For all those out there who’ve caught the travel bug. Here’s a few things to occupy yourself with when you can’t travel…
Being completely entrenched by the travel bug, often when I’m not travelling I get restless. Usually when this happens, I remind myself that I live in one of the most popular cities in the world – Sydney.
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Something people tell me way too often, is that I am way too addicted to movies and TV shows. However, I decided to use this to my advantage to create a list of my favourite solo journey movies.
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The Reef Resort is pretty damn glamorous and at the same time, gorgeously remote. Located on Gili Meno in the Gili Isles, it’s a short hop from Lombok or a 60-minute fast ferry ride from Bali – but being surrounded by ocean and with no motorised transport, it feels like the middle of nowhere.
We’re here for a few days to explore the surrounding coral reefs and we arrive looking far from glamorous ourselves, having jumped off a dive boat, luggage above our heads before proceeding to reception in our wet suits, dripping on the immaculate wooden floorboards.
It’s been a rather frenetic day, which started with me recovering from a night’s bout of food poisoning before our departure from Bali at the port of Padang Bai (an exercise in organised chaos that took longer than the boat ride), a bumpy trip across the Lombok Strait, transfer from ferry to dive boat, 60 minutes of coral reef and turtles and our arrival here. Phew.
Let the holiday begin.
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We just got back from Indonesia where we visited several, amazing diving destinations over the three weeks we were away. We visited Bali, the Gili Islands, which were all just fantastic, but there is one that sticks out in my mind like no other: Bangka, in Northern Sulawesi.
Not just for its unparalleled beauty, but the fact that it’s under threat.
I’d love you to visit my other blog and help me spread the word – help stop the illegal mining activities happening on Bangka, an island too small to sustain it.
This is my fourth trip to Bali, and each time I visit it seems less recognisable. But one thing has stayed the same – my preference for the East Coast.
The East Coast towns of Sanur and Candidasa are a pleasant escape from the hustle of Kuta and Seminyak or the fabricated resort world of Nusa Dua.
So it seemed natural that our first hotel choice would be somewhere like Komune Resort & Beach Club, which sits just north of Sanur. However we came to Bali to go diving, so everyone seems a bit amused that we are staying at a surf resort. But Komune Resort & Beach Club is a crowd pleaser in many ways. Continue reading
The other day my 19-year old daughter told me she wants to climb Mount Everest. Most people’s reaction to this is to have a chuckle.
Which was my initial reaction (my partner scoffed) but then a thought popped into my head. Something a fellow travel blogger, Caz Makepeace, said recently.
She reminded us not to let other people place their own limitations on you. They don’t know what you’re capable of, because they’re not you. And I’m not Holly. Continue reading
I was lucky enough this month to attend TRENZ, a tourism exchange held each year in New Zealand to enable operators from all over the country to showcase their tourism offerings to buyers and media from all over the world.
Boy – what a lot to take in. Over 300 exhibitors. As my mission is to find something my teens would like, I decided to focus on adventure. And obviously NZ has that in bucket loads.
Here is my NZ bucket list. Continue reading
I’m not usually one to turn down an invitation to lunch, but my workload is so ridiculous at the moment I seem to be turning them down on a regular basis.
So I feel especially pleased with myself for accepting an invitation to lunch at Bacar, at the Pullman in Sydney Olympic Park – well worth skiving off work for a couple of hours. Continue reading
Last week I was given the chance to eat my way through a few days in Adelaide at the Tasting Australia festival. Tasting Australia is South Australia’s annual celebration of eating and drinking, and it seems as good a reason as any to spend the weekend eating.
The festival includes a series of hosted breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cooking classes, food experiences, tours and workshops presented by the nation’s best chefs, winemakers and producers. I’m salivating just thinking about it.
Two days learning about food – eating it, making it, writing about it and photographing – it with a group of very talented food and travel bloggers from around Australia at the breakout event Words To Go.
Who would say no to that? Not me. And as an added bonus, I get to share an apartment with my good friend, blogger Seana Smith, who blogs over at Sydney Kids Food & Travel.
While I’m here I’ll also be on the lookout for things the teens will enjoy, and to be honest, as they all love good food AND staying in hotels it probably won’t be too hard. Continue reading
Every now and then I get the urge to take the kids out for a civilised meal. A treat. Usually its someone’s birthday, but today, I figured as I’ll be travelling a fair bit next month (without them), I’d just treat them (and myself) for no reason.
Taking three teenagers out to lunch is never completely stress free, but I can at least remove one thing to argue about and suggest Japanese. None of the kids in our house would ever say no to that.
There’s a place near us in Manly called Mira, and I have to say, it’s as close to Tokyo as I’ve found in Sydney (well on the Northern Beaches anyway).
Any car trip with the kids of course requires the mandatory argument over who gets to sit it the front seat. When they were younger I could get around this easily by not allowing ANY of them to sit in the front seat. But they’re all too big now. So I try my best to stay out of it and allow the rules of “Shotgun” to apply.
And there are, apparently, WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED rules. Here was me thinking it was just my kids. So for the uninitiated… read on. Continue reading
Where To Next? 