penguin parade

The Penguin Parade on Phillip Island is a magical event. Yes, it happens every day at sunset but it’s still magical. I’ve been twice now and whilst in theory, the experience shouldn’t change, it was different for me, both times.



There is actually quite a lot to explore around Phillip Island. There are plenty of wineries, beaches, wildlife parks, even a chocolate factory! A day trip isn’t really enough time I think to explore the Island in its entirety which is a great excuse to go back, particularly when family and friends come to visit!



September is one of the better months to go – the penguins are plentiful and the weather is not too cold. And I end the post with this last thought – sunset is a beautiful time on the Island. 

why hello spring!

Finally! It's here! What I hear you say?! Spring! That's what!

What better way to welcome spring than take a day trip around Victoria? Now I don't normally take day trips around Victoria, on Fridays no less but I had an RDO and my parents and sister were in town visiting. So with that in mind, I capitalised on the beautiful weather and pleasant company. Off we trekked to Ballarat... after a few wrong turns here and there on the Western Ring Road we finally got there.

Ah Ballarat, aren't you a sleepy little town. To be fair to Ballarat, we probably should have stayed longer in the town and visited Sovereign Hill but after I baulked at the amount of time needed, at a minimum, to explore it, I made the executive decision to quickly say goodbye and start the trek to Daylesford. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the time to spend 3-4 hours in Sovereign Hill. Instead we dropped into the art gallery for a quick squiz, takeaway coffees and organic sweet potato chips (which were delish by the way and were gobbled up very quickly) and headed to the lake. Good thing Ballarat is only an hour's drive from Melbourne so I'm sure I'll make the trek again (so I keep telling myself).



Onwards and upwards (literally) to Daylesford. We drove through Hepburn Springs before arriving at Lavandula Lavender Farm, a lovely quaint place that is all things lavender. As the name suggests, they harvest lavender (and lots of other beautiful flowers dot the farm) but also harvest olives, and an array of animals call it home too. We were lucky enough to have arrived at just the right time for a tour of the house on the farm, recreated to replicate the home that was lived in so many years ago. A two bedroom home for, if I remember correctly 13 kids?! The guys on the farm have done a fantastic job restoring the home – it really takes you back on a journey of a time that is so foreign to me. No electricity?! Unheard of!












Still no lavender – it gets harvested in January apparently but still, a beautiful day to enjoy the grounds and a lovely lavender lemonade and scones or in my dad’s case, a lavender champagne.

breakfast @ bills

I’m very fortunate enough to have experienced breakfast at bills earlier this year, on a short trip to Sydney, courtesy of work. So when I found myself in Sydney again for work and had the opportunity to stay for the weekend, I knew I just had to take my sister to bills for breakfast. In her 4-5 years of living in Sydney, she has never been. I was gobsmacked. I had to rectify this. Stat.

I remember how, on my first visit, I instantly fell in love with the place – the lovely clean lines of the interior, the large communal table, the bowls of fresh fruit, the magazines laid out by category, the somewhat open kitchen, the service, my pot of chai tea, the general buzz of breakfast. All this and I hadn’t even seen the menu yet.  

And what a menu! I find that at breakfast I am always faced with a dilemma - sweet or savoury? I am a lover of both. There's nothing better than soft fluffy eggs and crispy bacon, or a nice fat slab of toasted banana bread with berries and mascarpone cheese. Can you see my dilemma? Last time I was at bills, I chose sweet – the ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter. Drool. So I decided to do savoury this time, choosing the corn fritters with bacon and convinced my sister to try the hotcakes (it didn’t take much convincing!)

The corn fritters didn’t disappoint. I polished them off pretty quickly. And my sister loved the ricotta hotcakes, claiming this was the only time she would allow herself to smother her breakfast with butter.

I must say, everything about bills screams fresh, simple, homemade. I am in love. Oh if only there was bills in Melbourne.

take me back to the summertime

Take me back to the sweet times, the hot nights...

Sing it sister (well technically, Thirsty Merc). Now, I don’t mean to complain (I can hear all that know me well chuckle right now because they know, I do like to get on my soapbox and tell it like it is) but it has been extremely cold in Melbourne. So cold in fact, I am actually dreaming of beautiful balmy weather. Again, very strange because I’m usually not a massive fan of summer. Ok, so there are some good things about summer:

1. I was born in Summer.
2. I love ice cream (actually anything cold and sweet) and it’s perfectly acceptable to eat loads of it in summer, for its cooling effects. 
3. The days are longer and the nights are shorter.
4. Going out is not so much a chore, and requires very little effort.

However, let’s look at the other side of the coin. I don’t enjoy summer because:

1. I sweat like a pig.
2. I don’t do summer clothing very well. Ironic right, given that I was born and raised in the Sunshine State? Sorry, I just do not rock the Billabong and thongs (flip flops) look.
3. I burn/tan really easily and it stays with me for ages. I know, why should I be complaining about this? I’ll tell you why. I don’t like to tan, brown is not beautiful from where I’m from (whacky Asians!) and I still have the horrible t-shirt tan line from last year’s Big Day Out – yes, about 15 months on!

To all my friends that love Summer, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. At times, I behave like I’m not a true Queenslander. I do apologise. I do still very much love pineapple though.

So, whilst having climatised to the much cooler weather in Melbourne, I found it odd that I was dreaming of Summer. I think because lately, not only has it been cold, it has also been wet. Cold + wet weather ≠ pleasant. It’s taken about 4 days for my washing to dry. 4 days! Good thing I have an extensive wardrobe (I knew all that clothes shopping would come in handy one day).

And so to this, I found myself looking through my photos from our South East Asia trip in October 2009. My family and I had an amazing time. We ate to our hearts’ content in Singapore and Malaysia (well, technically everywhere we went), we got up close and personal with elephants and tigers in Thailand and met up with family in Indonesia and Singapore. Oh and the weather. Lush, tropical weather....

Where it's totally acceptable to eat a mountain of shaved ice and syrup, at least once a day. You sweat it all off anyway.

Or get a massage from a baby elephant...

 Or touch some unsuspecting sleeping tigers...

Eat a feast of spicy food (again, you sweat it off)...

Where you feel like you’ve just had a shower, constantly. Where you don’t suffer from dry skin. Where you feel like you need to walk around in as little clothing as possible (I won't scare you all with a photo of that!). Well suffice to say, I quickly snapped out of my summer dream. Don’t get me wrong, a summer tropical holiday is nice, but key word in that sentence: holiday. Perhaps a trip up north during Winter will help me through the colder months...