Disclaimer: This article is sponsored by Sebel. I love exploring new places, but it is the places and cities that we return to that own a little of our heart. For me Sydney is that city. As a child we made an annual pilgrimage from Melbourne up the Hume Highway to Sydney where we…
I have never thought of Melbourne as a beach town. Melbourne, my beautiful cultural and geographic melting pot of a home town spreads itself wide and tall. We live on the cusp of the Yarra Valley in the city’s north east green-belt. Ten minutes drive from home are vineyards, eucalyptus, the Yarra River and…
I love Christmas – the decorations, the food, the summer Australian Christmas vibe. I have a so-so relationship with presents however. Not real comfortable with the accumulation of stuff that the holiday season brings folks. If Santa were going to bring me my perfect present it would be an opportunity to travel, and explore…
What do the Australian War Memorial, Kings Canyon, Walhalla – a Victorian town with population 20, and Sydney Harbour have in common? They are four of the must-visit destinations listed in “Australia’s Top 100 Places to Go. The Ultimate Bucket List”. Brought to you by Jennifer Adams and Clint Bizzell the producers and hosts of…
I had a “winter wig out”. It was nine months post relocation south to cooler climes in Melbourne and I was deep in a winter funk. The fact that I had spent the entire winter caring for germy children, and being myself a host to a million germs didn’t help. The September school holidays were…
My kids asked me the other days when the olden days were. It was a question that gave me pause for thought. I asked them when they thought it was, and they said when their grandma was a girl (the 1940s and 1950s) I said I thought it was probably when my grandma was a…
People talk about “bucket lists” on travel sites. I’m not real keen on that phrase for a few reasons that I won’t go into here. If I did have a bucket list though, taking my kids on an epic USA road trip would be one of them. After seeing my gorgeous friend Sam’s equally gorgeous…
Once apon a time in a the distant past two young lovers posed for their engagement photos on Saint Kilda Pier. Okay, it was only eleven years ago but three rug-rats later it seems like eons ago. This past weekend the time had come for the now slightly older but hopefully not jaded couple to…
There is something kind of cool about moving away from your home town, living thousands of kilometers away for 10 years, moving back to your home town, and then discovering awesomeness nearby. The awesomeness I recently discovered for the first time was Phillip Island. Situated in Western Port Bay and a favorite holiday destination for…
I had heard plenty about historical Hobart Town. Many of the old stories were grim – convict escapees that had turned to cannabilism, brutality and genocide against Indigenous Tasmanians, bushrangers at odds with authority in a remote outpost of the British Empire. I knew that the city has done much to cast off its mantle…