New Year’s Eve 2017 found us in Melbourne, Australia, at the top of the Eureka Tower watching fireworks exploding around us. Eight years and a few months later we were back in the city we both fell in love with, to visit family and find explore anew. Our 2026 Australian adventure began with a three-leg…
Tag: Australia
Daylesford, Victorian spa town
Daylesford in Britain has a reputation for being posh and exclusive. Its namesake in the Australian state of Victoria may be a bit more egalitarian, but it still has the air of being a cut above the average. It’s got a wealth of beautiful traditional homes, quiet streets with manicured gardens, fancy restaurants, boutiques, galleries…
Rottnest Island and Perth, Western Australia
When it’s hotto, go to Rotto. It’s the slogan that’s hard to escape in many of Perth’s popular tourist spots – an invitation to escape the heat of the city for the cooler air of Rottnest Island, 11 miles offshore. With temperatures around 40c while we were staying in the capital of Western Australia, we…
Busselton and Geographe Bay, Western Australia
A couple of hours drive south from Perth, lying on the shores of Geographe Bay, stands the beautiful seaside town of Busselton. We spent three nights there, right on the seafront at the modern Hilton Garden Inn, after a relentless drive south from the big-city vibes and sweltering heat of Perth and Fremantle. There was…
Impressions of Australia
Australia had been on my bucket list for years but there were always many other countries ahead of it when it came to booking our long-haul holidays. In the end it was family ties that made us commit, and I’m glad they did because Oz turned out to be a real treat. In fact, it…
A walk around East Melbourne
Our last full day in wonderful Australia and we found somewhere I’d be happy to call home – East Melbourne. But sadly I can’t see our budget stretching that far… Just a short walk from the central business district and its famous Laneways, East Melbourne is overflowing with the most glorious houses and cottages, perfectly…
Melbourne’s gardens and memorials
The Melbourne we’d been exploring was all concrete and steel, roads and traffic, but the city has its fair share of parks and gardens too. So on yet another boiling day we visited the Botanic Gardens and an impressive war memorial. The green spaces extend from the banks of the Yarra River in the heart…
Melbourne, a new year and St Kilda
Melbourne’s cityscape doesn’t have the drama of Sydney’s Port Jackson but I’d plump for it over the capital of New South Wales given the choice. We arrived on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve fresh from the Yarra Valley and parked ourselves in our funky hotel, the Ovolo, situated in the Laneways, a district famous for…
Wine country in the Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley was going to be our one and only stop for relaxation on our three-week Australian holiday. The idea was that we’d chill out in the heart of Victoria’s wine country, take a dip in the outdoor pool, drink cocktails and read. There was a slight flaw to this plan – the estate…
The Blue Mountains, New South Wales
Driving into the Blue Mountains an hour west of Sydney is child’s play compared to navigating the European Alps. Where the latter has worryingly narrow and winding rounds, the Australian range is connected to the city by a string of dual carriageways. They’re not pretty and not particularly environmentally friendly but we were soon seduced…
Exploring Balmain and Cockatoo Island in Sydney
Sydney is huge and we were only going to scratch its surface during our Australian jaunt. But I was keen to explore the suburbs away from the famous beaches and their crowds, so we opted for Balmain. I was also keen to explore a part of the city that would’ve been known to my ancestors….
The beaches of Manly and Bondi in Sydney
Christmas Eve back in England is invariably cold and grey. Waking in our hotel on the other side of the world in Sydney, we knew it was going to be a scorcher. Australia doesn’t do Christmas as excessively as the UK. Decorations are more restrained, the pubs aren’t as packed with work parties getting trashed…
A day out in Tasmania’s Mount Field National Park
Tasmania is an island of glorious landscapes. And we spent our last day in the state deep in the countryside exploring Mount Field National Park, which is famous for its forests and waterfalls and about an hour’s drive north-west of Hobart. That drive was almost as spectacular as the park itself, hugging the banks of…
Tasmania: The penal colony of Port Arthur
Australians became well practiced in the art of forgetting that many of the country’s founding mothers and fathers were convicts, transported from the overcrowded gaols of Britain. These days they embrace their history, however grim. Many of the key convict sites across Australia are banded together as a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of…
Heritage and history in Hobart
Planning our Australian holiday, friends raised their eyebrows at our decision to go to Hobart in Tasmania rather than the Great Barrier Reef or Uluru. But while Hobart may once have been a backwater, we were drawn by its foodie scene, craft beers and the notorious penal colony further down the coast at Port Arthur….