passes and equipment which we then had to go to separate locations to arrange. It did help a little, but not a lot. The bus service is also a once a day return trip, so if you decide to leave a little earlier (which we did on the second day), you need to go through a different bus company and pay.  

HINT: If we were to do this again I would hire the equipment in town and go directly through Coronet Peak office to arrange the passes .  

HINT: Use the Coronet Peak bus which you can also purchase a ticket for online or at their Queenstown office. This bus runs every 20 or so minutes in the morning and after 2pm buses run as they fill up. This is good for getting in the morning session and then leaving mid-afternoon if the mountain becomes icy or the weather turns. They also run a hotel pick up service. 

I can definitely see the attraction of Coronet Peak for more seasoned skiers. Plenty of runs at different levels and plenty of space. We were told that the season hadn't been good and that was obvious from the snow machines running in the morning and the ice, but I can imagine that on a good year it would be great skiing. 

As a beginner there was the 'very beginner' area with the mats which was really good to practice on until it got extremely busy (it's not a very large area). There is only really one green run and I found it challenging at my level but Mike enjoyed some of the other runs, again they were just a bit icy. 

In regards to facilities on the mountain, you do have everything you'll need in the way of hire, lockers, plenty of bathrooms and a large canteen area. 

HINT: If you're definitely coming back the following day you can pay NZD5 to have them hold your skis overnight which makes the bus so much easier. Cash only though. 

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't really anywhere 'nice' to sit after I'd had enough for the day and Mike wanted to keep going. I had a picture in my head of fireplaces, nice cafes and bars, somewhere to chill out once the lunchtime rush had passed. Coronet Peak doesn't have this, there is space to sit but it's a bit like sitting in a food court. 

In summary, Coronet Peak is great for seasoned skiers and easy to organise from Queenstown. 

OTAGO WINE REGION 

On our last full day in Queenstown we hired a car so we could check out the Otago wine region and surrounds. Unfortunately the weather was not great that day. We drove via Cardrona and later found out that the mountain had been closed for the day due to the weather.  

We drove as far as Lake Wanaka which would have been lovely to spend some time at on the right day, however the blustery wet conditions meant taking a quick couple of pictures and then heading indoors for a hot chocolate.  

From there we started to head back south via Otago to check out a bunch of winery recommendations I had been provided with by a colleague, seeing the most AMAZING rainbow on the way. 

Our first winery stop was supposed to be Mount Difficulty, however when we got there it was so busy it became all too 'difficult' and we left, deciding to head to Gibbston Valley Wines. 

This is where we ended up having lunch and we were so glad that things worked out the way they did because this winery was awesome. I loved their tasting paddles where you could choose different combinations. Our platter was soooo good and the winery itself was warm and relaxed. They also had a couple of little stores outside which you can check out, one was just for cheese! 

Next up was Chard Farm, a quaint winery in a beautiful farm house structure, very close to a Lord of the Rings filming site.  

The wines at Chard Farm were our favourite out of all of the wines we tasted during our Queenstown trip. They were amazing, both their reds and whites and the host was super knowledgeable and lovely to chat with. I only wish we could have brought more wines to take home than we did. 

From Chard Farm we headed to our final winery for the day, Amisfield Winery, another stunning venue with views of the mountains behind it. After a brief tasting we sat down inside for a drink near the fire, which was lovely, but I can imagine on a beautiful sunny day sitting outside at the back of the winery enjoying a glass of white while taking in those views.  

Back in town, before dropping the car off, we drove a little way around Lake Wakatipu to capture the sunset. Again, just stunning. 

WRAP UP

As you can see, we really enjoyed our time in Queenstown and surrounds and we got a good taste of what the area is known for. Queenstown is expensive and a very touristy area. That said I would still love to come back in the warmer months and do a hike or two and maybe explore New Zealand a bit further. Just got to work out how we can get Fran there! 

To get through this list you will probably need a long weekend, or maybe a couple of Canberra weekend visits. The nation's capital isn't short of things to do and see, with something for everyone and for every season. Below are ten of our favourites, in no particular order.

1. Lake Burley Griffin  

At the heart of Canberra, Lake Burley Griffin is a beautiful place to be in any season (although dress warm on those frosty Canberra days). Go for a stroll, or run, around the approximately 5 km central loop or grab a bike and go for a ride around one of the large loops. The lake is a lovely place to have a picnic or stop for a coffee. Also check out the National Carillon, situated on Aspen Island and the regular chimes.

2. The numerous museums and galleries

Canberra is not short on museums or galleries and again, there is bound to be one that appeals to all tastes from the National Museum of Australia to the interactive science museum, Questacon. A personal favourite is the National Gallery of Australia.

The gallery has plenty to see with free admission, although the constantly changing special exhibitions do require a ticket. It's very easy to spend the best part of a day in the gallery. 

Also worth a mention is some of the art work and sculptures you’ll see around Canberra. The guys below (John Curtin & Ben Chiefly) are also a favourite.

3. Old Parliament House 

This is perhaps my personal favourite stop in Canberra (Lauren). Even if you don't love reading up on past Prime Ministers of Australia like I do, the building itself holds lots of history – even standing on the stairs alone brings back images of Gough Whitlam’s famous speech post 'the dismissal'.

Entry to Old Parliament House is cheap and they also do free tours that take you through the old chambers and offices that previous prime ministers and ministers once inhabited, with special exhibits and displays from time to time. The surrounding gardens are also worth checking out!

4. New Parliament House

An interestingly designed building where history is being created. Again, you can do a free tour or just go for a wonder around. Come to New Parliament House to see the paintings of prime ministers past and present, the chambers and the view from the top which looks straight across Canberra to the War Memorial at the other end. 

There’s also exhibits and events and if you’re lucky, you can watch question time and see bills being debated in the house.

5. NAMADGI NATIONAL PARK

About a 45 minute drive from the centre of Canberra, this national park has lots to offer with its many bushwalks and views. Go for a picnic, visit the ‘Homestead Triangle’, see the rock art at Yankee Hat and say hi to the many, many kangaroos. If you’re planning to camp stop by the Namadgi Visitor Centre.

6. Walking trails 

There are many of these and to be honest we’ve only done a couple. Perhaps one of the most well know is the Mount Ainslie summit trail, behind the Australian War Memorial. It's not a long walk, about 4km return but is steep in parts and finishes with an amazing view of the city, looking back at New Parliament House 

7. Australian War Memorial

Another place where you can spend the best part of a day, I haven't included this under Museums because it is in a category of its own. To be transparent, we haven't had a real good session here, we did skip through it quicker than most. However anyone looking to get a better understanding and appreciation of Australia's war history should check the War Memorial out. It is an amazing monument and museum. 

8. Wineries

Canberra has a well established wine region that is only half an hour from the city. In all honesty, I feel like Canberra wines are a little bit underrated and punch above their weight. I also love that you can get to the wineries so easily and just go for a nice lunch. Some favourites we’ve been to include Clonakilla (famous for their Syrah), Lake George Winery, Lerida Estate Wines and Poachers Pantry for lunch.

9. Breweries

If wine isn’t your thing, or you just feel like a cold ale, then Canberra has that for you as well. There’s a few breweries in Canberra, but the two we’re most familiar with are Capital Brewing Co and BentSpoke Brewing Co. Both have excellent beers, although BentSpoke perhaps has my favourite beer. However Capital Brewing has a great location and set up, not to mention a Brodburger truck on site, health food to go with your cold beer :-).

10. Food and coffee experiences

Canberra is not short on awesome places to eat and caffeine up. From more casual eateries to fine dining, it has you covered. 

On the coffee front check out ONA coffee, which thankfully now has a site in Sydney. ONA serves AMAZING coffee and the staff really know their stuff when if comes to selecting the perfect bean. You can go to their Fyshwick ONA Coffee House, although I really love The Cupping Room. Honorable mentions as well to Barrio Collective Coffee and Coffee Lab.

On the food front you can not go past Mocan and Green Grout for simple food made with fresh produce. For fine dining Aubergine is the go. Arriving at the restaurant it is all very understated, but inside is an elegant establishment and foodies delight.

That's a wrap!

And so you have it, our top ten things to do in Canberra. There’s sure to be something that suits everyone!

We’ve been to Canberra a few times now for long weekends and we’re never disappointed with the amount of things to do, regardless of the season in which we visit. Canberra is great for Sydney siders looking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city but not lose all of the amenities that come with a big city like great food and coffee, bars, shops, etc. And I can never get over the fact that you can drive from one end of the city to the other in around 15 minutes and reach beautiful wineries or national park in just over half an hour.

This trip was a getaway for the Queen’s birthday long weekend and despite the frosty mornings we were able to get out and explore new wineries, the Namadgi National Park and take a stroll around central Canberra.

Where we stayed

We stayed at Little National Hotel, located in Barton in the Realm Precinct.

This is our third stay there and won’t be our last. The hotel is smart modern and the staff friendly and efficient. The rooms have the most comfy beds and the best black out blinds I’ve ever come across. Expect an excellent nights sleep. And it’s great value too, costing around AUD130 per night.

What we ate

For coffee and breakfast we went with ONA Coffee offerings, The Cupping Room and ONA Coffee House in Fyshwick. Seriously the best coffee!

On Saturday evening we decided to treat ourselves and splurge a bit, eating at Aubergine which offers a four course menu at a set price. You can do food and wine pairings, but we decided to stick with a bottle to share. The food didn’t disappoint and the desserts are to die for!

This time we also got to try Lazy- Su which they themselves label as an ‘Asian Eating house’. The decor is cool and the drinks yum, but in all honesty we didn’t rate the food which was not helped when 3 of our dishes came out cold (and they weren’t meant to be!).

We also made our usual visit to Capital Brewing Co for a Brodburger…..so good.

What we did

We did a couple of return visits to Old Parliament House and New Parliament House, just because I love them.

The view from top of New Parliament House is definitely worth the visit alone. You can see all the way to the other side of Canberra, the Australian War Memorial and Mount Ainslie behind it.

We also spent some time strolling and running around Lake Burley Griffin, a place I’m always jealous of when I visit Canberra.

We did explore a bit though, driving out to Namadgi National Park and checking out the Historic Brayshaws Homestead before having lunch.

From there we went for a walk on Yankee Hat Track alongside a million kangaroos. I’ve never seen so many in one place.

The Canberra wine region was our last stop, checking out a couple of new wineries (to us) and having lunch at the picturesque Lerida Estate.

Until next time Canberra!

After being back at work for almost a month we decided to take a long weekend and head to South Australia for some great wine and food!

This was our second time in South Australia, more specifically Adelaide and the the Adelaide Hills. We used this trip to revisit some of the places we had loved last time, as well as places that we missed out on or hadn’t had much time in previously.

Think of this post as a bit of a guide to Adelaide and the surrounding hills, acknowledging that there is so much more to do not on this list, e.g. we didn’t get to the coast this time which I can tell you is beautiful, and our trip was confined to areas an hour or so outside of Adelaide (it was only a weekend after all).

WHERE WE STAYED

We stayed at the Ibis Hotel in the Adelaide CBD. This place is an absolute bargain! We paid around 100AUD a night and the room was a lot more spacious than we had expected, very modern, clean and in a great location.

When we are on trips where we are spending a lot of time out and about we prefer a more modest hotel and this one is great value for money.

WHERE WE ATE

In Adelaide city we ate and drank mostly in the East End area.

Weeks before going we had booked Africola which has great reviews and we had been wanting to go to forever. However, looking at the menu a week or so out from out trip we weren’t that blown away by it, especially after just coming from South Africa, so ended up cancelling and booking a more low key restaurant, Andre’s Cucina & Polenta Bar.

Andre’s, as the name suggests, serves Italian food and yes, polenta does make an appearance on the menu. We found the menu a little confusing. You can do a ‘feed me’ option, but as we were worried we wouldn’t get through it we opted for the a la carte which is built around a combination of mains and share plates. The food is not super cheap but has good quality ingredients and is well cooked. The atmosphere is warm with ‘mood’ lighting.

We also ate at Mothervine, the menu designed around share plates and good wine. We found aspects of their food a little ‘experimental’ in terms of flavours, but overall rated it and the service was impeccable!

If you are looking for awesome coffee and food (the sourdough bread was to die for), try Exchange. We had breakfast there both mornings and again the staff were amazing.

In the hills we mixed it up with German beer hall fare in Hahndorf, Authentic Italian pizza at Pizzateca in McLaren Vale and modern Australian at Maggie Beer in Barossa.

FAVOURITE WINERIES

Izway Wines - Barossa

Rusden - Barossa

Chateau Tanunda - Barossa

Bird in Hand - Woodside

Samuel’s Gorge - McLaren Vale

DAY TRIPS

HAHNDORF

On our last trip to South Australia we actually came across Hahndorf by accident. It was at the end of the day and everything was closing (we are not always great at research, haha). We had a bit of a wonder around but were disappointed we didn’t get to spend more time there. So this time we bee-lined for Hahndorf on our arrival, day one.

I love the combination of German knick knack stores, candle and bath stores, boutiques, cute cafes and German pubs. We spent quite a bit of time just wondering around, looking at the stores and making coffee stops.

We had lunch at the Hahndorf Inn, a German pub and were super lucky to have some nice weather while we sat outside with a stein of beer.

So glad we got to come back to Hahndorf, definitely worth spending a bit of time in.

MCLAREN VALE

McLaren Vale is a lovely place to drive around and Adelaidians really are spoilt with this area being only 40 minutes from the city. If we lived there it would be tempting to head there every other weekend!

We checked out the town of Willinga but spent most of our time at wineries. The area is quite small and it is easy to get from end to the other. We came across a couple of good wineries but I think my top picks are still in the Barossa. Nonetheless, you can’t go too wrong!

As mentioned above, we stopped for lunch at Pizzateca, which serves authentic Italian pizza. I’d recommend booking if you are planning to head there on a weekend for lunch as it gets seriously busy. We were just lucky we got there mid-afternoon when the peak of the day was finished.

BAROSSA

The weather took a bit of a turn the day we went to Barossa, but even with grey skies we had an awesome time at the various wineries and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

The Barossa is well known for some very big name wineries, e.g. Penfolds, Yalumba, Seppeltsfield and while it’s definitely worth checking one or a couple of these out I’d recommend trying some of the smaller wineries, a number run of which are family owned and run. An absolute favourite is Izway Wines. Last time we visited the Barossa we did a tour through Smallbatch wine tours, and while I’d say Smallbatch is for more serious wine people (it’s a pricier tour than the bus ones that get advertised), we got to go to an amazing selection of small wineries and often meet the wine makers. It’s also how we discovered Izway and Rusden.

We stopped for lunch on this occasion at the Maggie Beer Farm Shop, which had lovely food and was not too pricey, although it was officially where I had the worst glass of wine for the weekend.

We also made a stop at a winery called Chateau Tanunda which I’d recommend going to just to see the building and grounds which are lovely! The wine was also pretty damn good too!

Absolutely love Adelaide and the surrounding hills, we will be back!

No trip to South Africa is complete with out safari!

There are lots of great national parks in South Africa, some run by SAN Parks, some private reserves; probably the most famous though is Kruger National Park.

We drove to Kruger from Johannesburg Airport, heading for the Paul Kruger gate and Skukuza Camp.

The drive is a very easy one and takes about 5 hours, although we had a couple of stops on the way so it took us a bit longer.

One of the stops was Millys. Apparently this place is a bit of an institution fort he N4 road trip and I can see why!

Millys is a family owned business, a trout farm and factory and offers a restaurant, accommodation, filling station and farm stall. We had lunch there on the way and way back, the food is delicious and the service quick and efficient.

I won’t spend much time detailing our time in Kruger, I think the photos probably tell enough. We didn’t have a whole lot of luck with cats on this trip. We did see lions, twice, but on both occasions it was difficult to get a clear view of them. We manage to snap a few pictures of one old male when he stuck his head up for a while.

The highlight for us though was definitely seeing wild dogs. Scroll down further for more on that.

In regards to where we stayed:

We spent 2 nights in the park in SANS Park accommodation. One night in Skukuza Camp and the other night further north in Letaba camp. The accommodation was fantastic for what we paid (I think around 130AUD per night). We had a rondoval in both with ensuite and small kitchen. All very clean and with air-conditioning (not that we needed it).

We then spent another 2 nights outside the park at Tusk Bush Lodge (details further below).

One thing I will say is that Letaba is quite far up in the park and I think we did underestimate the distance at a slow speed. It was ok, but I think if we were to do it again for only a couple of nights I would stay for both nights in the lower half of the park to reduce the distance and give more time to enjoy our surrounds. The day after we stayed in Letaba was a lot of driving to get to the south of the park.

A lot of people in the camp organise their own Braai, but if you're about as organised as us, the food options were good in both camps and we had an awesome steak at Cattle Baron in Skukuza camp.

Tusk Bush Lodge, as mentioned, is outside of the park approximately ten minutes to the Crocodile Bridge gate, the most southern entry. So not far! We paid around 150AUD per night which included breakfast and found it great value. The rooms were big and very comfortable and the lodge itself had plenty of space to relax.

The lodge is also in a small park, Marloth Park, so there's an excellent chance you will see animals when you are just relaxing by the campfire.

We had Kudu, warthog, zebra and more wondering around while enjoying a quiet drink at night and coffee in the morning. We even spotted one cheeky Kudu drinking from the pool :-)

But back to the animals in the big park…….

Yes, we saw a pack of wild dog literally in the last hour of our last day, in the park. And they were awesome! There were 6 of them sitting smack in the middle of the road, taking a nap I presume.

We sat with them for as long as we could before having to head off to make the gate closure at 6pm, but they were fun to watch and we felt extremely lucky to see them as they are not that common. I just love their white fluffy tails and markings.

So that was our time in Kruger….wishing I was there now :-)

Stellenbosch is a beautiful town located 45 minutes from Cape Town and surrounded by the vineyards of the Cape Winelands. The town architecture is a reminder of South Africa’s Dutch colonial history with white painted buildings and timber edgings, the streets lined with large oak trees and filled with cafes, boutiques and art galleries.

On a previous visit to South Africa we did a day tour to Stellenbosch but felt at the end that we had missed out on a lot of what it had to offer; this time wanted to spend a more time there allowing for a couple of nights.

We stayed at River Manor Boutique Hotel where the building and grounds are very Stellenbosch. The hotel has a great location in the town and the rooms are fitted out beautifully and are all very cozy. I didn’t get a good photo of the breakfast spread which is included in the price, however it was lovely and so nice to enjoy outside in the courtyard or in the sun filled dining area.

Once checked in we enjoyed our first afternoon and evening wandering around town and deciding what to have for dinner. Stellenbosch has so many places to choose from. Unfortunately some of the more popular ones (e.g. The Fat Butcher) get so busy that you need to reserve a table a few days out (at least), so a bit of advice there for others to book in advance if you are keen on a particular restaurant. We were not so organised and had to wing it a little.

The next day we had planned to self drive to some of the wineries in the region, however had then heard about a hop on - hop off tram in nearby Franschhoek that takes you to a number of wineries. We thought this might be more fun so booked tickets for the tram and headed off (you can get an Uber between the towns so its not too expensive).

Franschhoek feels a bit like Stellenbosch with similar architecture and the mountains just behind the town. We had an hour or so before the tram departed to wander around and grab coffee. It would also have been nice to have stayed in Franschhoek, equally lovely!

From the town we were actually boarded on a bus which took us to the start of the tram line.

There are a number of lines/routes you can take. We selected the Green Line which starts with the tram and the last few wineries are via a bus. There are 8 stops in total but depending on the time you start the most stops you can do is 6 and then decreases from there.

The day was so much fun! The tram, even though it only goes a short distance, is a nice touch and lovely way to get around. We were also lucky to finally get some sunny weather so could sit outside and enjoy our wine tasting.

We ended up visiting only 4 wineries, spending a bit of extra time in the final winery after meeting people and having a nice chat.

The wineries we visited were: Grand Provence, Rickety Bridge, La Bri and Holden Manz. And I’m going to say something a little controversial, that being that I actually don’t rate their star grape in the region, Pinotage. But I am a fan of the Chenin Blanc.

We did spend a bit more time in Stellenbosch on the third day, really just enjoying the town and everything it has to offer. I’m really glad we did come back to Stellenbosch following our previous visit. You can do a day trip out there, especially if you are short on time, but if you can spend more time you should definitely do it. I’d recommend 1-2 nights.

Cape Town

From Stellenbosch we headed west to Cape Town.

We loved Cape Town on our first visit and our second visit was no different. Cape Town has everything; beautiful coast, mountains, colourful buildings, a pretty waterfront, delicious fresh food, great coffee and lovely shops.

We stayed in the De Waterkant area in Cape Quarter. We had a studio apartment with plenty of space and even a washing machine/dryer which came in handy by this time of our trip. It also had a great view of Table Mountain and downstairs in the complex was a Spar supermarket and other useful amenities.

On our last trip we had stayed on Long Street and had initially planned to stay in that area again. I’m really glad we didn’t now. Long Street felt a bit neglected when we went there for a drink one night and less party (although I think we may have been there a bit early for anything fun).

The area we did stay in, De Waterkant, was perfect for us. Lots of nice restaurants and cafes, streets lined with colourful buildings. Which brings me to Bo Kaap.

The Bo-Kaap area was only a few blocks from where we stayed and very cool to walk around. The area was formerly known as the Malay Quarter and is a former township. Today it appeared to have a mix of ethnicities living there and lots of families. The buildings and colours are lots of fun, and go for many blocks.

One of the things we had been tossing up on doing is climbing or getting the cable cart up to the top of Table Mountain. We really wanted to climb it but had read and heard mixed stories on the best trail to follow and felt a bit confused. We had also been up to the top of the mountain before so we were very open to doing a different mountain when we read about Lions Head Mountain.

The Lions Head Mountain climb was one of my favourite things that we did in South Africa. It was challenging without being too difficult. I think all up it took us an hour or so each way. The view was incredible, an added bonus being that we had Table Mountain in the view.

We were super lucky with weather as well. Later in the day, when we were back in town, the weather changed and became cool and overcast. However for that morning we had sun and watching the cloud roll in made us feel like we were on top of the world.

We were pretty happy with ourselves :-)

Later that day we went for a drive around the mountains stopping in Hout Bay and Camps Bay. As the pictures show, the cloud had set in, but in some ways they made it even more beautiful.

No trip to Cape Town is complete without a visit to the Waterfront.

We went to the water front on a lovely sunny day, starting off with a visit to The Watershed.

The Watershed is filled with arts, crafts, fashion and jewellery. We wandered around there for a while and then walked down to the main shopping and food area where we had lunch.

And even on a sunny day the low cloud covered Table Mountain.

In the evening we went for sunset drinks at a roof top bar (and restaurant), Utopia.

We had an awesome view of the city and enjoyed a glass of sparkling while the sun was setting. We also had a clear view of Lions Head Mountain (picture above) and the colourful buildings in Bo Kaap below the mountain.

From Utopia we headed to Mojo Market.

Mojo Market is in the Sea Point area and is a collection of restaurants, bars and a few shops, with live music in the evenings.

I loved this place and wish we had this in Sydney! There were lots of locals enjoying their evening out with friends and the wide variety of food and drinks. You can buy a bottle of wine there to go with your food and there was a bar selling 100 beers on tap.

Our time in Cape Town was short and we didn’t do a lot of the more touristy stuff this time, e.g. Robbin Island, as we had done it before. But of course if you’re a first time visitor you should definitely do all of those things as they’re all apart of the Cape Town experience.

Food

I’ve touched on some of our food stops above, but have included some pics of the highlights below from both Stellenbosch and Cape Town. Top picks for us were: Nobu, Origin Coffee Roasting and Loading Bay. But really, in either place, you can’t go too wrong :-). And remember to book ahead if there’s a place you really want to go to.

Following our time in Durban we headed to the city of Port Elizabeth (PE).

Originally we had planned to stay for the night in PE but had been told about Addo Elephant Park by our friends in Durban. Given it was only an hour or so away we decided to skip PE and head straight there.

We arrived quite late in the afternoon and by the time we reached the town of Addo it was starting to get dark so we didn’t see the beautiful mountains as we drove to our accommodation… but were wowed the following morning.

We stayed at Zuurberg Mountain Village, about 15 minutes from the National Park, in the Zurrberg Mountains. We paid the equivalent of AUD150 per night, which included breakfast, and and we loved it so much we ended up staying a second night.

It felt so remote and the rooms so cosy, the mountains so pretty, that it was difficult to leave. A great place to relax that’s for sure!

It even had a lounge area with a fire to relax for a quiet drink 😄

While we loved our accommodation and the mountains, the park itself was a little underwhelming. First thing first, you don’t need to do a guided tour here. We did do a guided tour in the morning before heading back in our own car in the evening; the roads are very accessible and the wildlife is pretty tame.

Also, despite being called an elephant park, we didn’t see that many elephant. I mean, we did see maybe 40-50 throughout the day, but nothing like we had expected; apparently the park currently has around 650 elephants, which they are trying to increase.

But we did see some wildlife, game, zebras, elephants, sooo many warthogs, and we only just missed out on the lions; all in all it was just nice to be on safari again.

After our second night in Zuurberg Mountain Village it was time to get moving. We were now down to one night along the coast before needing to be in Stellenbosch.

As with nearly all of our trips we had limited time and planned to cover way too much ground… probably not helped by our decision to stay a second night near Addo.

Anyway, we headed off leaving the lovely sunny mountains behind to arrive a few hours later on the coast at Jeffery’s Bay (or J Bay) to the worst weather ever! Think down pour, wind and freezing. We had lunch there but I couldn’t get nice pictures of the town, so we headed pretty quick in search of our next destination.

Fortunately the weather did clear as we drove on and we made a few nice stops, one at Kaaimans River Pass, so pretty!

We continued on, deciding on Mossel Bay as the stop for the evening.

Again, it was pretty dreary and cold when we arrived, which was a shame given the beach view we had at our hotel. But we managed a quick walk on the beach the following morning when there was a bit more sun.

From Mossel Bay we had decided that we wanted to make a bit of a detour on our way to Stellenbosch, down south to L’Agulhas, the southern most point of Africa.

Again we had beautiful mountains and views on our drive, briefly stopping at Swellendam to take them in and wishing we had more time to explore the town.

We were not disappointed however when we finally arrived at L’Agulhas. The sun came out (yay!!) and the coastline was breathtaking.

L’Agulhas, the southernmost tip of the African mainland, is also where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty cool, huh?!!

We spent a bit of time here just taking it all in.

South African National Parks has also recently built a monument (pictured below), reflecting the map of Africa and its landscape. The map is 18 metres from north to south and had people walking around and around it trying to work out where places were (including us).

We had a quick lunch before continuing on our way to Stellenbosch with another quick stop on the way.

This stop was at Beaumont Wines a family run winery which was another recommendation from our friends. It did not disappoint. We brought a couple of bottles from their incredible Chenin Blanc range and would have brought a whole lot more if shipping (and tax) wasn’t so difficult back to Australia.

We also fell in love with the resident dogs: my favourite pictured above.

Life must be pretty good when you can fall asleep on a table at a winery 😄.

We’ve made a few trips to South Africa now, but this was our very first time visiting Durban and we were super excited! One of our reasons for this trip, and more specifically Durban, was to visit friends that we had made from our time in Zambia. We hadn’t seen each other in 7 years so a catch up was long overdue.

I wanted to start by explaining this, as going back through our photos from our week in Durban, there wasn’t as many as I thought. I guess we were having too much fun with our friends. Anyways…..here are some of the highlights from Durban, as well as Sani Pass, which I’ve separated out a little because it was an epic day of travel and pretty amazing.

DURBAN

First, to where we stayed in Durban. As we were catching up with friends, we wanted to stay close to them. So we found a guesthouse, Mythai Guesthouse, in the suburb of Morningside. It was comfortable, a large room and ensuite, surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens and backed on to the Florida Road strip of shops, cafes and bars. It was also pretty cheap. I think we paid something like 500AUD for the 5 nights we stayed. Would I have stayed there if we didn’t know anyone? Probably not. I think the Umhlanga area is much more an area for visitors, but for what we wanted, it was perfect.

One of the first things our friends took us to was the Durban city coast. We hired bikes for a couple of hours and rode the 5km path along the beach and city area and back. This was a great way to get a feel for the city. It was clear that at a point in time this part of Durban must have been amazing. It still is very nice albeit a bit run down in some areas. But I’d definitely recommend hiring bikes and doing this ride.

On a seperate evening our friends took us to the Umhlanga area for a night out. This is a pretty happening place with bars, restaurants, hotels, shops, etc. One of the highlights though was The Oyster Box. This is a an upmarket hotel with gorgeous restaurants and bar. We didn’t eat there, but from all accounts the breakfast and high tea are meant to be amazing; we did however a few cocktails as we watched the sun go down (or if there had been sun). They were awesome cocktails, so good that I failed to even get a photo, remembering on our final drink when the light was gone :-(. Seriously, if in Durban you need to visit The Oyster Box.

The Florida Road area where we stayed was also a nice place to hang out, although again, I failed to take many photos. We did have dinner there on a couple of nights and had no trouble finding great coffee. Actually, a new favourite for me became Red Lattes - Yum! Rooibos tea with warm frothed milk, the best!

And of course, when in Durban eat Bunny Chow! Clearly it does not picture well (below) but I kind of need to include the photo because when I describe it to people, they don’t really get it. Basically Bunny Chow is a South African fast food dish consisting of a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry (Durban Curry). It originated among Indian South Africans of Durban and has a bit of a zing. Messy but good.

One of the other highlights was a visit out to the Natal Midlands. This area is frequented by domestic tourists and I can see why! The landscape was green and mountainous, there were lots of places to stop for arts and craft, food and drink, wineries, etc. We stopped for lunch at a place called Piggly Wiggly Country Village, which you can easily hang out at for 2-3 hours.

The Natal Midlands is also the area where Nelson Mandela was captured all those years ago, prior to being sent away to Robbin Island for 27 years.

The Nelson Mandela Capture Site was really well put together with a small visitor centre/ museum on his life and the below pictured sculpture. What was amazing about the sculpture is that close up, and just walking around it, it’s just a whole lot of black posts. But standing back in the right position it makes out his face, which comes up even better on a camera than when I was looking at it.

One more highlight in Durban was the Durban Botanic Gardens which had lots of unqiue trees and flowers, and was just generally a nice place to be.

SANI PASS

Sani Pass is a mountain pass located in the west of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on the road between Underberg, KwaZulu-Natal and Mokhotlong, Lesotho.

The route up Sani Pass starts at 1544 m, and climbs 1332 vertical metres to an altitude of 2876 m. The road is a steep gravel road with gradients which can be difficult to drive in bad weather and may be covered with snow and ice in winter. Only 4x4 vehicles are permitted to drive the road and there are tour operators that run guided tours up and down the pass which is what we did.

Our friends booked it on our behalf, so I’m not 100% sure of the operator name (I think Roof of Africa Tour), but it cost us 75AUD for the day per person which included the ride up the hill and back from the town of Himeville and a ‘cultural’ visit in the village at the top of the pass, Mokhotlong in Lesotho.

And yes, you do technically go into the country of Lesotho, so you claim a visit to another country and border stamp in the process! Make sure you bring your passport.

The ride up/ down Sani Pass is AMAZING!

There is almost no traffic and all you can see are green mountains and a stream running through them. It is slow going, as mentioned the road is windy and rough, but as passengers we could just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Once we had our border stamps we stopped by the village of Mokhotlong where we were welcomed by traditional dance and shown into one of the local huts, served warm bread and the local beer - an interesting flavour, haha!

From the village we made our way to the local pub, for beer we were a little more familiar with, which also just happens to be Africa’s highest pub.

It was a bit chilly when we were there to sit outside and enjoy the view, we tried for all of 2 minutes before heading back in. But I can imagine on a slightly warmer day enjoying a couple of cold drinks while looking out at that view.

And on cooler days, sitting inside by the fire with a glass of wine!

The pub was awesome and the surrounds lovely 😄

We had amazing day checking out Sani Pass. I think if we were to give any advice on this one it would be to not try and squeeze it into a day if you are coming from Durban. The trip from Durban was just over 3 hours each way to our starting point of Himeville, making it a long day. We had good company in the car, but for others I’d definitely recommend staying in or near Himeville the night before and after Sani Pass, and just enjoying the surrounds which are absolutely beautiful!

Recently we made a quick overnight trip to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains. I’m not sure how we managed it, but I’m pretty sure we picked the first real ‘wintery’ weekend and weather they’d had up there for the year. It was freezing! And for some reason, I’d agreed to camp in Fran’s roof tent.

Anyway, we didn’t let the cold stop us from walks into town and a short hike in the mountains.

We’ve done a few trips to the Blue Mountains now and always try and check out something new, as well as visit old favourites.

We didn’t feel like hiking when we arrived so instead opted for old favourites, exploring the town of Katoomba, eventually ending up at The Carrington Hotel.

I love walking up the main street of Katoomba and checking out the mix of outdoor and antique/ trinket stores. There’s definitely a varied retail offering.

The Carrington Hotel had the fireplace going in the lounge area which was perfect for enjoying a quiet drink away from the cold outside (I also love their little store at the back of the hotel which sells a great selection of cheese and wine, two of my favourite things).

For dinner that evening we tried a restaurant we’d never been to before which apparently used to split its menu between American focused food (think burgers and mac n cheese) and a bistro menu, upstairs versus downstairs. Palette Dining recently did a bit of a remake of their menu and offering and now offer both menus regardless of where you’re seated. We went for the bistro food choices, but the burgers looked pretty good.

The following day was a struggle to get going; the roof tent was surprisingly warm, it was just outside that was the problem. However the knowledge we were going out for breakfast helped.

For breakfast we headed into Leura and treated ourselves to homemade scones with jam and cream at Bon Ton, before doing a quick round of the main street.

From Leura we headed to Echo Point and The Three Sisters, a rock formation that no trip to the Blue Mountains is complete without (even if we’ve been there a handful of times before).

A quick coffee at the café with a view and we were on our way, heading this time to Butterbox Point, about a 40 minute drive from town.

Mike wanted a dirt road for Fran and I just wanted a short walk (I can’t really call what we did a hike), and this met the brief.

The road out wasn’t really a challenge for Fran (we saw a few corolla type cars on it which I’d be less sure about), but she got some dirt on her.

The trail we went for a wander along wasn’t super long or challenging, but had some good views and you can kind of understand why they’re called the ‘Blue’ mountains.

Later on, back in town, we grabbed what was a very late lunch (bordering early dinner), before heading back to Sydney. This time we checked out Station Bar and Woodfire Pizza. This place is pretty cool with a healthy selection of pizzas and a nice bar.

I’m sure we’ll be back in the Blue Mountains again over the coming months, always a good excuse to escape Sydney and enjoy some fresh air, even if a tad chilly!