Events

SINGAPORE
Singapore has changed quite a lot in the 10 years since my last visit. There appears to have been plenty of renovation with sections I remember differently, now having rows of new wine bars and very trendy restaurants, the public transport is new, very cheap and reliable and the locals even look more fashion conscious! One thing hasn’t changed though and that’s the insane price of wine here, a glass will cost you as much as your meal, but they serve up the Aussie stuff, so its definitely quality! Anyway, I’m impressed with the new Singapore, maybe its the Chinese economic boom, but its sure inspired me to visit again.

We spent our first day (with a long awaited visit) to the Singapore Zoo. I’ve been raving about this place to Kev for years, and finally got to take him. Its better than before, and more beautiful. How they have managed to keep those animals in without fences is amazing, but they have done a marvellous job with this place and I recommend it to everyone. We finished our first day off with the traditional Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel, a Singapore icon. It was nice but paid twice as much as anywhere else just for the experience, but Raffles is lovely and I’d like to be able to afford to stay there just once in my life, so I’ll add that to my ‘to do’ list.

SABAH
Selamat Datang – “welcome”. The people here in Borneo are full of big smiles and nearly every person on the street will say hello with a big cheesy grin. Its such a friendly place. The town of Kota Kinabalu doesn’t have too much appeal but the highlights are elsewhere. Of course the food is sensational and Kev & I have done the market place and had our fair share of banana fritters and fresh out of the wok Nasi Goreng.

We spent our first day of arrival in what seemed to be a monsoon, never quite seen rain like it, but was an excuse to work out in the gym, spend 2 hours at the buffet, check our money situation on the net, book in for a traditional Borneo massage, and finish the day with a couple of Long Islands!

Day 2 was a ferry over to the islands for an overnight stay. The islands here are so thick with jungle that its quite a sight to approach. With clear water, white sand and dark green jungle it’s a very beautiful sight. We enjoyed a BBQ lunch on the beach and some snorkelling, then stayed in our 2 storey bungalow on the beach to enjoy the awesome sunset, with a freshly cut coconut to drink. The sun going down over an ocean is always a sight! The following morning we probably spent an hour with pieces of wood pulling plastic bags out of the water and cleaning up the beach. There is a fishing village not far from the islands where the houses are built on stilts over the water, the rubbish from these people must get swept out to sea and end up on the islands, we were frustrated the workers on the island weren’t doing much about it, so we did our own bit for clean up Borneo day.

Day 4 we met up with Kev’s business partner & wife and several other friends for a 7am flight over to Sandakan. Our guide took us all on a visit to the birds nest cave, which was very interesting. These little birds make nests out of their saliva in the very top of the 100m high cave. The workers climb up and take the nests and are sold to the Chinese who pay a fortune for them, they believe these nests, when made into a soup with keep them youthful. The Chinese will eat anything! We continued onto along a very bumpy dirt road for a couple of hours to the Kinabatangan River where we boarded a very long canoe type boat with an outboard and sped up the river to the River Lodges. These lodges have had quite a few famous people stay at them, including David Attenborough. In the afternoon we took the same boat up the ‘magic river’ in the hope to see the Proboscis monkey in the wild. We were extremely lucky as we saw heaps of them, the large males with their big noses were putting on a show. We were very fortunate to see one Orang Utan sitting up in the canopy, this is very rare to see them in the wild, and with the binoculars it was just amazing to watch. This was the highlight of our trip. We also saw a crocodile in the water, plenty of Macaques, a snake, and lots of brightly coloured Kingfishers. There were some elephant tracks as well, but not that lucky to see one drinking from the river. We spent the night meeting some new lovely people drinking Tiger Beer and had a wonderful night. On our way to the river huts, we came across a group of Macaque monkeys on the ground, we had been told not to show your teeth or stare them in the eye or the whole group will attack you. Well, these guys weren’t impressed by our presence and we kind of stood there for a bit until one charged us, and sent us running, would have been funny to watch! We slept under mosquito nets listening to the wild life, it was a great experience.

Macaque Monkey

Macaque Monkey

The following day was a 5.30am start to get on the road early to visit the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehibilitation Centre. That was the plan, until the smell of oil filled the bus about 30 minutes into the trip along the dusty bumpy road and that was the end of that. We watched our poor driver come out from under the bus completely covered in oil trying to fix the..as he put it ‘hoss’, ‘the hoss is broke, very very sorry’. He tried and tried to fix it but we had to wait 2 hours until 3 taxis arrived to take us to the Centre. Anyway, the day could have been worse if the people we were with weren’t wonderful, so we chatted and joked around to make the day go by pretty quite. The Sepilok Centre was a little disappointing after seeing so many monkeys in the wild, but they are doing a wonderful job rescuing orphaned Orang Utans and have a great park.

Well have finally checked into the Sutera Harbour Resort for the conference. Check out the resort at http://www.suteraharbour.com this place is huge and the nicest place Kev & I have ever stayed in. There’s a 50m Olympic pool just in front of us, so I’ve no excuse now! Probably won’t be updating the blog for a while now as it will just be all about eating, drinking, swimming and meeting new people. So until later, Terima Kasi (thanks) for reading my blog.

LATER...
Well just signing off on this trip, met some wonderful people during this conference, enjoyed some lovely food, but glad its all over. Buffets for every meal and drinking and late nights gets a bit much after a while. Unfortunately our bag was stolen while we were at the Hyatt poolside, and there'll be no more photos of this trip as the camera has probably been sold by now! Both wallets were gone too, but we sorted it out as best as we could. As long as you've got passports and a back up plan everything else can be replaced. It was annoying as we are very careful on the street where ever we go, but being on private property you drop your guard, we saw the security footage and it was amazing how quickly it happened. Anyway we are over it and have learned from it. Next trip for this blog....TASMANIA IN MAY!!

Last year after our previous Yarra Valley experience, we decided to get a group together to attend this year’s Grape Grazing Festival (check it out at http://www.grapegrazing.com.au/) and add on some wine tasting, a meal experience at the famous Healesville Hotel http://www.healesvillehotel.com.au/files/index.html
and a night stay at the wonderful Tuck Inn http://www.tuckinn.com.au/home.html.

Grape Grazers from left to right, Richard, Niklas (aka Necklace), Ana, Debbie, Jo, Kev, Jeffro

Good ol’ Kev, the brilliant organiser, made all the arrangements and 7 of us were on way in a mini van driven by you-know-who, headed to the vineyards! Apart from the heatwave everything went smoothly and we all laughed our way through the weekend. I think the highlight of the trip was when Debbie Croker jumped the serving counter at Medhurst Winery to hug and kiss the winemaker Ross, yes the wine was that good. Have a look at their website http://www.medhurstwines.com.au/website/default.asp

Debbie jumping the wine maker!

Also, I must use this space to say that we visited Medhurst simply by accident as it was next door to Coldstream Hills. The Cellar door manager of Coldstream yelled to us from the hill blurting out that they did not want buses, (well we did consider our little bus more of a people mover) – and we were the only ones there. We’d have preferred a rejection delivered in a nicer way, and if only he’d let us in they would have sold a couple of cartons easily..(never mind, one of our grape grazers watered his tree on the way out). Anyway, these Coldstream Hills drinkers are not anymore, so next time, try the Medhurst instead!

Killara Estate - Ana & Niklas enjoying the Cuban sounds

Killara Estate

Some familiar grape grazers at Killara

Other highlights were:
The delicious meals at Healesville Hotel accompanied by an enormous wine list including international wines, which were selected by our personal sommeliers, grape grazers Richard and Niklas. The service was attentive with attention to detail, the table was beautifully decorated with vases of red roses, candle light, and situated in our own dining room.

Kev taking in the aromas of the Pinot, do you think he enjoyed his dinner??

All of us at the Healesville Hotel

Breakfast the next day was in the communal area, all seated around the 3 metre long table. Eggs cooked anyway you like by the lovely Regina, even with a bit of black pudding on the side if you choose (and Kev chose!) she also serves up a very nice flat white too.

Niklas & Richard topped up their cellars at Oakridge Estate http://www.oakridgeestate.com.au/one/about.html, and Immerse http://www.immerseyourself.com.au/, between visiting the Acacia Ridge winery which was included in the festival. There, we bopped away to Wilbur Wilde playing his saxaphone .. Debbie managed this photo with him..

Deb with Wilbur Wilde

With Jeff doing the directions, and Kev in the driving seat..

Kev Driving

Jeff doing the directions

..we managed to get back to the airport safely. It was definately up there with one the best weekends we've ever had, and to top off our luck Kev managed to get 4 guests into Qantas Club on his membership, by just sheer charm, so the early evening we enjoyed more indulgence. Then..it was back to reality!

Final photo

For my 30th my friend Jess shouted me an afternoon of High Tea at High Societea, Clayfield .. (check it out at http://highsocietea.com.au). What a great excuse to clean ourselves up and don a dress, heels and makeup for an afternoon of being ladies. The venue was beautiful, with roses being quite the theme, not only wallpapered inside the restaurant, also painted on plates hung on walls, and in vases on each table, and in every colour. White linen napkins, silverware, and beautiful painted tea cups and saucers set the table, we felt like we stepped into a Jane Austin novel, except we added our own touch.. a bottle of Pink Sparkling Wine! .. well it was a warm day!

Inside the restaurant

Our order came out in a 3 tiered frame holding 3 plates of different courses (covered in rose petals of course!). Bottom plate.. cucumber sandwiches, rolled asparagus sandwiches, mini quiches and frittatas. 2nd plate, mini scones, with home made jam and King Island cream, and pikelets. And the top plate, chocolate mousse (which had melted by the time we got to it), and little cakes and slices. Oh, and a pot of Lady Grey Tea, no Earl in the picture today.

Jess wondering how she's going to fit it all in her belly

Close up shot of the 3rd course

Our ladylike dresses had stretched, the wine gone to our heads, and the 2 hour sitting had finished and our afternoon of High Tea had come to an end. I definitely recommend a sitting at High Societea Clayfield for an afternoon of indulgence with the ladies, and just a great reason to wear that pretty dress.

Us looking like ladies for a change

Well turning 30 is a pretty big thing, no more 20's, time to start acting grown up. I don't like planes, and am not a keen fan of heights either, so why not celebrate this new journey of my life by jumping out of a tiny plane at 14,000 feet in the air?? Well, it was a thrill I must say, a thrill I have no intention of experiencing again, but for those 65 seconds of free fall I felt every nerve ending in my body. My lungs got a serious work out too, I managed to let out an extremely loud, ridiculous girly scream for the whole free fall, lucky no one could hear me..well except for the guy strapped behind me. Anyway, for those contemplating a jump, just do it!! But don't let the look on my face deter you!

I was seriously reconsidering at this point

I had to hang my body out of the plane, no turning back now!!

I'm flying

The look of absolute terror

Oh..my..god!!

It's OK..but I'll just scream a little bit more..

The parachuting was so nice, after free falling for 65 seconds, I liked this alot!!

Its all over! Phew..

I wish I had the skill of producing original inventive art..but that creator in me is hard to find, so, I trust in my skills of copy cat for the moment, until the creator shows herself. I've done some paintings that I've seen on the web, however, I'd love to sit in front of the blank canvas and let the end product just emerge. So, this weekend, I decided to force myself to draw again, I've started small, with some pen and ink drawings of lillies & frangipanis, and although I'm pretty impressed with them, its hard to stop the internal critical dialogue. I think I'll use this section to keep dumping my thoughts and try and keep myself inspired, I've attached my favourite pieces of art that I've painted, the first frog is what did for my little sister..I like him!

Painting given to Jess - 30th b'day

Painting given to Tracy - b'day

As Kev is a big fan of the V8 Super cars, what better way to celebrate turning 30, than to drive one himself! So off we went to the Queensland Raceyway http://www.queenslandraceway.com.au/.

The day started with the group being shown via a white board, the shape of the track and pointed out the parts of the track to brake, which side to keep to, when to change gear, where to turn the vehicle and of course when to accelerate! 5 laps with the a professional driver/teacher who sits in the passenger side and through a microphone inside the helmet instructs you around the racetrack, including all the hairpins turns! After getting fitted out in the overalls and warned where the fire extinguishers were and how to get out of the vehicle in case of fire (through the cage)..Kev's heart was racing and off he went. This photo was before the fire warning..

Although being a little disappointed on not doing as well as he'd like, it was a thrilling experience and reckons he'll be back for more!

After Easter we set off to Waikiki Beach for a 4 day conference that Kev was to attend. Luckily I befriended Nikki, David Stimpsons wife who was my partner in crime for those 4 days and we managed to hike Diamond Head Crater, take Hoola lessions, shop the Waikele outlet shops, take a catamaran ride out past the headland, go in an outrigger race and drink our way through the cocktail list at the Banyan Tree Bar...(starting and finishing on the Blue Hawaiian).

The conference activities in the evenings were great too, they all involved beautiful buffet meals and all drinks inclusive set up in the ballroom. One evening the 750 of us attended a traditional luau in front of the Royal Hawaiian (the pink palace) on the lawn. We watched a show and ate traditional food. After the meal I was (un)lucky enough to be chosen from the crowd to be taken up on stage, dressed up in a sarong and grass hat and shown by the dancers how to 'hoola'! (Very nervous smile)
My 15 seconds of fame was spend clapping stupidly from nervousness and doing some kind of movement that looked like the Tennessee WigWam. Anyway, its all on camera..great!

The last night of the conference the theme of the evening was 'True Blue Aussie in Hawaii'

After the conference was over Kev & I set off in a hire car, first time behind a wheel on the right hand side of the car and on the right hand side of the highway..up to the North Shore to see the great pipeline. However pipeline was a little sad that day and told we had to wait for Winter to see the huge swells..(which we intend to do in the future). The other side of Oahu was extremely different, all very overgrown jungle on the roadsides, the sounds of roosters, old worn out looking beach shacks, in need of much paint. But it had character..the awesome jagged verticle cliffs that hugged the roadside were just breathtaking. We booked into our bed and breakfast as there are no hotels over there on the Windward Coast, in a town called Kailua. Our hosts were Barbara and David, a 'very' retired couple. David was an optometrist and bragged about being 80 years of age. He looked very fit and tanned for an old bloke, but very deaf! Barbara who was a little younger told us she went out with a group of friends 3 times a week outrigging. Living life the way I plan to!

The following day we set about back to the Ka'awwa valley ranch which is a huge property owned by a family that consists of a valley between rows of these spectacular cliffs. The ranch is used for Hollywood movie filming, and has had Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Platoon, 50 First Dates, and the TV Series Lost shot there. We hired 4 wheel motor bikes, ATV's as they call them and did a 2 hour tour through the creek and bushland of this gorgeous valley. What an awesome 2 hours!

Ka'awwa Valley, you can see Hurley's golf course (Lost) to the right

I was put up the front because of my bad driving

Apart from Kev having a few surfs at Waikiki, talking with heaps of locals, cruising around in our little convertible crysler, checking out the great beaches, we didn't get up to much else. It wasn't long before we were back on the plane for the 10 hour journey home. It was strange spending the afternoons back in reality without the 5.30pm Hawaiian singers and hoola girls by the pool, watching the lighting of the torches on the beach, and enjoying those gorgeous sunsets.

View from our hotel room, Waikiki

Sunset Waikiki Beach

Every year since we were married in the year 2000, we have celebrated our anniversary away somewhere special. The first year anniversary we had to make up for our unplanned, unorganised, raining honeymoon in Byron Bay. So we spent the weekend at Couran Cove on South Stradbroke Island, where I remember spending what seemed hours playing Connect Four in the bar drinking red wine listening to the band until unexpectedly Kev joined the band to sing Red Red Wine. The following day began with a huge hangover, but managed to ride our bicycles around the island, and saw a kangaroo swimming across a lake, yes it was not an illusion! The third year we spent it at our favourite beach in Coolum, Sunshine Coast, with dinner at a beautiful Thai restaurant on the water. The next year, our fourth anniversary we went up to Cairns, lashed out and stayed at the Hilton, even scored an upgrade! We spent a day at Green Island snorkelling the reef, and the following day, hired a car and explored Port Douglas, Palm Cove (a classic spot – much nicer that P.Douglas), Mossman, and Kuranda. And finally..what this section is all about, our fifth anniversary we thought we’d return to where it all began, in Western Australia!

After arriving from the 5 hour flight and surviving the taxi ride from hell, we checked in to the accommodation, and set off to explore all the sights we had enjoyed 6 years previously. The Bell tower on the river was our first stop, which is a beautiful site and I remember it was still under construction when we were there last.

Bell Tower, Perth

Perth has a fabulous public transport system, and you can get around a lot of the city for free on the brand new Metro buses. So we took free bus to Subiaco, and to (what was) our favourite pub, The Subiaco Hotel, or ‘The Subi’ as most call it, to celebrate with a couple of Cosmopolitan cocktails. We wandered through the streets of Subi remembering the times when we would hang out at this cool location years before.

City of Perth & Swan River in background, photo taken from South Perth

The following day we got up with the sun and hiked up to the top of Kings Park to enjoy the breathtaking view of the Swan River and the city. Then we set off by train to Fremantle. We’d spent plenty of time in Freo when we were younger but mainly just for the markets, and I do remember a Cheesecake crawl we did one night..anyway this time we did the touristy thing, and looked through the Shipwreck Museum, the Roundhouse gaol, the old Fremantle Goal, the Maritime Museum, the old Lunatic Asylum which is now converted to an art gallery where Philipa Nikluwsky, the WA botanical artist had her life work on display. All we could afford was to purchase some gift cards with prints of her art, the real stuff was fabulous! We even made a trip back to the little jewellers shop where we got our wedding rings made.

Fremantle

This took up most of the day, but we had planned to spend the late afternoon at Cottlesloe Beach, looking out at the beautiful ocean drinking Margaret River wine, which we did.

Cottesloe Beach

We picked up our hire car and set off down the highway to Bunbury where we lived for 3 ½ years when we were much younger. We stuck our heads into MGY Accounting to get a huge hug from our adopted mother Josie Hall who owns the firm and who’s home we were staying in for a couple of nights during the holiday. We were keen to get to the Capel Vale vineyard and were pretty pleased with our purchase of ‘Duck’, and I was awestruck by the amount of roses in the gardens, the sandy ground and cool climate definitely are the winning ingredients for perfect roses over there.

Capel Vale Winery

We spent that night catching up with Josie, Tommie, their daughter Sandra and son Campbell Hall, who were our surrogate family when we lived in WA. We miss them immensely and Josie always asks when we are coming home because there’s always a bed for us.

But this time, we got to go camping..in their backyard!! As all their bedrooms are full at the moment, we enjoyed comfy accommodation in Tommie’s top of the range Camper Trailer for the night – we thought that was great. Next day we set off for Margaret River!! When we lived in Bunbury this was a monthly trip for us, and was our introduction to wine..and didn’t know at the time how good we had it!!

We stopped at Bunker Bay and Eagle Bay on the way down and the water was looking pretty nice, but the storm clouds were holding back just enough for me to get this photo, I think the colour of the water would have looked better on a clearer day. Its still pretty natural down this way, the resorts haven’t quite spoiled this area yet, however, Yallingup is starting to progress and I know the locals and regular holiday visitors are not happy about the changes.

Eagle Bay

Well, Margaret River the town hadn’t changed much, we were there on Melbourne Cup Day and every single resident must have been at the pub, as it was looking a bit messy! Can you believe we sat in front of a fire and ate soup for lunch in November!! This is partly why I couldn’t live back here, way too cold for this frog. Anyway, there were plenty of new wineries around, and, being mid week and Melbourne Cup day there were no other cars on the roads, and had the wineries pretty much all to ourselves! The wildflowers that grow ‘wild’ on the road sides were out in force and so colourful, here’s an example.

Wildflowers

Driftwood Winery used to be my all time favourite, including the restaurant. I’m not a port drinker but they do a great one, in fact my mother bought a bottle of it when she was here, its that good.

Driftwood Winery

We visited heaps of other wineries such as MadFish (Howard Park), Woody Nook, Amberley, Brettany, Brookvale..and more..too many they all started to taste the same. But it was nice to break it up with visits to the art galleries, the cheese factories, the chocolate factory, fudge factory, the lavender farm etc. A trip to Margarets is not complete without seeing the awesome surf at Prevally and the mouth of the River. It was absolutely freezing and the wind was howling, but the committed ‘crazy’ surfers were out there taking on the waves. We spent that afternoon, in the park enjoying a bottle of red and eating some of the marinated feta we purchased…perfect!

The following day we set out to Cape Leuwin to the lighthouse and see where the oceans meet. We have this exact photograph when we were 20, nearly a decade ago, in some box somewhere!

Cape Leuwin

We visited a couple of more wineries today, Leuwin Estate and Voyager, but not for their wines, to see their amazing estates. The gardens at Voyager were spectacular, we admired these for ages and loved their rose garden. The white painted building was very unique and even nicer inside.

Voyegor Winery

We drove back to Bunbury a different way cutting across following the Blackwood River, which is a very pretty drive, we had to give way to some emus crossing the road at one stage! It is real hermit country around this way, perfect if you want a bush retreat, its so lush and green, and the huge Karri trees are an awesome backdrop. We spent another night at the Halls and arranged dinner at a restaurant with a few old friends, which was great fun. Then it was back to Perth to stay with other friends of ours, the Heinrichs at their place in City Beach. With only one more day left, we set out to the Swan Valley which is only 30 minutes north of Perth, and did one last tour around, promising each other not to buy any more wine, but did…so my hand luggage was a pretty tricky packing effort. And our holiday had quickly come to an end, and tried to stay awake for our red eye, midnight flight home, back to reality!