Author Archives: John Rose

Sydney Diaries: Parramasala

Question: What can convince Karen to get a train for over an hour? Answer: The promise of decent Masala Dosa. So when we found out about the Parramasala Indian Culture Festival we decided to go check it out. Held in Parramatta (the clue is in the name!) and celebrating it’s fifth anniversary this is a […]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone but not forgotten

I close my eyes Only for a moment and the moment’s gone All my dreams Pass before my eyes with curiosity Today was a very sad day. After over 2 years of companionship and friendship it was time to say goodbye to The Hulklings…. my bulky green running shoes! A cursory look through our photo […]

Sydney Diaries: RBG is the place 2B!

Word! Located right in the heart of Sydney City and occupying commanding views of the harbour is the Royal Botanical Gardens (RGB). Since 1816 this has been a quiet oasis in the urban sprawl of office buildings that threaten to consume it and best of all… it’s a public park! On scale and wow factor […]

Sydney Diaries: A Night At The Opera (House)

With the backpacks emptied and the flat sorted it was time to enjoy our time in Sydney. When you are travelling it’s hard to fit in “Date Nights” in random villages and Karen’s a far classier lady than being content with some Chicken Satay and a can of Tiger beer. So with that in mind […]

Sydney Diaries: Macho Macho Man – ly

Taking a break from settling into our new lives in Sydney we took a day trip to the suburb of Manly. Located northeast of the harbour the best way to do this is via ferry from Circular Quay. The public ferry is the best. As part of the journey you get a mini tour of […]

The National…

Gallery that is! Near Federation square is a big building that houses the National Gallery Of Victoria (NGV). Founded in 1861 it is the oldest public museum in all of Australia. It owes it’s very early existence to the Gold Rush that occurred at this time and flush with money the Victorians donated vast amounts […]

Football Stats – Update

If you have partaken of our Fun Stats page, you will have noticed a list of Football Clubs on the bottom. To keep the mind occupied while we do nothing John has decided to count the Jerseys he has seen. This has been tough as there are so many fake jerseys around but using his […]

That’s Melbourne!

That’s Melbourne is the tagline for this great city. One of our favourite things about Melbourne was the random things we saw while we pottered about the city. Sometimes photos tell their own stories! Enjoy.

The Librarian

Melbourne is home to the Victoria State Library. More than just a dusty collection of books, this huge ‘Cathedral of Culture’, has since 1856 been the centre of excellence for the region. Nowadays it functions as a library, museum and an art gallery. Architecturally mind-blowing, the exterior is of Victorian grand design. But this is […]

Roman Holiday

There is probably a huge correlation between the number of times it rains in Melbourne vs the number of museums it has. Luckily (for John) it was raining so we were able to enjoy another museum. This time we would be checking out the ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Image) in Federation Square First things […]

Walk this way!

Melbourne’s CBD is full of interesting self-guided walking tours. We hadn’t done one of these in a while so we decided to spend some time exploring the alleyways and lane-ways of this great city. Starting in Federation Square we crossed the road to the Flinders Street Station. This is a major landmark in Melbourne, both […]

The 96ers

Melbourne, like all Australian metropolitan areas it seems, has access to some beach areas. One of the more famous of these is a place called St. Kilda. With the weather behaving we decided to risk going down there and checking it out. St. Kilda was named after the schooner The Lady of St. Kilda (which […]

The Writings On The Wall

If Melbourne is a great city, then there is only one place worth staying in here. That is the funky district of Fitzroy. We were lucky to find a great apartment on AirBnB and stayed with a nice couple from Ireland (Tipperary and Galway). The apartment was right off Brunswick Street, which is where everything […]

Left Behind

So we had left the tour. (luckily we had around 8 months of getting to used to our own company to not let that affect us). Task 1 was to secure lodgings for the next night. The day before Tom mentioned that we should stay in Pot Shots, another establishment down the road. We called […]

Exmouth

So we had made it to our last stop on the Great North Tour, the town of Exmouth. The big draw here is the Cape Range National Park and it is also home to one of the Top 10 Dives in the World, at the nearby Navy Pier. Ingmar ‘Dutchy’ would be enjoying himself there […]