Tag Archives: australia

#28 Photo with a Celebrity

23 Jun

Last year England hosted the Rugby World Cup, and I found myself wanting to get tickets,  because why not! But tickets were allocated by ballot and tickets on StubHub were extortionate. I couldn’t justify spending a week’s wages because I’m not enough of a fan.

So, when I saw a Facebook post from MasterCard with a chance to win tickets to Australia vs England I rushed home to enter straight away. I work in social media and run competitions regularly so I know what the judges are looking for in an entry. Long story short, I won and of course Nick was the recipient of the other ticket.

What is funny about this situation is that we thought it was two tickets to the match and it advertised that accommodation was included for three nights. We thought maybe the Holiday Inn Express in Twickenham? Maybe a small B&B walking distance to the ground. It would be cool to check out Twickenham’s local town and pubs or the weekend! When we were told it would be a five star hotel in central London, this prize suddenly got interesting. Ok, what cool things could we do in central London? Let’s be tourists in our own city for a weekend! A bus tour, sightseeing and nice restaurants! YAY! I was informed that I would shortly receive an email with more details. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Ping. “RSVP: Your Invitation to Join MasterCard at 2015 Rugby World Cup‏”

The prize absolutely blew us away. I remember logging into the microsite that they sent me a link to and needing to sit down. Royal Horseguards in Embankment for three nights! WOW! What country do you support? What is your shirt size or your country’s jersey which we’ll leave in your room?  What train station can the limousine pick you up from? Here is your itinerary for the next three days. Itinerary?! 

Day 1: Check in. Champagne on arrival. Dinner at the Royal Horseguards.

Day 2: Breakfast at hotel, bus tour of London, lunch at a 5 star restaurant, dinner at a 5 star restaurant.

Day 3 : Breakfast at hotel, London Eye – TWICE around with champagne and canapes, lunch at a 5 star hotel, private coach to Twickenham stadium, access to Mastercard hospitality suite, dinner served, free flowing champagne.

The below photo is us in the Mastercard hospitality suite, where we got to meet Martin Johnson and get a photo with the Rugby World Cup.

(For those of you who don’t know who the giant below is, he was the England captain when they won the RWC in 2003. His comment to me when we asked for a photo – “Only if you take off that Australia jersey” *feels two feet tall*)

#28 well and truly checked off in style!

MJ

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#38 Collect 30 fridge magnets

5 Apr

Am I still allowed to keep this blog going even though I just turned 31? Am I really 31? Wow. Is this real life?

So this is one item on the list that we started immediately. I can’t remember which magnet was first. Probably from the state of Pennsylvania when attending a friend’s wedding, or from the US Open on the same holiday. I think almost three years later we may have achieved this…

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Let me go take some photos of how our fridge looks now and count the magnets.

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SUCCESS! I counted 32 different locations! There are more than 32 magnets however, some places we loved so much we bought two (I think Australia has four!) and some places we haven’t been to together. At first I didn’t like the idea of having all of the magnets on display but every time I look at them now it makes me so happy. It reminds me of how lucky we are to be able to travel to all of these amazing places.

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#29 Save for more travel :-)

5 Apr

It’s been so long since an update! A very poor effort from our end. However, this one isn’t very exciting. Saving for more travel has been something that has just ticked along in the background. While we were living in Sydney Nick and I set up a joint high interest savings account and put in a large sum each and then added to it each month. If you live in Australia you’ll already know that two of the best high interest accounts are ING and USaver.

Anyway in addition to this we kept an old school money tin in Australia – you know the ones that you have to open with a can opener to prevent any temptation? Well we filled two large tins over a 12 month period. I can’t remember how much exactly, but it was enough to fund a holiday for the two of us.

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When we moved into our flat in Pitt Street, Sydney, we went from a huge 2 bedroom 2 bathroom 2 storey apartment to a small one bedroom apartment which meant we needed to downsize all of our (my) junk.

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We decided to hire a van and rent a space at Rozelle Markets on a Saturday morning. It must have taken me a week to go through everything that I had collected over the years including clothes that I no longer fitted into (SIGH! No woman enjoys that moment where you realise you’re not going to get down to your weight from when you were 21!). It was a pretty crazy day. The die-hard market goers were literally ripping boxes apart as we brought them over for the van. They know that the earlier they get there, the better the offerings.

But things died down and it got pretty boring around lunch time. All of our good stuff was gone and we were down to the $1 shoes.

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Anyway, it was a pretty interesting experience (that we ended up doing again when we were moving to London) but well worth it. We must have made $2000 from both market stalls… enough to get from London to Paris a few times… but it didn’t end up going on just travel… 😉

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#12 Road trip through Italy

26 Aug

SIGH! This feels like two lifetimes ago now. Since we travelled to Italy for a friend’s wedding in July 2013 we have also been to Barcelona, Tenerife, Amsterdam, Athens, and traveled around some Greek Islands and Italy still is a strong contender for our favourite holiday ever (Except for you, Naples! Your pizza may be amazing but that doesn’t make up for the nightmare that you were!).

We found out that Nick was going to have to move back to the UK and he left Australia within weeks meaning that we hadn’t seen each other for five weeks when we were reunited in Rome.

Ah, Roma! 35+ degree days never ending history and amazing architecture.

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We spend three days eating gelato and just generally getting lost. It was the best three days seeing each other after five weeks!

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So a few days in Rome and we were off to Naples! Lets not dwell on the negative… but in a nutshell we left an iPad, a watch, some sunglasses (see watch and sunglasses in above pictures on Nick) and cologne poorer… thanks to the hotel cleaner! Anyway, the usual to say about Naples. It was exactly the same as I remember when I was 15. Dirty, rough, but strangely fascinating. Both times I’ve been there have been concerning situations with cab drivers but both times the pizza was very good. Basically, couldn’t wait to leave.

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We even paid for a taxi outta there! A 100 euro taxi! When we got to the train station there were no working ATMs to get money out for the train tickets, there were little gypsy kids begging for money, putting their hands into your pockets and eying off your luggage. We finally got tickets and got to the train platform to find more gypsy kids walking the platforms and squeezing onto packed trains and standing next to tourists with open pockets who were distracted with all their suitcases… GET US OUTTA HERE! (Obviously we just had a bad experience and are a little bitter about it! I’m sure Naples can be fantastic! Let me know your experiences and where would have made it a great place to visit!)

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Ah! Cruising the Amalfi Coast in our air-conditioned taxi! We were FINALLY on holiday. Positano, ti amo!

Positano is just the most romantic and beautiful place. The food is stunning and the views even more so. It’s quiet enough to relax, but there is enough to do to keep you busy. There are a few (albeit pebbles as hot as my straightening iron) beaches to relax on, lots of restaurants and bars and plenty of shops to max out your credit card in. You can also take day trips to surrounding island like Carpi (this was a particular highlight for us and Capri was just as I remembered it 15 years ago!). Have I already mentioned the food? Well, who cares because I’m mentioning it again. WOW!

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Nick tore me away from Positano kicking and screaming and we were off to our friends wedding in the small but beautiful town of Arpino. This town isn’t a tourist destination and most of the locals don’t speak English.

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Proseccos all round and we are celebrating in the local town square. The poor bar didn’t know what hit them with 100 tourists piling in drinking them dry. We probably made them their rent for the whole year that night! One thing that I have to say about Arpino – the best pasta dish of my life was eaten here. We watched the pasta made fresh in front of our eyes and the ingredients were so simple. Don’t laugh, but I still think of that lunch to this day. As my Dad would say “I would walk over hot coals for that”!

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Post wedding hangovers didn’t help our mini bus journey back to Rome the next afternoon and the idea that our holiday was over in a couple of days made it even worse 😦

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#6 Snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef

9 Nov

During our stay on Hamilton Island we had a day to relax on the beach and just generally laze about. We spent a bit of time on Catseye Beach and noticed that you could hire snorkel gear for the day.

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For $15 each Nick and I both hired a snorkel, mask and fins and made our way out to two orange buoys about a hundred metres out. The buoy on the left is where you could apparently see turtles and the one on the right was swarmed with fish around coral.

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It was quite shallow most of the way out and took a while to get all the way out there, but it was definitely worth it. We headed out to the right and eventually came across quite a small patch of coral but was filled with beautiful colourful groper and angel fish.

We then decided to try our luck at finding a turtle. Not far from the first buoy Nick signaled for me to look down and there one was! A huge turtle slowly walking along the white sand on the ocean floor! Sadly we didn’t have an underwater camera (Note to self: MUST buy a GoPro!) but he looked something like the below photo, and he was HUGE!

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We didn’t have much luck once we reached the other orange buoy. We swam around for a while and after finding nothing we decided to head in. After powering into the shore with our fins, Nick popped his head up and pointed down again. Another huge turtle! He was so fast that he was out of sight after only a few seconds and Nick tells me that he almost collided with it underwater.

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Nick then spent the next few hours laughing at my mask marks on my face. Ha!

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#1 Ride a jet ski

8 Nov

We have just got back from a fantastic two weeks in Australia. Two weeks of sunshine and warm weather! Living in Australia allows you to have an extremely active and outdoor lifestyle – something that I’m already missing in London. However, Sydney will be the last thing on my mind when Nick and I are spending the weekend in Prague or Venice!

For Nick’s 30th birthday we decided to book a long weekend on Hamilton Island which is just off the Great Barrier Reef and it was perfect. 30 degrees every day, clear aqua water, great restaurants and a beautiful apartment with reef views.

When you stay on Hamilton Island you can be as relaxed or active as you like. There are endless day trips around the Great Barrier Reef, scuba diving tours, snorkeling tours, kayak hire, boat hire and our favourite… jet ski hire!

We hired two jet skis, one driven by Nick and one by Dave (Nick’s Dad). I was on the back of Nick’s which was probably for the best as it turned out to be quite an upper body workout! Also at $220 per jet ski for an hour tour around the island we would have been broke!

After a fairly short briefing of hand safety signals and how to drive the jet ski (apparently full throttle is the best way to drive!) we were off on a game of follow the leader. Nick and I were first in line as we were the only jet ski with two people on on this tour.

We were both pretty surprised about the speed and power of these machines… at first you feel like you are going to fly off but you get used to it and learn to hold on tight. It is quite an exhilarating experience and we reached an average of about 50 – 55kms/h. Doesn’t sound like much but out on the water it feels like double this. Especially when you hit the waves of passing boats. In some areas around the island the water was so choppy that we were getting air every couple of seconds. Made me wish I wasn’t wearing a strapless bikini!

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To be honest, I’m not sure that I would have been able to control the jet ski under those conditions so I was impressed with Nick’s ability to keep it on the right path and not throw us off… until…

Half way through the tour we rotated positions and we were last in the line. Following the path and wash of eight jet skis wasn’t easy! Nick was able to correct an almost out-of-control jet ski a few times. It couldn’t have been easy with me as an extra weight on the back! Unfortunately (but in hindsight it was kinda fun) we had a guy in front who decided to quickly snake his jet ski for the last 10 minutes of the tour causing a huge amount of small waves for us. We did eventually come off as it is impossible to stay straight… however, the water in north Queensland is about 25 degrees so quite pleasant! It is easy to climb back up on them and off we went and shortly back into the marina.

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It was definitely worth the experience. I’m glad I wasn’t driving and I’m not sure the 12 year minimum age for drivers is high enough but maybe kids have less fear than us 30 year olds and don’t mind flying off at high speed!

If you’re ever visiting Hamilton Island we would recommend doing this activity… or anywhere actually! Just remember to hold on tight or prepare to get wet!

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#5 Become Certified Scuba Divers

3 Apr

The previous item that we crossed off our list involved going 14,000ft in the air. So it made sense to check out what is down below for our next activity. Scuba diving involves quite a bit of preparation before you can submerge. It is recommended (but apparently not essential) that you get a diving medical and there is quite a bit of theory to study. We found the study element particularly difficult as we can’t even go though a five minute ad break without saying something to each other!!

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The main purpose of the medical is to test your lung capacity and your balance through your ears. Nick had no problem getting his ears checked. I on the other hand had a Madame Tussauds open for business in my ear canals and needed an ear flush. Mortifying.

We ended up becoming SDI certified over a three day course which will allow us to dive anywhere in the world to 18 meters underwater. Next stop, Great Barrier Reef!

The course consisted of:

  • a day of theory with an exam
  • a day of confined water diving to get used to the diving equipment and underwater communication
  • a day of open water diving and skills

After completing the course you can understand why there is so much involved in becoming certified. You are completely reliant on your equipment and a small error in your pre-dive checks can result in a complication. Anything from your air tank running out or your weight belt coming off and rising to the surface too quickly and tearing a lung.

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Your equipment is quite heavy and it is a relief when you get in the water and take the weight off your body. Especially if there is a distance to get to the water. I always thought that you just jumped in the water and swam down with ease and you had a tube to suck air through a tank. That’s how it looks in the movies! No one mentioned equalizing, safety stops, regulator checks, weight belts, purging, decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis (however, that last one could be kinda funny!).

Its all worth it though! It is incredibly peaceful down there. You almost feel as though you are in slow motion and the only thing you can really hear is your breath. Schools of fish dance past you and there are endless areas to explore and fish to admire near rocks and in caves. I think its safe to say that we will be scuba diving again in the near future!

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30 March 2013 – 1 April 2013

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#3 Skydiving!

21 Mar

When people ask you what it feels like to jump out of a plane and plummet towards earth at 200kms/h… you can’t really describe the feeling. You can’t find the words. Most people assume it’s like being on a descending roller-coaster for 60 seconds. It isn’t. At all. Imagine yourself floating over a large industrial size fan. You don’t feel gravity… all you feel is the wind on your face and the pressure in your ears. You have no concept of falling apart from the terrifying fact that the ground appears to be getting closer. Your screams are hardly heard and your whole life rests in the hands of someone who is strapped onto your back. Its absolutely exhilarating!

When answering the first asked questions “So, what was it like? Was it scary?”, my honest answer is that the plane ride is scarier than jumping out. You’re in a tiny tin plane with nine or so others and you’re all sitting on the floor being deafened by the single engine struggling to get you all up to 14,000ft… and gusts of wind are not this plane’s friend!

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The relief when you feel when that parachute pulls you to a more civilized speed makes you want to kiss the ground. How ironic! You’ve still got a long way to go. Thankfully the rest of the descent is a peaceful and scenic float back down to earth.

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It is truly the most surreal thing that you will do in your life. We would recommend this to anyone that is open to doing it. It is worth every single dollar that you pay… and as you can see, you MUST get the photos and DVD.

Hey, if my Mum could do it at 50, you can too!

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We organised our jump through Skydive the Beach in Wollongong, NSW, Australia.


15 February 2013

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#24 Attend a Coldplay Concert!

20 Nov

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Finally! Thanks to Coldplay we get to make our first post and what a great first post to make! We were lucky enough to go see these guys on Sunday 18 November 2012 at Allianz Stadium in Sydney. Easily one of the best concerts we’ve both been to.

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Originally there was only meant to be one Sydney concert to promote their new album, Mylo Xyloto, but it sold out so quickly that they announced another and after attending one, you can see why! From start to finish it was a complete audio and visual experience and every Coldplay classic performed. Yellow. Paradise. Fix You. Clocks. Speed of Sound. If it was a hit, they played it! Confetti shot up into the air raining over everyone (Nick almost inhaled some! It was hilarious!), beach balls bounced around the crowd and lasers lit up the stadium. However, by far the most amazing sight was watching over 50,000 lights around people’s wrists (given upon entrance) pulse to the music.

To top it all off, on the way out of the stadium, they were handing out Coldplay fridge magnets. #24 and #8 both accomplished in one night!

Fridge magnet #3 out of 30! (With a heart shaped piece of confetti from the concert!)

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