I’m really starting to feel the winter blues and I thought, hey, it’s Thursday! Let’s do a throwback of that amazing trip I took to Australia several years ago with my awesome Aunt. I’m trying not to think too hard about it though or I might start crying remembering that it’s their summer time right now and I’ve currently got snot-sicles frozen to my face. Ha!
I also want to thank Aunt Tracy for sponsoring this post as she is the one who took me to Australia and she is amazing. 🙂 With that, let’s get into it! We spent several weeks in Australia and New Zealand, and while we packed a TON of fun activities into our crazy schedule we definitely didn’t get to everything, so this top ten list is based on my top ten favorite things that we did while we were there. 🙂 I think I’ll do a separate post another time for my favorite things from New Zealand!
Taking the Kuranda Railway
This was one of the coolest train (or whatever it is) rides ever, and they call it, “scenic,” and they are serious. It is absolutely beaitufil. And up in the mountains it is so fresh and a little cooler up there, so it was really fun to shop around the little shops and everything. It would have been a perfect day except we had a person who made friends with us, and being the anti social people we are we spent most of the day trying to ditch her. What can I say though? She bought a copy of our photo on the gondola back down and it was creepy. Maybe she was creeping us out on purpose though because we called her the wrong name all day by accident? Whoops. Ha!
Climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge
This is the thing I dreaded doing the most because I just couldn’t imagine me dragging my fat-a$$ ALL THE WAY UP the world’s largest arch bridge. Guys, the photos don’t do it justice, the thing is immensely impressive, beautiful, and MASSIVE. So I was afraid I was going to die trying to get my poor out of shape blob of a bod up there, but guys… I DID IT. And it wasn’t even that bad! Our group took a lot of breaks and it was absolutely incredible being up there and seeing the entire city around you. The view with the Sydney Opera House in the background was stunning. It’s definitely one of those accomplishments I’m most proud of.
Pancakes on the Rocks
On today’s edition of #treatyoself with Sunny…. pancakes. Always. I will take pancakes all day, every day, any time of day (or night) and consider them one of the best foods to ever have graced this planet. Whenever I need to treat myself, pancakes is my go to. For those of you that have never been to Australia, did you know that they serve pancakes with ice cream there? Yes, really! Like… it’s just a thing. You go to any place serving pancakes and getting them with ice cream is as common as getting them with butter! So of course an entire restaurant dedicated to pancakes was my absolute favorite. These pancakes are the perfect amount of fluffy and dense, they are thick and soft and my mouth is watering just thinking about them. We went just about every single day that we could (sometimes more than once. And more than twice… in a day) while we were in Sydney. They are just TO. DIE. FOR.
The Rocks Markets
In the Rocks they have this really amazing market that happens on the weekends. Tons of little business owners and traders get together and there is a ton of street art, cool music, and really incredible things to shop for! Shopping small and seeing the amazing talents people have are two of my favorite things ever so I pretty much died and went to heaven shopping these markets. If you’re going to Sydney and will be there over a weekend, I highly recommend it. It’s just such a fun, authentic-to-Australia thing that needs to make it on your list.
Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef
Hands down, my absolute favorite activity EVER and one of my top memories of my life. We did a snorkeling and scuba diving trip out on the great barrier reef and I just can’t describe in words how amazing it was. The colors are so vivid, the water is perfect, it really is a whole new world under the sea. I turned into a mermaid for the day. Too bad Tracy had a scuba diver drop his tank on her foot and she was boat-ridden for the rest of the day, but while I felt bad I certainly didn’t feel bad enough to stay back. It’s a once in a lifetime thing. You need to do this. DO IT.
Circular Quay and Darling Harbour
The hotel we stayed at was located right by Circular Quay so this was really easy access for us to get to, and one of my favorite activities were the several times that we just walked around the harbour and took in the amazing city. The views are amazing and the shopping and food are wonderful. Then you can take a ferry and get up to Darling Harbour where there is even more shopping and really cool street art. I especially loved the street performers. Why are they so talented??
Bondi Beach
I don’t think I could feel right putting up this list of my favorite things and not include a beach. The beach is my happy place. I don’t know how I live landlocked and survive because I really think I’m born to be in the salt water of the ocean, I love it. Bondi lives up to the reputation, it is stunning and the water is perfect. Basically I just laid there for several hours and soaked it in, I literally could do nothing on a beach for hours. We also made a few trips to Manly beach but at one point I sat in a nest of baby spiders and was then finding dozens and dozens of baby spiders crawling all around me and out of my bag and in my clothes for hours afterward and the experience pretty much cemented in my brain that Bondi was better haha.
Watching show in Sydney Opera House
We were there in December so we got the opportunity to see Handel’s Messiah performed which was incredible. That building is no joke, it is a serious work of art. I think it is one of the coolest looking buildings. I also really love that they have a LEGO for it and am considering getting it at some point because I like it so much.
Visiting the Three Sisters
So I’m just going to admit it, but I had no idea what the “three sisters” were before this trip. Of course, when I looked it up I realized I had seen the iconic land formation in photos and stuff before, but when we went and visited them in person it turned into one of my favorite days. It’s crazy how much more impressive things are in real life, and seeing the infamous blue haze around the blue mountains was so weird. It really is BLUE. Nature is crazy cool guys, this world is amazing. I need to see more of it!
Visiting the Wildlife Exhibit
Arguably this is a very close second to scuba diving because I just had so much fun. They have a wildlife conservation exhibit where they have a lot of local animals to Australia so you get to see koalas, kangaroos, and a whole bunch of other cool animals up close. I about peed myself in delight because I was laughing so hard when my aunt was taking my picture of me feeding a kangaroo and he saw my head turned and snatched the entire thing of food away from me and took off. Even though I didn’t pee myself though, I did end up walking out of there covered in pee because I stood too close to the flying fox cage and one of them totally got me. Have you seen the size of those things?? All of the bats in Australia were absolutely crazy, the entire sky would fill with bats and those flying foxes at night (especially when we were in Cairns!), I’ve never seen anything like it! So I wanted to get a close look at them while they were caged up and I could see them and I just got a little TOO close haha. That massive thing peed all over me.
I hope to do more travel diaries like this! We haven’t been out traveling much over the last few years with school and having babies and such, but it’s something we both love to do and plan to do more of. For now I’ll stick with some throwback travel posts and hopefully we’ll have a few good trips this year we can talk about soon!
Happy Thursday! XO