Category Archives: Travel

Trip to Blue Mountains

Posted on April 30, 2012 | 16 comments

Last Saturday, we decided to take a day trip to Blue Mountains and we had an awesome time. I went there with my husband, my brother and his wife, my cousin, her husband and her 4 years old son and a friend of mine with his wife.

Blue Mountains are around two hours drive from Sydney and it is one of the popular tourist destinations. It is one of those destinations where you can drive from point to point in a car stopping at different view points for stunning views or you can bush walk for hours to get from one great location to another. The roads are also very scenic.

The Greater Blue Mountains Area was unanimously listed as a World Heritage Area by UNESCO on29 November 2000. The area totals roughly 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi), including the Blue Mountains, Kanangra-Boyd, Wollemi, Gardens of Stone, Yengo, Nattai and Thirlmere Lakes National Parks, plus the Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve.

One of the visitors we met there asked me if I knew why Blue Mountain is called Blue Mountains so I did my research and here is the explanation.

The mountains in the Blue Mountains look blue and their blueness comes from the way that the light hits the mist which rises from the eucalyptus trees which cover almost every inch of them.

On the way to Blue Mountains, there are lots of ice parks, lakes and falls. One of them is Wentworth Falls. When we got to Wentworth Falls, we were hungry so we decide to take a break in Wentworth Falls Park before bush walking. We ate our nice homemade lunch and went to the Conservation Hut to start our bush walking.

The track signs said an hour for the trip but I guess we took longer as we took lots of photos on the way. The walking tracks were really well maintained so even my 4 year old nephew easily walked without any help. We saw some amazing views on the way to the fall. Along with spectacular views, we saw kookaburras, parrots, lizards, spiders and colourful songbirds.

Once we were at the bottom of the waterfall it looked just beautiful. It looked like it came out of the National Geographic Channel. It was so cool and refreshing. There were lots of tourists enjoying the view.

After resting for a while, we made our way back to the car and went to see the mountains. The most famous piece of the Blue Mountains can be found in Katoomba as Echo Point. When Oprah was here shooting her final shows, it was one of the place she visited.

As the day was sunny, we had a great time going around the lookouts and taking some really nice shot. The Three Sisters looked beautiful from the view point but for those of you who love walking, you can actually hike down to the base of one for a dizzyingly spectacular perspective.

Ever time I visited Blue Mountains before, I took the Scenic tour which consists of

  • Skyway – The Skyway takes you on a 720 metre journey, 270m above ancient ravines and dazzling waterfalls.  You are suspended over Jurassic rainforests as you glide smoothly across the sky.
  • Cableway – The Scenic Cableway takes you on a 545 metre ride into – or out of – the World Heritage-listed rainforest of the Jamison Valley.
  • Railway – The 415m descent railway will take you through a cliff side tunnel down into an ancient rainforest.  The Scenic Railway can carry up to 84 passengers and operates every 10 minutes.
  • Walkway- Discover over 2.8kms of boardwalk through the ancient rainforest, including 380 metres of wheel chair accessible walkway

It is a must do if anyone is going to Blue Mountains for the first time. This time we skipped it and decided to walk most of the places.

Overall great day with plenty of exercise. 🙂

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Posted in Australia, NSW - Australia

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Sydney Aquarium

Posted on April 24, 2012 | 6 comments

I hadn’t been to Sydney aquarium for many years, so a few weeks ago, AS and I decided to go there as it was a rainy Saturday afternoon as there wasn’t much we could do outdoors. Sydney Aquarium in situated on the eastern edge of Darling Harbour and is close to the heart of the city. The cost of entry for an adult is AU$35 per person.

When we went to buy the ticket, we realised that lots of people, especially families with young kids and tourist had the same idea as we did. So there was a bit of a wait before we could get inside. Once inside, there were a large variety of fish and water creatures like huge sharks, massive stingrays, majestic turtles, jellyfish, platypuses, penguins, and sea dragons.

There were many interesting Lego structures which wasn’t there on my last visit. I later learned that they are aquatic inspired constructions containing around 20000 pieces of Lego.

There was a section called Great Barrier Reef and I swear I saw all the fishes there which I had seen while snorkelling in Great Barrier Reef itself. They were so colourful with similar coral around them. All sorts of tropical fish, sharks and rays darted about the coral reef formations swimming over creatures that live on the ocean floor including lobsters and sea cucumbers.

The best part of all was the underwater tunnel. There were so many sharks and sting rays that we spent more than 30 minutes looking at them.  I felt really excited when a three-metre shark or giant sting ray glided silently above me :).

Luckily we were there when they had shark feeding as well where one of the keepers told us many things about the sharks and sting rays in the tank.

 A few facts I learnt that day.

  • Opened in 1988, Sydney Aquarium is one of the largest aquariums in the world.
  • Six million litres of water house this varied and colourful exhibit.
  • They have beautiful dugongs – 2 of only 5 on display anywhere in the world
  • Almost every Australian sea and major waterway is represented at the Sydney Aquarium: from the open sea to the Great Barrier Reef, to the Australian Bight and Sydney Harbour, to the Murray-Darling river system, the rivers of the Far North, mangrove habitats, rocky shores.
  • Some of its displays are contained in the main exhibit hall, others in one of the three large floating oceanariums.
  • A large purpose-built tank called Mermaid Lagoon is where the rather adorable Dugongs Pig and Wuwu call home. Most Dugongs spend their time in warmer northern Australian waters and they are a strictly marine herbivores.
  • Little Penguins are on display in a large tank replicating their natural habitat which stretches around southern Australia from northern NSW all the way to southern WA, and can include Sydney Harbour.
  • There are a number of shark exhibits at the aquarium. Together they tell the story and life cycle of sharks and also their relationship with man.

The aquarium is great for kids (and adults) who can appreciate the cool things the world can offer like sharks and turtles. I really enjoyed my day out and if you ever visit Sydney, I think this should be one of the places to go on your list.

For more information on the aquarium, please visit their site

http://www.sydneyaquarium.com.au/


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Posted in Australia, NSW - Australia

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Hunter Valley

Posted on January 31, 2012 | 7 comments

Over the weekend we took a trip up the coast to Hunter Valley. It is around 300 km north of Sydney and is the wine country of NSW. It is the place to go for wine tasting and to enjoy the scenic landscape. They also do cheese and olive tasting. Aside from being a foodies dream, the Hunter Valley is steeped in quaint history and historical architecture, much of which you can learn about by visiting the various museums and historical tours. The Hunter Valley also boasts an abundance of wildlife in a world-class national park and one of Australia’s most scenic golf courses. 

It was a bit wet in Sydney so I was glad to get away. Me, AS and my friends SS and PA got into the car and off we went for our trip. On the way it was raining heavily at places so we didn’t know what to expect when we reached our destination but we were relieved when we found it was not raining in the valley. 

There are lots of tours on offer but we decided to set our own path. 

The first stop was the Hunter Valley Gardens. It is one of the places I visit every time I go to Hunter. I had been there many times, mainly to take all my visitors for a trip. But it was everyone else’s first time in Hunter so it was nice to see them excited with the view of gardens. 

Its website has the following description for the gardens. 

“Spanning over 60 acres, be amazed by the sensational sights, colours, and fragrances of the ten stunning feature gardens. Explore each garden one-by-one and enjoy an exciting journey through the thousands of flowers, trees, and shrubs with an air of discovery at every turn. Bask in a lavish array of colour and scent found in the Rose Garden with more than 8,000 roses on display; laze above the 10 metre waterfall and take in the superb views from the lookout; or step back in time with all our favourite fairytale characters in the Storybook Garden. 

The gardens will heighten your senses with a wonderful display of sight, colour and fragrance.Hunter Valley Gardens is also wheelchair friendly and allows access to all areas. You can find out more here about wheelchairs availability at Garden Entry. Along the eight kilometres of walking paths are more than six thousand trees, one million ground covers and six hundred thousand shrubs. A floral display featuring a variety of plants and statuary, all of a standard that you won’t see elsewhere in Australia. From the main entrance, the visitor will enter through many feature gardens full of breathtaking surprises!” 

I love every corner of the garden and I have so many beautiful photos from the day. It was just such a colourful place to be. There were a few weddings happening while we were there. We had lunch in the café there before going for horse riding (I am going to write a separate post about my experience of it). I had creamy pasta and it was one of the best I have tried. I highly recommend stopping over at the café for lunch if anyone is ever going there. 

I should say the horse riding experience was bumpy and gave me a sore bum at the end but I did enjoy it. 

Then we were off to some wineries where we got to see the ripe grape vines and took some silly photos. It felt so unreal to stand in the middle of acres of grape vines. I just loved the smell of the fresh air and to see bunches of grapes ready to be picked. When you drive pass the area, all you see is grape vines and lots of cows and horses. I felt like I was far far away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney’s traffic and crowds. 

Overall a great day in a nice country town. Here are some photos of the day.

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Posted in NSW - Australia, Travel

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Our Trip to Vanuatu

Posted on January 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

This post is 2 weeks overdue but finally I managed to finish it 🙂

Finally when we landed in Vanuatu I felt really happy. As soon as we got out of the plane, I could feel the humid air against my face. I knew we were going to have a great holiday at this place.

The airport looked very rural. No big walls or modern equipments. Just open fields with a one story building. It was Christmas day but there were no decorations. We lined up to clear immigration and picked up our bags to go to our hotel.

We caught a taxi to our resort. We realised while in the taxi that we should have changed some money to Vatu as the taxi driver informed us that he won’t take Aussie dollars. When we had done our research we had found on the internet forums that Aussie dollar was good but it was different story there. We told the driver we would try to change our money at the resort.  So when we got to the resort a guy came to take our luggage and we asked him if we can change some money. He asked to give him the money and was backed in 5 minutes with the equivalent Vatu. The bad thing was the exchange rate seemed less than the official rate. We paid the taxi driver and checked in. It was when we were checking in that we were told the rate which made us realised that the guy who had seemed to help us change our money has cheated us a bit with a lower rate. Just 5 bucks in Aussie dollars but a lesson learned, never trust anyone easily. We later found he had exchanged the money in a nearby store and we got a better rate there.

When we reached our room I was really happy as it looked comfortable and clean. Lots of flowers were used to decorate the bed. Like any tropical place, it had tiled floor to help keep the room cool. We then relaxed, took a shower and went to explore the place. They seemed to have a nice restaurant, a bar and a beautiful pool. When we got back to our room we were hungry so we ordered room service. While we waited for our food, we watched TV. I was surprised to see many Australian channels available. I felt like I was still in Australia.

It took a while for room service to arrive but when it did it was really yummy. As it was already evening we decided to relax and plan our next few days. There were many brochures we had to go through to choose our activities but most of them seemed similar like island getaway with snorkelling and lunch. We thought it would be fun to start with a round island tour so we went to the reception to book our first tour.

Our tour, the Native round island tour, was supposed to be the next morning but due to a miscommunication between the reception and the tour organisers it was pushed to the next day so we went to the Hideaway Island instead. The place was only 20 minutes bus ride and 5 minutes ferry ride from our resort.

Once we were there I realised why everyone had advised us to take reef shoe with us. Thank god that we did. It was a beautiful island with beautiful blue water but the beach had very coarse rubbles washed out from sea along with death corals. It was near impossible to walk bare foot on the beach.  It was a warm day so I change and jumped into the water. It was just beautiful. This is the place where there is an underwater post office. We put our snorkelling gears on and swam with the fishes. We first started near the shore to get a hang of the waves and later were taken further in into the sea. It was really beautiful with so many colourful fishes.

Compared to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia I found that the corals were dead and brown but there were a high number of fishes and sea animals like sea cucumber starfish and sea-horse. I even got to hold a star fish in my own hands. Thanks to my waterproof camera we managed to take lots of beautiful underwater shots.

Our guide had a great trick to invite fishes. He had a bottle with fish food so when he dropped these food, the fishes came in large numbers to him giving us a great opportunity to take photos and allowing us to be so close to them.

Finally after having lunch at the island, we came back to our resort. We ordered room service again and enjoyed our dinner in front of the TV.

The next day we went for the Round Island tour  which goes around Port Villa to see different villages and their culture. It was a really informative tour as the guide was a native himself and was able to show us the real life in Vanuatu.

That evening we went to the town to have a wonderful dinner in a restaurant call Chill. I had lamb with some mashed potatoes while AS ordered chicken and vegetables. We finished off with a huge chocolate soufflé.

The next day was AS’s birthday which was really a good day for me. I surprised him with a cake in the morning during breakfast and then we went Abseiling. That evening we went and had a Melanesian dinner while the locals performed some traditional dances for us. It rained that night for the first time while we were there.

The day before we left, we went and did the helmet dive. It was a great experience to be with fish and sea creatures up close and personal. It was only for a couple of hours so the rest of the day we just relaxed, visited the local markets and had lots of fun.

Over all, this holiday was awesome. Will love to go back there one day 🙂

Click here for more photos.

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Posted in Travel, Vanuatu

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Oceanwalker : Swimming with the fishes

Posted on January 11, 2012 | 7 comments

One of the good things about a tropical holiday is that you get to swim in a blue sea with lots of fishes. I love going snorkelling and meeting the locals from deep down in the water. 

During this holiday I got many occasions to do that. When we were on Hideaway Island we were able to go snorkelling in the deep blue water with a guide. We also did some snorkelling by ourselves in Eton Village and other beaches as well. 

I always want to go deeper in the coral but with snorkelling it is not possible, but in Vanuatu, I found Oceanwalker. It makes it  easy to enjoy the view underwater. I had done something similar before in the Great Barrier reef in Queensland but I was excited to try it out again . 

The website describes Oceanwalker as 

Oceanwalker Vanuatu brings you this exciting and innovative tourism experience, allowing you to explore the underwater world of tropical fish and coral reefs up close, with-out even getting your head wet. 

The Helmet Dive is the next step after snorkelling and is a fun way to discover what lies beneath. 

Your adventure in paradise starts with a short walk down a ramp into the water where the purpose-built helmet is lowered on to your shoulders and in no time at all your underwater experience begins spending up to 20 minutes walking on the sea floor to a maximum depth of 4 metres. 

The day of the dive, we were picked up at the hotel and were taken to the dive area by the short boat ride. The day was just perfect with the sun out and the blue sky. At the dive area there were 4 people who were there to help us through this amazing journey. 

We had one more group, a family joining us for the dive. 

First we were briefed by our PADI qualified instructors with instructions about the helmet dive equipment and we were given a form to sign our life away. 

Then the adventure began with a descent to the short ramp in the water, where a helmet is fitted on the head and then off you go. It was really a fun experience because you don’t have to worry about swimming or breathing. Air is continually pumped into the helmet so the water doesn’t rise above your shoulder even when you are 4 meters underwater. 

We met lots of fish down there including Nemo and the zebra fish. It was so cool. One of the instructors was with us all the time so there was no fear of getting lost or anything. He even caught a fish in his hand twice and gave it to me but the fish just escaped from my hand. 🙂 It was really fun experience. I also got to hold a sea cucumber. 

There were so many fish around us that we felt like kids running after it. I really enjoyed the whole experience and was sorry that it ended after around just 20 mins. The memory will live in me forever. 🙂 Click here for more photos.

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Posted in Adventures, Vanuatu

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