Archive for the Travel Category
Written on January 26, 2010 by Jen
Filed Under: Journal, Photos, Travel
A week or so ago after we walked through the Festival Centre Plaza in Adelaide we made our way down to the banks of the River Torrens and hired a paddleboat for half an hour. I haven’t done this for a long time and JJ has never done it.
The swans are very friendly, probably because lots of people take food to feed them. They were disappointed with us, however, as we had no food.
If you’re not paddle boating on the Torrens you can go on one of the Popeye’s for an hour’s cruise.
It was a lovely day and Adelaide can look quite pretty and inviting sometimes. This is looking towards the Festival Centre.
It’s Australia Day today which means a public holiday for most people. I’ve made some lamingtons – a traditional Australian cake (my first ever batch) and we’re off to an Australia day barbeque later. Tomorrow is my first day back at work after nearly seven weeks. Sob.
Written on January 8, 2010 by Jen
Filed Under: Parenting, Photos, Travel
We are in the middle of our holidays and in full holiday mode. We’ve had time to relax, Christmas and New Year are now over and all we really have to worry about is hot weather. As we are now at the beginning of yet another heatwave – we have three days of 41 degrees coming up – I thought we’d better get out and about before this hot weather hits.
So the other day we headed off into town on the tram to have some lunch and browse around the art gallery and the museum to get some cultcha you know, and to drag the child away from his DSi.
As soon as we walked into the first gallery in the art gallery JJ informed me that he was quite bored and asked when we were leaving. The colonial art didn’t really interest me – I’ve discovered I’m more of a modern art girl. Although I did start a bit of a game to try and find the oldest piece of art and we found some from Italy that was about 600 years old which I found interesting too.
I therefore didn’t bother paying to see the John Brack exhibition as it wouldn’t have been worth my while with a whingy guts hanging off me telling me he was bored every minute.
In the museum we had to trek all the way up the stairs to see the top of the giant squid but didn’t spend that long in the museum either.
I managed to get some photos along North Terrace.
After a milkshake I was allowed to go to an op-shop to get my fix while closing my ears to every other complaint that he managed to come up with.
On the tram on the way home he somehow managed to work into a conversation with two German woman about how old I am. One of them told him that her mum is 95. After we got off the tram I explained that it’s not the done thing to just blurt out how old your mum is. He couldn’t work out why it was okay to say someone’s mum is 95, but not talk about my age. I tried to explain that if you make it to 95 then you deserve bragging rights but if you’re only in the middle of your life then there’s not too much to say about it really.
To get some piece and quiet from all the questions I flaked in front of the tv and let him play his DSi for a while when we got home.
Written on December 1, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Music, Travel
After much organisation to offload the spawn I went away to Melbourne with two good friends (who’ve just found out that I blog – hi girls).
It started off with hi-jinks (tots of bourbon whiskey) and continued on in fine form. In the taxi on the way to the airport we observed that we three had never been away without children and what a fantastic feeling it was. The two of us who have children are both full-time sole parents and rarely get a break.
The main reason we went to Melbourne was to see the Painters and Dockers at the Prince of Wales. They were being inducted into the EG Awards Hall of Fame and hadn’t played for 20 years. Part of the awards night was the EG Allstars band allowing us to see some great artists like Tex Perkins, Henry Wagons, Dan Sultan and The Wolfgramm Sisters. Of course I’ve seen Tex before and we’re obviously on first-name terms. But I hadn’t seen the other artists and they were fabulous. Now that I’ve seen the Wolfgramm Sisters I’ve seen them everywhere including the Melbourne Comedy awards the other night on tv.
But the Painters and Dockers. What can I say. It was like stepping into a time warp going back 2o years. Sure, we all look a bit older now but the energy was still there both from the band and from us. I loved it.
Afterwards we hung around chatting to the band and didn’t get back to our accommodation (bless friends of friends who live in a very convenient St Kilda) until around 3am. Having had very little sleep the night before I slept until 11am the next morning. I wasn’t alone in sleeping in mind you. We had promised our hosts that we’d take them out for breakfast but it turned into more of a lunch. A very delicious lunch in the city.
It was across the laneway from this fantastic looking soup bar.
I would love to have spent more time wandering around the laneways taking photos. These shoes left hanging caught my eye.
But there was shopping to be done and more food and coffee to be drunk.
More photo opportunities to be had.
A tram back to St Kilda to be caught and of course it rained. I think it always rains when I go to Melbourne.
Come Saturday evening we could have gone to see Dan Sultan at the Espy but we were too knackered from the previous 24 hours so we hung out at our hosts watching Rockwiz, eating yummy pizza and chatting.
Sunday just flew past and before we knew it we were at the airport waiting for a delayed plane and then on our way home. Back to reality.
Written on October 12, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Travel
Last week I had the week off work and spent some time away at a beach house. In short I wish I had organised the house for longer as we’d no sooner settled in, and we had to leave.
The view above was only a block away from where we stayed. When the tide goes it out it really goes out which makes for lots of space to walk around on. Monty had a great time rolling in the wet sand and sniffing too much at the seaweed. She’s rolled in seaweed before and as you can imagine it makes her stink but fortunately she didn’t do it this time.
For all JJ’s problems at school, he’s pretty good with me and we had a great time together. Mum and dad dropped in for a visit and took us out to dinner at the nearby tavern and I also caught up with an old school friend who lives nearby.
There’s a great path along the top of the beach along the coast and we nearly walked to nearby Moonta Bay and wore Monty out so that she didn’t mind so much having to spend time outside only at the house. And JJ ran around the house with Monty chasing him at other times.
We also spent a couple of days with some good friends afterwards so all in all it was a very relaxing week..
I caught up on sleep I’d missed out on in the last few weeks which was fantastic.
Usually the first thing I do when I’ve finished one holiday is to plan the next so I’m hoping to take all of the summer school holidays off – all six weeks of it. Fingers crossed that gets approved. Don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Written on August 10, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Retrospective, Travel
photo credit: ** Maurice **
Inspired by Me & Boo’s precarious travel tale #2 I have a travel tale. Don’t know that it’s that precarious but it’s one I’ll never forget.
October 1992
I’d spent a few days in beautiful Prague despite a case of the flu. My next destination was Budapest and I hopped on the train, sat myself down in a seat feeling a bit revolting and my hair felt greasy even though I’d washed it recently. All the way to Bratislava (on the border of Hungary) people had been speaking non-English and I didn’t understand a word and I didn’t understand why they kept looking at me.
In Bratislava two men stood outside my carriage door and one of them said in an American accent, ’someone’s sitting in our seat’. Now I understood why the others had been looking at me strangely, I’d been sitting in their reserved seat. The man’s words took a while to sink in as I realised he was speaking English and I could understand him. He was very cute so I said ‘there’s more than enough room for you here, I’ll move over’ and patted the seat next to me.
All the way to Budapest we chatted. It was the usual travel stuff, where have you been, what have you been doing, where are you from. The cute one, Eric, was from Iowa and had been in the Peace Corp in the Gambia in Africa for the past two years. His English mate Dave with a very dodgy looking moustache had also been in the Peace Corp.
I had nowhere organised to stay in Budapest and no friends there so after a while I suggested that perhaps we could find accommodation together, trying my hardest not to be too obvious that I was finding Eric very cute indeed. They thought it was a good idea as they had no accommodation organised either, and when we arrived in Budapest’s train station a woman with some bed and breakfast accommodation approached us and convinced us to go with her. She was only a short way from the train station she said. It wasn’t that short, 20 minutes or so my car and longer by bus. We had a room all together with three beds.
That night we hung out in a local bar and Eric mentioned that it was his birthday the next day. As I didn’t have any definite plans for sightseeing so I said I’d love to celebrate his birthday with him. Their idea of spending a day in Budapest was to do a pub/bar crawl. We managed to do that while incorporating sight-seeing and meeting locals. After all, what better way to meet locals than in a drinking establishment, or ten?
The day started at around midday and we spent it travelling from bar to bar, including catching the Funicular railway and spending some time at the top of it before descending and going to another bar. Towards the late afternoon Eric and Dave told me that they’d arranged to meet up with two fellas they’d met in Prague and meet them we did.
The first thing they told us was that they’d been to a great place the prior evening called The Pink Pussycat and they were really keen to go again. Without too much prompting they told us it was a lap dancing place. Obviously it wasn’t the type of place I would normally frequent but I was going to see the day out – after all it was Eric’s birthday.
The Pink Pussycat was one of those establishments where you don’t pay upon entry, but pay when you leave – you pay for everything when you leave, including the lap dances. After we sat down and I had a chance to look around I realised I was the only woman there who wasn’t an employee. All the seats faced towards the dance floor and all the girls wore were g-strings and when they weren’t doing lap dances put on various dancing shows. All I can say is I’m glad I was drunk because being in an establishment like that sober would have been too much. At some stage during the evening Eric and I held hands and through the drunken haze there was a definite connection there.
After we left the Pink Pussycat we’d missed our last bus so stayed at the other guys place as they were more sensible and had a central location. As they were also staying in a room in someone’s flat we left via the bedroom window so the owners wouldn’t see us.
I had one more night in Budapest after this and I had a chance with Eric to take things further and I never did because I knew it would only be for that one time and I didn’t think I could bear it. We parted ways and I had a day in Budapest by myself before boarding a train to head back towards London as I’d run out of money and needed to get some more work. Eric and Dave were heading off to Poland. I was sitting on the train waiting for it to leave the station when I looked out the window and saw Eric walking up and down the platform. I’d told him where and when my train was leaving from. I leaned out the window and chatted to him for a couple of minutes before the train departed and we held hands again just as the train started.
I’ll never forget my time in Budapest. I’m sure it would have been quite different if I hadn’t accidentally sat in reserved seats en-route to Budapest. I’ll never forget Eric either. After I got back to London I wrote to him in the States but I never heard back from him and I sometimes wonder if he remembers his time in Budapest?
Written on July 21, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Travel
This is the last instalment of the holiday posts. Read part 1, part 2 and part 3 if you so desire.
After a busy day at Currumbin and a late night (11pm) seeing the glow worms we got ready to do our last theme park – Movie World. Arriving at Movie World the first thing you see is a scary looking Batman ride where you get sent up in the air very very quickly and come down and then go back up while gradually slowing down. The scariest bit is the first time you come down because you feel like you’re going to leave the seat and it feels a bit unsafe but we did it twice anyway. My tough son JJ informed me that he no longer felt that scary feeling in the tummy.
I wish we’d gone to do some other rides before it got busier. We missed out on the Scooby Doo scary ride and also the Superman roller coaster because of 45+ minute waits.
I did meet Scooby Doo and Shaggy though. JJ didn’t want his photo taken with them so he took this one.
We also managed to see the Hollywood Stunt Drivers show which was quite entertaining but a bit smelly from all that burnt rubber.
We squeezed in a Loony Tunes show – not that entertaining for me but the young kids liked it. Shrek 4D was pretty good and luckily we had the ponchos to wear for the Wild West ride.
Friday night was our last night at the Gold Coast and I went out to dinner with some people I’d met while our kids were in the kids club – yay for the kids club.
Saturday morning we packed up, checked out and walked down the road to the hire car place and drove south to Yamba in northern New South Wales where my aunt lives. She’d said it would take about two hours but by the time we fluffed around a bit and got stuck in the Ballina bypass roadworks it took more like three hours. The last time I drove on the Pacific Highway was 12 years ago on my road trip with three gay boys. I must write about that one day.
Unless I was a surfer which I’m not Yamba probably wouldn’t have been on my radar to visit normally but it’s a beautiful spot and the view from the pub over the ocean is spectacular.
Because we’d spent most of the day in the car I took JJ for a walk and happened upon some fishermen cleaning up fish and throwing what they didn’t want to these pelicans at the Yamba Bay boat ramp. I love pelicans and could just watch them for ages fighting over fish.
Even though I’m not a surfer we went to Angourie – near Yamba – and watched some people surfing.
After spending the weekend at my aunt’s we took our time heading back up to the Gold Coast to catch the plane back to Adelaide. We stopped in Byron Bay for lunch and the other two or three times I was there was obviously not during the school holidays as I’ve never seen the streets so busy.
As I’ve mentioned before, our holiday was really good. JJ and I travel well together and while I enjoyed the Gold Coast bit I also enjoyed the driving component and I would have liked to stop and explore more places for longer. Maybe we’ll hop in the Nissan one day and go driving interstate.
Written on July 19, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Travel
The main reason I wanted to go to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was to see all the rainbow lorikeets but we were there too late and had to leave to early for them so I missed out. They come into feed about 8.30-9 in the morning and about 4 in the afternoon.
We did, however, see a heap of other wildlife. I would have liked to hold a koala but it appeared as though you had to buy the accompanying photo for that and there was a queue. Oh well, I’ve held a koala before.
Even though we were there for a few hours we still missed out on various shows that were held around the place that talked about different types of animals. The one show that we did see, which was great, was the bird show.
Here’s some pictures of the birds, and watch out for your head as they fly around.
They are so well trained and the show runs like clockwork, it was a pleasure to see.
We got to pat kangaroos as they lay on the ground, and while we didn’t hold a koala there were plenty of them there.
These crocodiles looked like statues until I saw some of their eyes open.
And I’m glad this fella was behind strong wire, although he was pretty sleepy and quite well fed looking.
The little train that ran around the park had always just left as we arrived at a stop and it was quicker to keep walking than to wait 20 minutes for the next one.
I even went into the reptile bit and watched a snake try to peel his skin off. The photo I took didn’t work out due to poor light conditions and I didn’t want to frighten his skin off with my flash.
I noticed here, and at the glow worms we saw in the evening (a separate trip) that Japanese tourists were wearing masks over their face because of a swine flu threat I presume. I wonder if they were the ones who were brave enough to come to Australia and they left a lot of others at home. Have tourism numbers dropped? I don’t know.
Even though Currumbin was a fair distance from our hotel, we were able to hop on a bus and go straight there. Public transport is quite easy in Surfer’s Paradise and I’d bought a package that included airport and theme park transfers and public transport. We ended up using public transport for the theme parks as it also left almost from our hotel and we weren’t bound by pickup and drop off times.
I’m getting there with the post holiday posts. There’s three days left.