Blogs from New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Sydney » CBD February 24th 2024

Sydney, spectacularly draped around its glorious harbor and beaches, has visual wow factor like few other cities. Scratch the surface and it only gets better. Cheeky, brash, intoxicating – this city has been naturally blessed like few other cities on Earth. A 40-mile string of glistening sandy beaches bracket one of the world’s most spectacular harbors: it’s an Australian icon, where getting outdoors is everything, whether you are surfing the waves, marveling on a coastal walk or al fresco dining on sumptuous seafood. This multicultural, hedonistic city has numerous districts to explore. At some stage you’ll almost certainly end up at the Rocks - you haven’t really been to Sydney if you don’t. The Rocks, unrecognizable from the squalid place it was in the convict era, now serves as an "olde-worlde" tourist focus. There are a ... read more
Art Museum
Wharfside at Sydney Harbor Circular Quay
Condos at the foot of the Harbor Bridge

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Yass January 9th 2024

Time to head home. We’ve had a great holiday, but it’s really not the best time to take a holiday with so many other people taking time off around Christmas and New Year and, of course, the school holidays. Everything is more crowded and more expensive than it would be at a less popular time of year. It has been great though with the birthday party providing the catalyst to spend NYE in Sydney. We have long talked about witnessing the Sydney fireworks firsthand just once in our lives but, until now, have not made it happen. With a celebration on in northern NSW on the 6th of Jan it provided the perfect opportunity to turn it into a road trip and do the fireworks and then continue north to the birthday party. We were up ... read more
Yass Post Office
Yass Court House
Yass Soldiers Memorial Hall

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Urunga January 8th 2024

With the family catch-up done we packed our bags and loaded the car to head back towards the coast via Grafton. Our Godson, Lachlan, took a job in Coffs Harbour about six months ago so moved up to the NSW north coast for his work. Since we were (relatively) nearby we wanted to catch up with him before heading back to Melbourne. Just before Christmas he moved into a place of his own, so he very generously invited us to stay with him. The plan was to meet him in Coffs Harbour for lunch and then go back to his place, but this morning Lachie suggested that we meet in Sawtell since he knows we like it so much. We were happy to meet in Sawtell and miss the business of Coffs. Although he has been ... read more
Sawtell Beach
Bellinger River
Urunga Boardwalk

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Casino January 7th 2024

We took another walk around town this morning and found ourselves completing part of Casino’s Federation Heritage Scenic Walk. We probably walked some of it yesterday too but failed to notice the information boards! This morning, we could have done without finding the fruit bat colony down near the river, ha, ha. Actually, it wasn’t too bad seeing as there has been rain recently; they weren’t too smelly! We learnt that Casino was established on the Richmond River in the 1830s by Henry Clay and George Stapleton when they laid claim to 30,000 acres in the Richmond Valley. The site was on/near the original crossing point on the Richmond River and had been colloquially known as ‘The Crossing Place’. Henry and George however decided to name their property ‘Cassino’ after the Italian town of Monte Cassino. ... read more

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Casino January 6th 2024

So, my cousin, Keith, with the sniffles does have COVID which is very bad timing. On the plus side he also lives in Casino, so Judy sees him regularly anyway. On the negative side, Judy’s other brothers are visiting from Queensland and Victoria, so it is a missed opportunity to have all five of them in the same place at the same time. Very disappointing. We missed catching up with Keith and Shirley in June last year because they had moved to Casino without me knowing! When we passed through last year, Judy and Mahlon were away so we missed them, but we could have visited with Keith and Shirley if we had known that they had moved to Casino. My cousins are a nomadic bunch and it’s hard to keep track of them! We arranged ... read more
(Back) Judy and John, (Front) Keith and Ian
Mahlon and Judy
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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Casino January 5th 2024

Back on the road, today we headed up the coast to Sawtell for lunch. After a walk on the beach to gain our exercise goal for the day we lunched at The Kiosk which we discovered when we visited Sawtell in June last year. We couldn’t go past the BLATs. Delicious! We watched a table of Karens who rearranged the tables to accommodate their group. The staff were OK with this, I think it happens all the time to fit different sized groups, but they were specifically asked for an area to be kept clear so that staff could circulate. Of course, the Karens ignored this request and effectively blocked the area they had been asked to keep clear … and then sang a cappella which was weird. Or maybe impromptu singing in public only seems ... read more
Sawtell Island
Sawtell Island from Bonville Lookout
Sawtell Beach

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » South West Rocks January 4th 2024

Eat, sleep, repeat! Today was pretty much the same as yesterday! We didn’t need anything from the supermarket, so the truck didn’t get to go out today. Otherwise, we walked again in the morning and swam in the afternoon. Walking back from our swim we spotted a sizeable water dragon sunning itself on a rock beside Saltwater Creek. While we were relaxing during the afternoon it was to news that there is rain in Victoria and rain has delayed play in the Third Test in Sydney. It is hard to imagine as the weather is glorious again today in South West Rocks! Lucky us. Tonight, we went to the Thai restaurant, Thai on the Rocks, for dinner before returning to Chillati Gelato for dessert. We had to find a new walking route back to the motel ... read more
An ultralight aircraft over Trial Bay
Storm clouds over Trial Bay
Fire Wheel Tree

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » South West Rocks January 3rd 2024

This morning a friend tagged us with the NSW Health advice that they are advising people who have been in Sydney CBD area in the past 10 days to be on alert for symptoms of Legionnaire’s disease after seven people who have developed the disease spent time in the area in the last three weeks. Oh well, wait and see, I guess. At least it is not contagious person to person so we don’t have to isolate because we may have been exposed!! So, South West Rocks, why South West Rocks? We really enjoyed Sawtell when we visited last year and we could have returned to Sawtell. However, when we were in NSW in 2019 the staff member at the Visitor Information Centre in Muswellbrook extolled the virtues of South West Rocks so we decided when ... read more
Trial Bay Front Beach
Back Creek at twilight
Looking towards the mouth of Back Creek

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » South West Rocks January 2nd 2024

This morning, we woke to the news that there have been a number of cases of Legionnaires Disease linked to Sydney CBD. Yup, pretty much in the zone where we have been wandering around the last two days. So, we heard this on the news and then Bernie’s father rang us to make sure we knew about the Legionnaire’s outbreak in Sydney CBD. Ah well, now if we end up developing respiratory symptoms it will be a toss-up as to whether we have COVID or Legionnaire’s Disease! Hopefully we will succumb to neither. After breakfast downstairs in the dining room, it was time to pack up again and get all of our luggage back into the car … with no luggage trolley in sight to facilitate this! We manhandled our bags back downstairs where Bernie left ... read more

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Sydney » Darling Harbour January 1st 2024

After our very late night/early morning we had a very lazy day today! We ventured back into the city heading for Kathmandu. We found that their toilet bags were on special again so purchased another toilet bag for Tracey … for the overflow toiletries. It’s handy to have a second toilet bag to organize the toiletries, etc that aren’t in use every day! After checking out the Christmas tree in Martin Place, we found our way into H&M where Bernie found some short-sleeved casual shirts that he liked. He really wanted another pair of shorts from Fjällräven so he asked Syri to guide us there. Unfortunately, they did not have a sale on BUT they did have the shorts Bernie really likes in a different colour. Sometimes if you really like something it is worth paying ... read more
Christmas Tree, Martin Place
Martin Place
Queen Victoria Building




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