Month: December 2016

We packed our bags and headed out of Hunter Valley to our final destination in Australia, which happened to also be the final stop on our trip – Sydney. We had spent the first couple of weeks in smaller towns, so we were looking forward to checking out a big city. My friend Amy is from Sydney, so she was able to give us some great recommendations for our time in the city, many of which we took advantage of.

As we entered the city, we got our first glimpse of the Harbour Bridge, which was stunning. As we drove on the bridge to enter the main part of the city, we felt excited to spend the last few days of our trip exploring this beautiful city. We had heard the weather was starting to get colder back home, so we also wanted to take advantage of the warm summer weather while we had the chance.

Before returning our rental car and officially finishing up our Australian road trip, we stopped to get some gas to fuel up the car. When we looked across the street, we noticed Harry’s Café de Wheels, which is one of the most famous places in Sydney to get authentic Aussie meat pies. We had planned to go there at some point during our time in Sydney, so it was just our luck that it happened to be right across the street from where we were. We had to take advantage of this coincidence, so we grabbed a couple of pies for lunch before dropping off the rental car. The cart was busy with people grabbing pies on their lunch breaks, and we noticed a bunch of celebrity pictures of people who have visited Harry’s in years past.

Bye Bye Toyota Corolla Hatchback – you’ve been great!

Since we were back in a big city, Uber was very prevalent, so fortunately we were able to easily order an Uber to take us over to our hotel. We were told by Amy, as well as our friends Shannon and Nick, that the hotel we were staying in was in a wonderful location, with a magnificent view of the Harbour Bridge and The Opera House – they weren’t kidding. The hotel, Park Hyatt Sydney, was absolutely beautiful and the views were incredible.

View of Harbour Bridge from our hotel room

Our hotel was very sweet and brought us complimentary champagne for us to celebrate our honeymoon with, as well as a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers.

View of The Opera House and harbor from the hotel’s pool area

After relaxing by the hotel pool for a bit, we decided to head across town to try a restaurant called The Buffalo Dining Club. Shannon (my friend who lives in the Sunshine Coast) had told us about this restaurant, as well as their famous dish where they serve pasta out of a cheese wedge. Due to my love of all things cheese, I knew this was something I had to try. Unfortunately, we were a bit underwhelmed by the pasta dish. It was OK, but there wasn’t as much cheese as I’d hoped.

Andrew anticipating the cheese pasta

The server mixing the pasta on the cheese wedge

The final product!

After dinner we decided to check out The Roosevelt, which is known for its intricate cocktails.

The Roosevelt cocktails

We made our way back to the hotel, not before stopping for some pictures along the way with the beautiful Christmas. Obviously my decision, not Andrew’s.

Not Christmas decorations, but a beautiful fountain

 

On the way back to our hotel, we got a great glimpse of The Opera House at night.

When we arrived back to the room, we noticed that someone had delivered a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries, along with a note. It was a wonderful surprise from our friends Katie & Amy who had given us a gift certificate to the hotel’s restaurant, as well as the strawberries, as our wedding gift.

After a workout in the hotel gym the next morning, we headed up to an area known as The Rocks. Andrew had discovered that they have markets with numerous vendors on the weekends, and on Fridays they have about 10-15 food-specific vendors. We tried a few of the different food items and checked out a few of the non-food vendors as well, where we were able to pick up a few other souvenirs. We spoke with a young girl who had done numerous watercolor pieces, all of which were beautiful, and ended up buying one to put up in our future apartment.

Another beautiful view of The Opera House as we walked up to The Rocks area

 

The Rocks Markets

Delicious Turkish food – the line was around the corner, by far the longest of any of the vendors in the area

After the markets, we headed back to the hotel to get some more R&R by the beautiful pool.

Andrew had discovered another local brewery, so of course we had to go check it out. It was called Lord Nelson Brewery and it was packed with local Aussies who were enjoying happy hour after a hard week at work. Andrew’s a big beer fan and always likes finding the local breweries in new places, so it has been fun to check out a number of breweries along this trip.

We then made our way to Opera Bar, another recommendation from my friend Amy. It was packed! It reminded us of a few of the bars in LA, as it was extremely busy, but had some great views of the harbor.

 

We made our way up to check out The Opera House, which was a bit anti-climactic since we couldn’t go in. We didn’t have tickets to the show that night, so we just managed to get some more pictures of the popular sites instead, The Harbour Bridge and The Opera House.

Fortunately, we were able to witness a beautiful sunset.

We headed back to our hotel, as we had made reservations at the hotel’s restaurant after finding out Katie & Amy got us the gift certificate.

View of our hotel in front of the Harbour Bridge

 

 

We enjoyed a delicious dinner with a beautiful view at the hotel restaurant, The Dining Room.

 

View of the harbor from the restaurant

 

 

The next morning we went back to The Rocks area and grabbed breakfast at one of the café’s before taking a ferry out to one of the popular beaches in the Sydney area, Manly Beach.

Of course Andrew had found a local brewery in Manly Beach, 4 Pines, so we stopped there for a few tasters before grabbing some sushi, which we had been craving for a few days. I had never experienced sushi at a “sushi train” restaurant, so I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and had to remember that my eyes were bigger than my stomach in some instances.

We made our way to check out Manly Beach, which was beautiful and a bit empty due to the colder weather. Well, when I say cold, I mean about 71 degrees, so a bit cold to be in a swim suit, but other than that, a beautiful day.

 

 

We checked out another market area in Manly Beach before making our way back to the city. We took the faster ferry on the way back and got a great view of the sailboats out on the harbor.

 

We decided to have our own bar crawl that afternoon, so decided to head over to a rooftop bar called The Glenmore, before checking out another lounge bar called The Argyle, as well as a Bavarian beer house. It was a fun afternoon exploring the Sydney bar scene.

The Glenmore Rooftop Bar

It was a long day and we were pretty exhausted from our bar crawl, as well as being out in the sun all day, so decided to have dinner in the casual lounge area within our hotel. When we came back to our room after dinner, there was another delivery. This time someone had delivered champagne, as well as a cheese plate. Andrew let me know he had done this as a surprise for me on the 2^nd to last night of our trip. It was a very sweet gesture from my new husband.

 

We woke up the next morning a bit sad that it was the last full day of our trip, but excited at the prospect of going home soon to see family and friends, and of course our dog Charley. We spent a majority of the day in Bondi Beach, which is another popular beach town within Sydney. We had breakfast at a place called Bills (another delicious recommendation from Amy), and then headed out to the beach.

Bondi Beach

 

 

After the beach we headed over to the Sunday markets, which were larger than the other ones we had attended in Sydney. There were a number of vendors selling all sorts of things from candles to towels to art pieces.

Bondi Markets

We left Bondi Beach and grabbed some lunch at an Irish pub in the main city center of Sydney. After lunch we made our way to this chocolate place we were referred to called Max Brenner. Megan (the girl we had met in Thailand) referred this place to us and let us know it was something we had to check out while we were in Sydney. We decided to splurge on our last day in Sydney and got the Chocolate Banana Pizza. It was delicious but unfortunately we couldn’t finish it.

 

On our way back to the hotel we passed a Santa art piece made completely out of crates – pretty cool!

Happy Crate-Mas

We ended up ordering room service for dinner to enjoy as we packed up to get ready to leave the next morning. We grabbed an Uber the next morning and made our way to Sydney International Airport, where we boarded the 13 hour flight home. Fortunately, we ended up in a row of 3 and there was no one in the middle of us, so it was nice to have the extra leg room. (And room to lay down for me)

Excited to go home AND excited that no one is between us

I can’t believe how quickly the past 3.5 months have gone. There are so many incredible places to see in the world, and we feel fortunate that we were able to get a glimpse of a few of those places. Many people have asked us which place was our favorite, or where would we recommend to go, but honestly we can’t choose one favorite. While I must admit I’m partial to Santorini since I fell in love with the island, every place we went to had so much character, whether it was the history, the beaches, or something else. There isn’t one thing I would change about our trip in regards to the places we went. While we have thoroughly enjoyed our trip and seeing more than we ever thought possible, we are excited to get home and start the next chapter of our life. We truly want to thank everyone that has supported us through this adventure, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading our updates as we made our way through Western Europe, Asia and Australia.

One last thing! In addition to comments about Andrew’s long hair, a few people made comments throughout the past few months that at times this blog was more like a food blog, rather than a travel blog. Therefore, we thought it would be appropriate to rank our top 5 favorite restaurants from our 3.5 months abroad:

Top 5 Favorite Restaurants

• Vine E Vecchi (Italian) – Florence, Italy
• Broodje Bert (Sandwich Place) – Amsterdam, Netherlands
• IL Buco (Italian) – Byron Bay, Australia
• Bodega de la Ardosa – Madrid, Spain (Order the Tortilla Espanola)
• Da Dong – Beijing, China (Order the Peking Duck)

If you end up traveling to any of the places above, you must check out those places!

Good-bye for now, thanks for reading and sharing in our journey with us!

Being that this is our second to last entry, I thought it would be good to give Allie a break and give all my fans a bon voyage!

We said our goodbyes to Shannon and Nick at the airport in the Sunshine Coast and picked up our badass Toyota Corolla hatchback. Out of all the cars we have rented, this actually turned out to be my favorite. Silently, and often, reminding myself to stay on the left side of the road, we made the 3 hour drive to Byron Bay. Over the next 4 days, we would be making our way down to Sydney stopping at Byron Bay and Hunter Valley.

On our way down to Byron we stopped in the Gold Coast in the Burleigh Heads area for a quick view of the scenery. Another beautiful beach town.

We pulled into Byron Bay and immediately fell in love. Our hostel was a 1 minute walk to the beach and a 15 minute walk to the town.

The town is primarily a backpacker’s destination and has a very hippie vibe. It was pretty much dinner time when we checked in, so we unloaded our bags and made our way into town for dinner. Allie had found a great Italian restaurant for dinner called iL Buco. The entire staff was from the Tuscan region in Italy, and all of the food reminded of us of our 3 weeks in Italy. It was such a nice surprise given that we had not found authentic Italian food since we had left Italy.

The next morning we woke up and cooked breakfast in our hostel before making the long trek out to the beach. The wind had picked up so we were not able to lay on the actual sand, but instead hung out on the grass area leading to the beach. We spent the next few hours reading and relaxing.

We ate lunch then headed over to the local brewery, Stone & Wood. We had been on a number of tours already, so we opted for a sampler of all the beers.

We headed back to the hostel then caught the free shuttle into town. After walking around for a bit, we found a local bar and had a drink before dinner. Byron Bay has a lot of local food and drink spots and it was nice to hang out without much of a schedule. We had dinner at a local restaurant that specialized in seafood called The Balcony. The prawns were amazing and the service was great.

We caught the free shuttle back to the hostel just before the thunderstorm started. We had witnessed a number of thunderstorms in Australia already, but this was by far the largest and most severe. The storm started at 10PM, and went through the next morning until 8AM. Every 30 seconds or so, we could hear the “crack” of lightning outside and all the windows would shake.

We woke up early and made breakfast before heading out for our longest drive of the trip, about 8 hours from Byron to Hunter Valley. Allie and I split the drive up, which helped break up the time. The drive was beautiful and we got to rock out to Allie’s never ending 90’s playlist. I think I n0w know every Shania Twain song by heart… The Hunter Valley is a small wine destination, producing about 3% of Australia’s grapes. We enjoy wine, so we figured we might enjoy Hunter Valley.

We pulled up to our hotel and checked in. After working out, by decree of Allie, we had a quick bite to eat before heading to bed. We had an early morning wine tour booked, so we wanted to be rested.

The next morning we got picked up by Two Fat Blokes Gourmet Tours. The name of our wine tour company seemed very fitting. There were about 10 other people on the tour. We were the only 1/2 day tour as the remaining people had booked full day tours. The 1/2 day was plenty for us as it included 3 wineries and a cheese pairing. The first winery was a small family owned place called Mistletoe Winery. It was nice to be served by the owners daughter and to hear of the different family stories that led to the opening of the winery. Interestingly, the winery had moved to all screw top bottles, as they had a crop of cork that ruined their best vintage wine a few years back.

The second winery including a meat and cheese pairing, which Allie was extremely excited about. We paired 9 wines with 9 different cheeses. Our favorite was the Tempranillo wine and a Manchego cheese, so of course we had to buy one of each before leaving.

The third winery had the best view of the Hunter Valley.

We couldn’t imagine visiting another 2 wineries and brewery, so were happy to head home after the 3rd stop. Also, because of the climate in the valley, the wineries often have to pick their grapes early. This practice leads to some great white wines, but they are not able to successfully grow the grapes needed for the big bold red wines that Allie and I enjoy. As such, we did not find the tour as enjoyable. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the hotel and handling some administrative/logistical tasks for our trip home.

The next morning we woke up early, hit the gym, and got ready to make our way down to Sydney for the last part of our trip!

I am sure Allison will share her thoughts about the trip at the end of her last post, and I want to do the same here. We have had an amazing time and have experienced a lot of unique things. I have a lot of wonderful memories as a result of this trip and feel extremely fortunate that we were able to do this for ourselves. As we near the end, I am torn. I am sad that the trip is ending, but happy to return home and see friends and family. Obviously, I am super excited to see Charley. If you ever have the opportunity to take the risk and travel, I highly advise that you do. I have learned a lot about myself, my wife and the world. Thank you to everyone that helped make this possible and thank you to all of you that have read along with our journey. See you soon!

After a few days exploring northern Queensland, we were looking forward to our next stop in Australia – the Sunshine Coast, which is in southern Queensland. One of my closest friends from high school, Shannon, currently lives in the Sunshine Coast with her fiancé Nick, who is from New Zealand. She moved to Australia about 5 years ago, so we had planned to stay with them for a week. I was looking forward to getting an insight into her current life in Australia.

We took the 2-hour flight from Cairns back down to Brisbane, where Shannon and Nick picked us up. After exchanging excited “hello’s”, we made our way to lunch at a place near Shannon’s old house in Brisbane. We had arrived in Brisbane around noon, so Shannon had decided we would spend the day exploring Brisbane, and then head up to their house in the Sunshine Coast that evening, which is about an hour north of Brisbane.

After lunch they took us to an amazing lookout point in Brisbane called Mt. Coo-tha. We could see the entire city of Brisbane from the top of the hill and were able to capture some great pictures.

Mt. Coo-tha Lookout Point

Next, Shannon and Nick took us to South Bank, which is an area on the southern bank of the Brisbane River that has an outdoor pool area, shops, restaurants, and grassy areas to relax and listen to live music. It was a pretty incredible area and Andrew and I thought it was great that something like this was completely free to the public. We figured something like the large pool area, where a ton of families and young adults were gathered, would cost at least $10-15/per person in LA.

Hanging out on the grass listening to some live music

Another thing that was free to the public was the ferry on the river, which took you to different parts of the city. After grabbing a few drinks at one of the breweries in South Bank, we hopped on the ferry to a Bavarian brewery down the river.

Shannon & Nick 

View of Brisbane from the river

 We grabbed dinner at a Turkish restaurant back in the South Bank area before heading up to their home in the Sunshine Coast.

When we woke up the next morning, we quickly realized how different life in the Sunshine Coast was, compared to life in Brisbane. Brisbane is a big city, so you definitely get that “big city vibe” in the area. However, the Sunshine Coast is much more laid back and the epitome of a “beach town.” Shannon and Nick’s house is about a 10-15 minute walk to the beach, so we spent a few hours at the beach, playing Frisbee and enjoying the amazing weather. One very unique thing we noticed was that the sand squeaked when you walked on it because it was so fine – very cool! The ocean water was also much warmer (and bluer) than what we’re used to back home, which was nice. However, the warmer water also brings in many more jellyfish, which wasn’t so nice. A recent change in the tide had brought in more jellyfish than usual, so we had to keep a lookout while in the water, but overall it was a beautiful day at the beach.

Shannon and I took a short bike ride to Currimundi Lake from her house that afternoon to have our own little happy hour as the sun was setting, and we got a great view of the beautiful lake area.

Currimundi Lake

Since Andrew and I never got to celebrate Thanksgiving, we had all decided we would have a ‘pseudo-Thanksgiving’ dinner that night. Instead of turkey, the boys cooked chicken over the rotisserie, while Shannon made some mashed potatoes and salad, and I baked a French Apple pie for dessert. Their Australian neighbor Tim came over to join us and we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal.

We woke up extremely early the next morning, around 4:15AM, since we were heading out to Double Island Point on Noosa North Shore to go camping on the beach. Part of the trip requires you to drive on the sand, so we had to leave before 5 in order to get on the beach before high tide. Since the sun rises around 4:45AM in the Sunshine Coast, it was already light out by the time we left, which felt very weird since it was still so early. We did get to see a beautiful 4:45AM sunrise.

Getting to the spot on the beach where we were going to set up camp was definitely an experience. We drove for about an hour before we had to take the car onto a ferry to cross the river. We soon arrived to the beach, where we drove about 45 minutes on the sand to get to a good area to camp on the beach. It was a pretty bumpy ride since the tide was already fairly high and we had to drive on the dry sand.

We found a great area to set up camp, which had a pretty spectacular view.

View of the ocean from our campsite

Our campsite

Nick cooking us a delicious breakfast

After breakfast we all took a nap, as we were exhausted from waking up so early. Once we all got some much needed rest, we headed over to a place called Rainbow Beach, which was a secluded beach about 15 minutes from where we were camping. It was absolutely stunning. The water was extremely blue and there were different pockets of water that had formed during different tide changes.

Shannon and Nick have always enjoyed surfing in this area, so they took their boards out to go catch some waves, along with a few other locals.

Nick catching a wave

Shannon’s turn!

Andrew had spent some time surfing in college, so he headed out to catch some waves. I only managed to get a picture of him waiting for the perfect wave to come in.

I have only tried surfing once, and it was years ago, but Shannon offered to teach me the ropes, so I got out there and attempted to surf. After many failed attempts, I finally was able to stand up for a second or two, so overall felt it was a successful experience. Definitely a lot of fun though!

We enjoyed a delicious meat and cheese platter later that afternoon while Nick spent some more time surfing. It was so relaxing out on the beach that day and we felt like we were in paradise.

We spent the rest of the evening relaxing around the campsite, playing some fun games of Rummy Club, and witnessing the most amazing starry night we have ever seen. Since there are absolutely no lights around to obstruct your view of the stars, the view of the sky is incredible.

We were able to head back out to Rainbow Beach the next morning for a couple of hours to get some more beach time and surfing in before packing up and heading out. I even managed to get stung by a jellyfish on my 2nd day out surfing, which didn’t feel the best, but fortunately wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. On our way back to their house, we checked out the town of Noosa, which is an affluent beach community.

So many crabs at Rainbow Beach!

 Goodbye Rainbow Beach – you were amazing!

Grabbing a drink in the town of Noosa

Back in the Sunshine Coast, Shannon, Andrew and I took a bike ride the next morning out to another beach near their home called Moffat’s Beach. It was another beautiful day in the Sunshine Coast.

Shannon & I at Moffat’s Beach

After we got back from our bike ride, we decided to head out to hike a mountain area known as Mt. Tibrogargan. We hiked for about 15 minutes before we started to see signs that mentioned needing to be an experienced climber before continuing on. We didn’t think much of it and decided to continue on with the hike, however, the rock climbing started to get really tough so we felt it was best to head back.

Mt. Tibrogargan Hike

We made it up the rocks in the picture below before realizing we weren’t confident in going any further. (Well, Shannon and I weren’t confident…the boys would have kept going if it was up to them, but with a storm coming in, we figured it was best to head back)

Since our hike was cut a bit shorter than expected, we headed over to this cute country town in the Sunshine Coast called Maleny, where we experienced a few Aussie firsts. We tried a couple of the famous Aussie pies, which are different from our “pies” back home. The Aussie pies are savory in taste and usually consist of some type of meat – we thoroughly enjoyed them. While we were enjoying our pies, we also had our first Queensland thunderstorm experience! Thunderstorms are very common in Australia in the summer, and out of nowhere it started to downpour and even hail. We never get thunderstorms in LA, so we enjoyed the amazing streaks of lightening we were able to witness! Most thunderstorms tend to occur in the afternoons in Australia, so it can be a beautiful day at the beach and then around 4pm or so, a thunderstorm can roll in and completely downpour.

Town of Maleny

When we got back to the house, Andrew helped Nick make some delicious venison burgers for dinner that night, before enjoying a few fun hours of karaoke in their living room.

Thunderstorm rolling in back at their house!

Shannon and Nick had taken the time off of work to hang out with us Monday through Thursday, but Shannon had to work on Friday, so Andrew and I decided to check out the Australia Zoo, which is the zoo that Steve Irwin spent so much time developing. We really enjoyed the time we had spent at the Wildlife Habitat up in Port Douglas, so we wanted to spend some time checking out a few more Australian animals. While the Wildlife Habitat was great, this zoo was on another level! The Australia Zoo is spread out over 100 acres, but there are over 650 more acres that the zoo utilizes for the animals, so it is HUGE.

Koala Bears

Checked out the Wildlife Warriors Show with snakes, birds and crocodiles!

Crocoseum – where the show took place

Murray the Crocodile – Star of the show!

After watching the wildlife show, we headed over to see some Eastern Tail Kangaroos, which we were able to pet and feed. They were bigger than the wallabies we had fed at the Wildlife Habitat and they were so cute!

Kangaroos Lounging

Selfie with the Kangaroo!

Tigers, Camels, and Lemurs 

Checking out Bindi’s Island (As a reminder to those that may not know, Bindi is Steve Irwin’s daughter)

Headed over to the AFRICA area, where we saw giraffes, zebras, and rhinos

Red Panda

Dingoes

Sea Otters

We met up with Nick after the Zoo and went go-kart racing at a nearby track. I had never been, so I was a bit “slow” on the track, and the boys seemed to lap me at least 2 times. I thought the whole experience was fun, yet a bit scary, but the boys definitely seemed to love it.

Andrew and I had wanted to make dinner for Shannon and Nick one night, so we cooked some ribs (which Andrew had brined the night before and slow-cooked for 3 hours), as well as some au gratin potatoes and salad. Andrew’s ribs were a hit, as usual, and everyone seemed to enjoy the sides. Massive food comas resulted from this delicious dinner.

Since Shannon and Nick both had some work to do the next day, Andrew and I spent some time at the beach before heading down to the Esplanade near Shannon’s work for a water-front lunch at Drift. Shannon came and met up with us after work and we spent some time exploring the Caloundra area.

Shannon and Nick had a couple of their friends come over that night and we all enjoyed a nice BBQ of pork roast and chicken, as well as some delicious sides Shannon cooked up. It was nice to meet a few of their Australian friends. We spent the evening witnessing some more amazing lightening from an incoming thunderstorm, as well as partaking in some more karaoke at the house. It’s pretty crazy how you can literally see the thunderstorms “rolling in.”

Unfortunately, the week with Shannon and Nick had come to an end. As we packed our bags the next morning, Shannon let us know that she had one more surprise for us before we left. On our way to the car rental location, we stopped in the town of Mooloolaba. The town sits on the water and is known for their fresh seafood. We sat down for lunch at a local restaurant and enjoyed fresh caught King Prawns while overlooking the water. Andrew and I had never eaten prawns this way and were fortunate that Nick showed us how to remove the shell. Each prawn had more meat than any other type of prawn or shrimp we have tasted back home. The experience was truly amazing!

We left lunch and headed for the airport to pick up our rental car. After spending the last week with some of our closest friends, it was hard to say goodbye. However, we enjoyed our time on the Sunshine Coast and had such a great time getting an inside look at their life in Australia. On to the next part of our Australian adventure!