Tag Archives: Australia
Sydney Diaries: Thats what friends are for!
We were fortunate to be invited into a group of friends in our first week in Sydney. Mostly Irish as these were John’s Uni pals from Cork – namely Dave, Rowan and Allan. Our first encounter was as part of the Come Dine With Me Night – a group dinner in a random restaurant every […]
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 […]
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 […]
JKHome-ing!
After 9 months of living out of our backpacks it was finally time to fully unpack them. Our clothes would hang in a wardrobe, our toiletries would have a home in the bathroom cabinet, we would sleep in a bed for more than 5 nights and no longer require to share a bathroom or queue […]
Lets go fly a kite!!
Sydney has an average of 300 sunny days a year. That’s 286 more than Ireland or Scotland! With such great weather the only thing to do is go exploring! On our first weekend in Sydney we went to check out the Kite Festival on the famous Bondi Beach, but we were not alone. Two of […]
Back to Life…..
We landed into Sydney on a dark Saturday night. Our first experience of the city was being ripped off in a taxi to our accommodation. We decided to stay in an AirBnB studio in Maroubra for our first two weeks. This would allow us to have our own space while we went in search 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 […]
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 […]
Market Queen
Our penultimate stop for a wee while would be a little place in the state of Victoria. You may have heard of it before? It is called Melbourne. Located at the head of Port Philip Bay, Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city (behind their arch-nemesis Sydney!) With miles and miles of amazing Victorian-era architecture, an […]
West Is Best: Highlights of Western Australia
Our month in Western Australia had come to an end, it was time to pack up those rucksacks and bid farewell to Eilidh, Baxter and Misty the cat. We were both sad to leave but we had to head east. We absolutely loved our time in the west. Certainly Western Australia is under sold and […]
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