Borneo - Winter 2018

Fried Bananas and Cheese
Wednesday, 14 February

Borneo has always been that exotic place where you only hear about it on TV.  Whether it was a documentary on its magnificent ecosystem or a reality "who can survive in the jungle" show it was never a place that I imagined I would ever have the opportunity to visit myself.  Low and behold I am a lucky, lucky man and have a week SCUBA Diving in the lush blue waters around Sipadan followed by a week in the green, green jungle searching for the Borneo Big Five.  Oh how wonderful life is!  Now lets not get Dengue...

We arrived in Semporna in the evening and checked into the Cube Bed Station and headed straight out the back door onto the board walk for dinner.  Overlooking the sea our first Malaysian meal was a delicious seafood feast where we picked our fish and prawns from tanks and told the cooks how we wanted them.  This was followed by street cart fried bananas topped with brown sugar and grated cheese.  It doesn't sound great but it really was scrumptious - a word I only ever use when it really does fit.  A plate of sweet, sticky banana with salty, stringy cheese and chewy yet crunchy batter.  Your mouth is watering right?

We start our trip on Mabul Island, an island off an island, where we have an all inclusive stay booked in with Scuba Junkies.  6 days and 5 nights with 9 none Sipadan dives and 4 Sipadan dives.  Sipadan is why most people are here; a world renowned island off an island off an island in which there are limited permits for tourists to visit each year.  Our booking with Scuba Junkies guaranteed us one days permit which was on the last day of our stay.  Having been instructed to wear our bathers to our 8:00am pick up in Semporna we were in wetsuits and full SCUBA gear within 20 minutes of arriving on Mabul island.  Instructors, both local and foreign, were incredibly helpful and you instantly felt happy to rest your life in their hands.  We did our refresher dive straight off the jetty where we recalled all the methods of how not to drown whilst an abundant of fish watched us.  Just off the jetty the waters are thriving with all kinds of colourful creatures.  Instantly we knew that we were in for a real treat with Scuba Junkies.

The next few days played out largely the same.  Early mornings for a filling buffet breakfast; onto a boat for two morning dives; back to the resort for lunch and a rest; back on to a boat for an evening dive; pass out in a hammock; buffet dinner; drinks and cards in the bar.  Diving 3 times a day is hard work!  I looked into it and we were burning around 1000 calories a day just in our underwater expeditions.  It is by far the best form of exercise that I could ever think of.   Mabul is really just the holding ground for Sipadan but the diving still offered a great variety of dive sites.  Enormous man made underwater structures in North Kapalai (A resort situated on an "island" 10 minutes from Mabul - we almost stayed there but glad we didn't) housed giant tree trunk thick Moray Eels and enormous Green Sea Turtles.  The Dive Rig (another resort we almost stayed at - a converted oil rig which we could see from our resort.  Again glad we didn't!  It was nice to have a beach to chill on, a village to explore and locals to interact with.) was home to other monsters like the Giant Grouper.  But it is the tiny things that are popular around Mabul, things that our dive instructor had to point at several times before we could see them.  Like the ornate ghost pipefish and the teeny tiny decorator crabs.  Lots of things that look like coral but aren't.  I only took my camera on the first dive and my pictures really do not do justice to how beautiful the dive sites were.

Plastic waste is a hot topic right now and our diving around Mabul really highlighted its devastating effects.  I collected a number of plastic bags on a dive around Mabul island and saw all sorts of packaging that could quite easily be several years old.  I avoided the nappies.  A lot of reviews online seem to complain about this and mark down the surrounding resorts because of it.  What they don't realise is that it is these resorts (though I can only speak about Scuba Junkies for sure!) that actively seek out a solution to clean the seas.  It was a massive eye opener and I have already started to refuse the straw and carry a water bottle around with me.

Mabul island is small but has a thriving local community largely made up of settled Bajua Laut people known as the sea nomads.  These were made famous through various documentaries showing their fascinating life based entirely out on the sea (I learnt about them from the BBC's Human Planet documentary).  Now settled on the island most families have still chosen to build their house on stilts out on the water.  It was fascinating to walk around among these super friendly people and absorb such a alien culture.  At first glance it would seem like the island is only inhabited by children as they are everywhere running around, sword fighting with sticks, flying homemade kites and capsizing makeshift boats.  Kids free to roam wherever and do whatever.  Where the only strangers on the island are tourists and their playground is the sea; no adult supervision required.  I explored the island twice.  Once to explore the village life and then once again to seek out some local food.

The Scuba Junkies food was always perfect for post diving bellies and genuinely really good food (though no seafood for sea-friendly reasons... I was happy to support this!).  But there was very little to actually blog about.  If I were to experience some real local food I had to go seek it out myself away from the resort and so on a free afternoon I conducted my own walking food tour of Mabul.

The Mabul Food Tour

With a wad of ten 1 ringgit notes in my pocket I just walked around the island taking any random paths I found and bought from every food stall along the way.  Most things I bought I had no idea what they were.  I found 3 different vendors selling fried bananas and so my first ringgit was spent on that.  After my bag of fried bananas I was pretty full (I didn't think this through...) and so I ended up just sampling from each stall and then giving the rest of the bag to the next group of ecstatic kids I came across.  This was particularly useful when it was the bag of greasy, slightly off fish smelling strips of fried dough(?).  Raw guava fruit soaked in a diluted soy sauce (I think?) was a little strange but palatable and a bag of soy sauce noodles were relatively bland.  4 items and 4 ringgit later I struck gold twice with a curry puff vendor followed by a little restaurant selling the first of my National Dishes: Roti Canai! Curry puffs were being folded in front of me and fried to order at 4 ringgit per portion.  A very basic potato curry encased in a light, flaky pastry it was surprisingly good.  It was the Roti Canai that made my friends jealous though.  I told them that they should have come with me!  A fluffy, layered flat bread rolled and "flicked" out using a technique that I would never be able to replicate was served with a curry sauce.  Fish head curry sauce is by far my favourite with a roti which I had back in Singapore but this much simpler curry sauce still did the trick.  Besides, it is the roti that is the star of the show - I could quite happily dip it in Bisto!  I bought another bag of curry puffs to take back to the others but having newly become known as "the guy that gives out free food to kids (not in a weird way... hopefully.)" a group of bouncy boys ran over to me and sheepishly asked for them.  I couldn't say no.  Mainly because I don't know how to say it in Malay.  Anyway, even if I had found Roti Canai and nothing else I would have called this walking food tour a success!  Right... back to the resort.  Just in time for dinner... :-/

Sipadan - Into the Blue
Thursday, 16 February

Today was one of those once in a life time days.  An experience that you will remember in great detail and recall when anyone mentions anything remotely connected to diving.  "Anyone fancy fish and chips for dinner?"... "Talking of fish I went to a place called Sipadan 10 years ago...".  Sipadan is well and truly incredible!

A tiny island famous for its 600m sudden drop off just a few meters out from the beach.  From the surface you can see this with a very clear line separating a light aqua from a deep, dark, somewhat scary blue.  This means stunning coral reefs and their colourful inhabitants next door to wide open blue emptiness where the sea giants like to hang out.  After a not so brief briefing about the island and the many rules that we must abide by during our stay we were out on the boat ready for our first dive.  The boat ride was less than 60 seconds and before we knew it we were in the dark blue part of the sea.  Our guide told us that we will swim 30 of the 600 meters down and then swim out into the blue until we could no longer see the land.  Oh and to be careful of the down current that pulls you even further down if you swim into it... Never in my life have I experienced such nothingness.  Where every direction looked the same and where even up and down could get muddled up.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of this experience but I have managed to recreate it on Microsoft Paint (left).  We sat, floating in the vast, empty blue for something big to swim by but alas, this time, it remained empty and silent.  

After a rest on the island our second dive was the popular Barracuda Point which regularly finds itself in the list of top dive sites in the world.  The second I back rolled into the water I found myself completely swallowed up by an enormous school of Big Eye Trevally.  There were literally thousands of them and they did not seem to care one bit about our presence.  We got the signal to "go and play" and so I swam into the mass of silver until I disappeared.  From the last dive where in all directions was blue this time it was a busy swarm of fish in which every single one felt like it was looking at you curiously.  Sad to leave the Trevally behind we carried on with the rest of the dive where we were treated to turtle after turtle after turtle followed by White Tip Reef Shark after Grey Reef Shark after White Tip Reef Shark.  Sharks and turtles easily hit double figures in just the one dive and we all surfaced absolutely exhilarated.  Bobbing at the surface and sticking your face in the water to see circling sharks feels mental.  Swimming along side them down at 20 meters doesn't seem so bad!  Why is that!?

Lunch on the island was well needed before completing our final two dives.  We were given a choice to go back into the blue and hope for some big stuff or to redo the best dive I have ever done in my life at Barracuda Point.  We chose the latter though in hindsight maybe we should have risked it all to catch a glimpse of something big.  Whale sharks, Giant Manta and Hammerheads are all commonly seen in the deep and we left Sipadan seeing none of them.  Having said that we left Sipadan feeling 100% thoroughly content.  Only a video could even come close to help share the experience with you and so using the rented underwater camera from Scuba Junkies I managed to put one together.

My Nose Is Bigger Than Yours
Tuesday, 20 February

With a single transition day we went from the stunning clear blue seas of Sipadan to the murky brown water of the Kinabatangan River deep in the Borneo Rainforest.  An early boat ride from Mabul to Semporna and then a 4 hour, 450rm (£80) taxi got us to Sandakan, the city where our next all inclusive experience begins. Now I know that it has to be all inclusive, there are no restaurants in the rainforest; but, it is making it really difficult to seek out the best food Borneo has to offer.  With our last stop also an all inclusive chill-out stop on Gaya Island these transition days have become extremely important.  From this perspective, our one and only night in Sandakan was an outright disaster.  We found a nice outdoor restaurant where we could tick off some nice local dishes.  After waiting for an hour and a half it turned out that everything we had ordered went to the Chinese family next to us and they chose to just eat it all.  At about 10pm we found ourselves in a McDonalds.  First evening on Borneo that wasn't a buffet dinner and we ended up in McDonalds!  I made up for it in the morning by having two full breakfasts.  First one was a sambal fish with rice which didn't seem like a breakfast item to me but it was what everyone in that restaurant was eating.  This was shortly followed by a Roti Canai at a "Curry House" next to our hotel which just about made up for the complete and utter failure of the night before.

Cute Orangutan

Evil Orangutan

Our bus picked us up from the hotel and drove us to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre where we saw our first wild but not so wild orangutan.  Wild because they are not enclosed in the vast rain forest but not so wild in that they know this is where they get looked after and fed.  They are free to leave whenever they want.  But why would they? It is where I took the above photo - my favourite photo of my trip so far.  It is also where we had to actually run away from an orangutan (left) that just last week put a security guard in hospital.  Even our guide looked scared.  It was pretty much scary orangutan, 5 meters of boardwalk, us and then a thousand Chinese tourists that were in no rush to move whatsoever.  Luckily for us his trainer was around and literally just held his hand and took him away.  It was like a rampaging child at school when its mother turns up.  It was very much a situation of just needing to be able to run faster than the person next to me!  After a visit to the Sun Bear Centre next door we got on a boat and travelled for a good hour up the Kinabatangan River right into the heart of the Borneon Rainforest.

Borneo's big 5 are Orangutan, Pygmy Elephant, Crocodile, Proboscis Monkey and the Rhinoceros Hornbill.  On our boat ride to Sakau Rainforest Lodge we saw the pygmy elephant - the rarest of them all.  Our guide on the boat, Jumanji, was the same guide for the most part of our stay at the lodge and he was excited that after seeing the elephant he was confident that he could get us the remaining four.  Our lodge is simply divine; it is where Sir David Attenborough stayed! Every detail has been thought about and makes a stay in the rainforest comfortable for even the least adventurous.  Now that's not to say you won't have the odd leaf insect fly into your hair or that a juicy spider won't walk across your dinner table but it is the rainforest after all!  It has it's own boardwalk allowing you to venture out into the forest without actually stepping on the forest floor so avoiding the horrible leeches and anything else that can crawl up trouser legs.  The restaurant overhangs the river so you can bird watch whilst you drink your morning coffee and it even has a swimming pool so you can cool down after a days river safari.  A small part of me feels like I am cheating my way out of the real rainforest experience, the rest of me is sitting in a cool swimming pool struggling to care.

The boats are stored under the restaurant deck and we are taken on a morning and a late afternoon boat safari with the option to pay for an extra night safari.  Our first evening safari found us none of the big 5 but it was a perfect time for our guide to tell us all about the rainforest and the affects palm oil is having on the area.  Plastics in the sea and palm oil in the forests, Borneo is certainly feeling the brunt of human beings.  It's great being out on the water and seeing something colourful move in every direction.  We may not have seen any of the big five but playful macaques and an abundance of beautiful birds were all over the place.  I could have easily sat for an hour watching the family of macaques playing on felled tree in the water.

Going to sleep and waking up in the rainforest is exactly like those meditation tapes you get.  The gentle chirps and rustles almost sound fake from a movie but the insects, birds, wind and trees all come together to sing gently.  The insects are incredible here.  They are the reason you scream and slap your head every 5 minutes the second you feel something tickle but 9 and 10 times it is all in your mind. The remaining 1 could be anything from spiders and beetles to leeches and bats.  Yes blood sucking leeches drop from the trees here!  On the boardwalk they have a big white sheet lit up at night to attract the bugs and I visited it every evening to find something different.  Yes it is annoying constantly feeling like something might be on you but hey, it's not Australia; none of it can kill you!  Well not right away anyway.

We saw the famous penis noses Proboscis Monkeys (not their scientific name) on our second day.  These comical looking monkeys can only be found here and they really do look bizarre.  The bigger the nose the better the male... I think this has evolved because their actual penis is quite small.  Not only is it shamefully small but it is bright red and erect for 90% of the day.  Not to mention that their mouths look like they are painted on with a black marker pen and they all have massive gas filled bellies which means they must fart a lot.  The least evolution could have done is give these primates something else to brag about.  Our first wild Orangutan was on our third boat safari where we found a shy but curious lone adult.  I love the human emotions that you can find in Orangutans; this guy would peek at us through a little hole in the canopy as if he was secretly spying on us.  He was beyond cute.  Cute until our last wild Orangutan encounter of a mother very evidently teaching its baby how to get around using her own body to bridge the gaps in the trees that were to wide.  Seeing Orangutan in the wild warms the heart and makes you cry a little inside.  They were beautiful and I will never forget my first experience of the little guy peeking at me through the trees.

For our third day in the forest we had a little trip to Gomantong caves booked made popular for its impressive mass exit of over 250,000 bats in the evenings.  The problem is that there are two exits of which only one is accessible to people and the bats will only ever use one or the other.  Or in our case... neither!  Our guide helpfully informed us that on occasion the bats decide not to leave at all and so we did not get to experience this once in a life time spectacle.  Walking around inside the actual cave was still worth the visit though!  It didn't quite smell as bad as people made out but it definitely isn't for the squeamish.  It is absolutely heaving with cockroaches... as in every step you take in the dark is an audible crunch under the foot.  If that wasn't enough the walls are filled with webbed holes housing stripey tarantulas and these horrific looking giant centipedes (right) that have a paralysing poisonous bite.  It is inside this cave where the worst job in the world lies - armed security guards sleep in this cave!  To most people this cave is famous for its bats but to many it is known as the place to find the stupidly expensive birds nests used for birds nest soup in China.  So expensive that they need to be protected from nest thieves 24 hours a day.

On our last safari we just had the Rhinoceros Hornbill left to find and so we made that our focus with Jumanji.  First, however, we found an owl trapped on a fishing line just standing there in the mud.  It's big yellow eyes looked up at us like a puppy and so we had to try and save it.  This wasn't made easy with its powerful claws and sharp beak but with a cloth thrown over it we managed to keep a safe hold on it and get the hook out of its wing.  It hopped off into the bushes probably to get nabbed by a croc but we felt good about it.  Jumanji heard the call of the Rhinoceros Hornbill but we couldn't see it.  This made him reveal his incredible talent in bird calling as he let out a perfect mimic!  Low and behold the Hornbill responded and we cruised in the direction of the call.  Another squawk from Jumanji made the stunning bird fly into site and call back.  What a skill! 

It's not goodbye it's see you later
Friday, 23 April

I really do hope that the Orangutan are still around the next opportunity I get to go see them.  There is a very real chance that they won't be and that would be unbelievably sad.  Transitioning to here from the Sabah rainforest was a full day of travel but it did allow for some successful National Dish hunting! We flew to Kota Kinabalu on Tuesday and headed straight to a busy part near our hotel by the harbour.  We ordered four steaming bowls of Laksa and my National Dish withdrawal symptoms subsided.  Washed down with a cool iced milky tea called Teh Tarik, it was a perfect combo.  The following morning brought me much more fortune as just on the harbour where we needed to get our boat over to Gaya island were several stalls selling breakfast to the locals.  The last dish to tick of was Nasi Lemak and here it was wrapped in a banana leaf for about 30p.  Steamed coconut rice served with nuts, fried fish and the all important hot sambal chili paste.  They put belacan in their sambal here which is a fermented shrimp paste giving it a much richer flavour.  The best meal of the 2 week trip cost me just 30p... 

I am currently sitting on a little cushion island (an island on an island off an island off an island) in the middle of a swimming pool writing my finishing points for this blog.  We're on Gaya Island Resort for the final few days of our trip for some chill time.  Another all you can eat buffet kind of deal gives me little to write about but the snorkeling just off the resort is incredible and after a morning yoga class I do feel utterly relaxed.  There really isn't much to write about my time here on Gaya Island; yesterday I ate, drank and slept.  Today has pretty much followed suit with the exception of a nice long snorkel.  Tomorrow will be no different.  Food and animals are quite possibly my two favourite things in this world and Borneo delivered on both fronts.  I will be back in Malaysia soon I am sure and will have to have a much more food focused itinerary.  For now, my buffet all you can eat dinner is waiting for me and I have to fight my way through the million Chinese tourists to get there.  Wish me luck!

Australia - Winter 2017

Smashed Avos and Beetroot
Friday, 22nd December

Having been here for little under a week I have already come to the realisation that anything can be made Australian by adding a couple of slices of betroot and slapping on some smashed avocado.  Sorry, not avocado... it's "avo"!  Which must not be confused with "arvo" which means afternoon... I've eaten more avocado in the last 5 days than I have my entire life!

A Christmas down under was only made possible by brilliant friends with brilliant families that invited us over to their home towns for 3 weeks of glorious sunshine, spectacular coffee and great food.  We touched down in Perth on Sunday and was welcomed by the wettest, coldest summer day Perth has witnessed for a long time.  Great...  After a quick freshen up and chin wag with our awesome new family for Christmas we all went out for brunch at a busy North Beach Deli.  Australia may not have delivered on the glorious sunshine but the coffee and food were certainly on point! Obviously my first meal in Oz had to be smashed avo - a beautifully fresh plate of warm rustic toast, chunky smushed avocado, spinach, feta and topped with an oozing poached egg... and a side order of bacon.  Look how beautiful it is - this needs to be the National Dish!!  This was my thought until we were taken to Little Creatures Brewery in the evening for some more Australian affair where we consumed numerous beers and enjoyed dishes like roast lamb pizza and Kangaroo skewers.  Kangaroo! Now that should be National Dish! Kangaroo meat is very inoffensive tasting; lean and a little gamy it is like a healthy beef steak.

Hilary's Boat Harbour - Weather is improving...

Over the next few days we pretty much saw out the storm.  It was actually quite nice as it forced us to properly sit down and relax after a long term. We got to wake up late, watch a few movies and generally feel Christmassy without the guilt of having to make the most of our time here.  Did a bit of Christmas shopping; ate smashed avo about 9 more times; visited a few local sites and attempted to swim at City Beach but got a little punched in the face by waves.  I did get to eat a delicious Australian burger at Grill'd though.  It's like a regular burger but with... can you guess?!  Yes  a slather of smashed avo and a fat slice of beetroot! Our Christmas family invited us for a classic Aussie Webber BBQ and we all just had a nice chilled few days.

Over the space of 3 days in Perth, like true Brits, we went from being miserable in the cold to complaining about being to hot.  We hired a car and drove 3 hours south to Dunsborough where we had a few nights in an AirBnB in Cape Villas booked in.  It was this road trip where I got to eat the first of Australias National Dishes - the mighty Meat Pie!  Since then I have had 5 pies... Most places sell lots of different types but seriously go for the bog standard cheapest one - the one simply called "Meat Pie".  If Thai Green curry went well in a pie then Thailand would have put it in a pie! I tried some of the others and they are tasty but nothing beat the simplicity of perfectly cooked beef and gravy.  A filling with the right amount of ooze for a hand held pie!  Successfully squirt some ketchup on top (Ketchup sachets here are dangerous...) and you have a snack that beats any sandwich.  This is why I have eaten 5 and will be sure to eat 5 more by the end of this trip.  A grab and go National Dish!

Dunsborough really is a perfect location to stay.  It is home to the most beautiful beach I think I have ever been to.  I have seen a lot of beaches and this is currently, without a doubt, my favourite.  Meelup Beach has the clearest, most aqua blue water ever!  We all took a deep breath on first glance of the beach front as we entered the car park and couldn't wait to jump out of the car and into the cool, crystal clear water.  From Meelup Beach we drove to a nearby winery called Wise for a small drink followed by another drink at Eagle Bay Brewing Co just across the road.  Both had incredible views and we saw our first kangaroo (that wasn't on a skewer... or lying on the side of the road) whilst sipping on delicious crisp cold beers.  Can a day really be this perfect!? Sods law says no and something has to balance it out.  First failure of the evening was buying a load of juicy steaks, fresh fish and butcher sausages for an amazing Webber BBQ back at the AirBnB without checking the gas tank... Second failure was driving to watch the sunset on a beach where the sun doesn't set... but we did see dolphins so not a total fail!  And who cares, fried steak still tastes good and the next day had a full day winery tour booked in!

I don't really remember much of the following day.  I counted past 30 different wines before I lost count but recall favourites being Credaro Family Wines and Cape Naturalist Vineyard.  A full day of truly stunning vineyard views, pretending to know more about wine than I actually do and agreeing to tasting flavours that I can't actually taste.  Has anyone actually ever eaten pencil shavings?! The first question I was asked was "Do you prefer a round wine or a crisp wine?" and it didn't feel like "both" would have been an acceptable answer.  I said round knowing absolutely nothing to what that meant.  I did; however, taste a lot of wines that I really liked and some that I didn't like as much.  That is about as far as my ability to distinguish between wines go.  As my favourite lady in Cape Naturaliste said, "The best wine in the world is the one that you like to drink".  I couldn't agree more.  I like the red one. 

It felt sad to leave Dunsborough, it was like a holiday within a holiday and it was all over so quickly! We did a lot in the few days and we spent our last day visiting Sugar Loaf Rock and Bunker Bay.  Any beach, for the rest of my life, is probably going to get the response "...well it's no Meelup..." and I am just going to have to live with that.  We had two very important last stops before heading back to Perth - a couple of hours paddling at Meelup beach followed by a couple of ketchup topped meat pies from Dunsbourough bakery.  After 3 hours on the road we arrived at City Beach in Perth, the same beach where I got beaten up by the sea just 4 days ago, to eat fish and chips whilst watching the sunset.  Lets never leave Australia.

Chrissy in Straya
Tuesday, 26th December

What kind of sadistic place offers you the most amazing beach and then puts ferocious sharks in the water and venomous snakes on the sand!?One thing Australia is certainly well known for is its wildlife... wildlife that can kill you.  Whether it is a poisonous Red b
Back Spider that gets tangled in your hair whilst you sleep; a croc that grabs you whilst you play golf; a shark that mistakes your surfboard for a seal; or a cuddly koala that gives you chlamydia, you really do have to watch yourself!  My spider photos were just taken in our friends garden!  Scary animals aside we did; however, thoroughly enjoy our morning at Caversham Wildlife Park and getting up close and personal with all sorts of Australian fauna.  You get to actually play with kangaroos and stroke a koala.  You read a lot about these kinds of places where they drug the animals so tourists can stroke them but this is not that kind of place - that's just how koalas look!  If you were only awake for two hours a day you would look like that too.  Definitely a to do if you find yourself in Perth.

We conducted our own mini walking tour of perth town centre starting with lunch on the Elisabeth Quays.  Feeling like needing a little break from avocado I ordered the most incredible crab linguine dish that can only ever be made in a place where crabs are fresh out of the water.  It was truly divine! Seriously sweet crab meat in a zingy, light fennel and tomato sauce.  Certainly in the running for dish of the trip.  After a bit of shopping we had a lovely stroll through King's Park before getting back to our AirBnB.  Our AirBnB is situated right next to the park and so in the evening I decided to walk back and experience their open air cinema.  I've never been to an outdoor cinema! On a warm night under the stars I watched "The man who invented Christmas" whilst sat on my Tesalate beach towel (- LOVE it!).  With popcorn and beer in hand it was here where I first started to feel a little bit Christmassy.  Santa in red board shorts and holding a surf board kind of Christmassy but Christmassy none the less!

95% of Christmas is food and family.  The family team work in preparing Christmas dinner; the family decorated Christmas tree; the family banter around the Christmas dinner table - all of these things are essential for a brilliant Christmas.  What I have learnt this Christmas is... it doesn't have to be my family!!  Any family as awesome as mine will do!  The remaining 5% is a log fire and snow which we will just have to do without this year.  We made our own Christmas breakfast of avo, salmon and eggs washed down with Mimosas before heading over to our Christmas family's house. We were so very lucky to get to spend Christmas day with the Lees family and even more lucky that it was a family that share a similar outlook on the importance of a well prepared Christmas dinner.  Potatoes roasted on the BBQ was novel and the turkey was succulent.  A beautifully glazed Christmas ham was a brilliant addition that sadly never makes it on to the D'Souza family Christmas dinner table.  A post turkey "try not to sink to the bottom of the family pool challenge" was also novel.  The "try not to throw up in the pool challenge" less so.  Thank you to the Lees family!  Time to fly to Sydney.

Long Macchiato topped up
Saturday, 6 January

To say that Australians are big on their coffee would be a massive understatement.  You will struggle to find a Starbucks or similar big chain coffee company as the quality preferred here is too difficult to mass produce.  Instead you will find beautiful independent coffee shops with endearing super coffee nerds behind the counter taking their sweet time over each and every cup.  I have found my perfect coffee here in a Long Macchiato topped up with milk.  It's the perfect strength and always perfectly made.

We were lucky enough to stay with friends in Sydney and have a touch of local knowledge.  Having bought an Opal card to get around we took a ferry over to Manly where the journey was more important than the destination.  From the ferry you can get your classic shot of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.  We decided not to swim at Manly with a "Shark sited today enter at your own risk" sign put us off somewhat.  Though it didn't deter the many Manly surfers already out there.  Part of me wondered whether they were swimming whilst the sign was put up and so had no idea!

After Perth, Sydney has a much more "lived in" rustic feel to it.  You will meet a few more homeless people or the odd day time drinker arguing with their hand.  We did the Coogee to Bondi coastal walk which was stunning and definitely worth doing.  It took close to 3 hours but that included lots of photo stops and just standing taking in the views.  Bondi beach was busy and well... it was no Meelup! What Bondi does have though is an awesome saltwater swimming pool known as the Bondi Icebergs which we spent 7 dollars to swim a few lengths in the chilly Olympic sized pool.  This place is famous for its winter swim team and in the height of summer it was already pretty damn cold.  After a long, hot coastal walk it was absolutely lush to jump in.  A climb up the Sydney Harbor Bridge tower was 180 dollars cheaper than a climb up the actual bridge and we were allowed to take our camera up this tower so it felt like a no-brainer.  Opera House - tick. Coastal walk - tick. Sydney Harbor Bridge - tick. Sydney - big fat tick!

So what is Australia's other National Dish? I have done the Meat Pie and ready for the potentially more famous National Dish that is pretty difficult to find in a restaurant.  This is the true delicacy of Australia and goes by the name of Vegemite.  The only way to tick this one off is buying your own jar and loaf of bread from a Coles and making it yourself.  It's a lot like Marmite but not quite as strong which means that you can slather more of it on your toast.  Breakfast of kings.  We had some delicious food in Sydney; everyday I tell myself that I am done with eating avocado and pretty much everyday I find myself ordering another plate of smashed avo.  Everywhere has there own take on it and I can't help myself but want to try all variations.  A scallop infused Bloody Mary served with actually grilled scallops was a revelation and reminiscent to my Summer of Caesers in Canada.  We were told that Sydney was for food and Melbourne was for Coffee and so upwards and onward to the final leg of our trip.

Leaving Sydney marked the start of the road trip section of our holiday with the aim to drive to Melbourne over 3 days.  The first day we pretty much drove most of the day to arrive in Merimbula - a strange old school kind of holiday resort.  We ate at a really bad "Thai" place that served no Thai food but fried stuff in different luminescent sweet and sour sauces and decided that Merimbula was not for us.  From here we drove along the "Oyster Coast" through Eden and onward to "Lakes Entrance".  We stopped in Eden and bought a dozen fresh out of the sea oysters that we devoured in minutes.  Australian oysters are small but they pack a ton of flavour in comparison to your regular oyster.  With a firm, meaty texture these could convert any oyster haters out there; they were delicious and I ended up eating 6 more from the supermarket.  Even the petrol station here sold oysters!  On a detour to find petrol we came across a stunning lagoon on an almost deserted beach which made for a nice break off the road.  Lakes Entrance was a quiet town serving as a nice stop off but nothing more.

Our favourite stop on the road trip was Raymond Island where Koalas can be seen in the "wild".  I say "wild" because it is a rather small island and they were put on the island with no feasible means of getting off so really they are just in a great big invisible cage.  It was a lot of fun roaming around trying to spot them though!  Until we noticed that the mosquitoes on the island were relentless and none of us had brought bug spray; if it wasn't for them we would have stayed to find the albino kangaroo and maybe even an Echidna or two.  Definitely worth a trip because even the birds are incredible.  I swear all the birds that we keep as pets at home are the everyday common birds you see on the street in Australia.  The Australian equivalent to the London Trafalgar Square Pigeon (yes the species...) is the beautiful red chested Galah.  In among the bright green King-Parrot and the Daz white Cockatoo they really did leave us Brits with the dregs of the bird community.

A lot of people questioned why we would leave Sydney just two days before New Years.  The New Year Fireworks on Sydney Harbor are famous representing one of the first countries to welcome in the new year.  But just like Christmas is about family, New Years is all about friends! And we were invited to have New Years with different Australian friends from work at their house in Melbourne.  Christmas with a proper family and New Years with proper friends - how lucky are we!  We arrived in Melbourne and headed straight to Coles to by the essentials for a New Years BBQ.  This meant going to a separate, creatively named, Bottle Shop.  Original unique names and Australia do not mix.  They go for a more  "Just name it as your see it" kind of approach.  The Red Back Spider being a good example; or the black snake with a red belly which is called a Red Belly Black snake; or that great road running along the ocean; or that barrier reef which is pretty impressive.  New Years was awesome with great food on the Webber and a Lamington the size of my face.  The Lamington, though not a National Dish, is the second to last item (the last being a witchetty grub which I don't think I will ever find unless I go foraging!) ticked off my list.  It's a light sponge cake, smothered in chocolate sauce and dipped in desiccated coconut.  It won't blow your mind but it does nicely fill a perfectly cubed size hole.  

We are staying in an AirBnB on the quieter end of the buzzing Chapel Street which was perfect. We would walk 5 minutes down the street and be surrounded by quaint little coffee shops and hip cafes.  Of course I had to try the Melbourne take on smashed avos.  I mentioned earlier that Perth felt brand new whilst Sydney felt lived in... Melbourne takes the term "lived in" to the next level.  The number of homeless and day time drinkers trebled and riding the tram in particular areas was a little uncomfortable.  St Kilda's beach was pumping music that made me realise that I was getting old.  The sandy beach was missing the backdrop of endless blue sky and crystal waters that we had grown use to in Australia.  It was no... Skegness.  Whether it was the crazy many shouting to himself, the beach music blasting in your ear or the Luna Park entrance screaming in your face it was safe to say that we were not massive fans of St Kilda's.  The sad truth is most likely that St Kilda's is a cool, hipster area and I am just not cool or hipster enough!  We did enjoy the penguins returning home from their day out on St Kildas pier though.  There is something quite relatable to notion of coming home to the same spot every evening after a long days work.  I am not sure how the penguins feel about finding 100+ humans waiting for their arrival though.  I probably wouldn't be best pleased.  They happily played along and smiled for our photos.

We had a little self planned tour on our last full day in Melbourne using the trams to get around.  We hit most tourist spots but my favourite was easily the Royal Botanic Gardens which may just be the best garden on this blog.  Who would have thought plants and trees could be so fascinating!? You could very easily spend the entire day there trying to get through the plus 8000 different plant species they have.  It's set up is perfect and you can read all about everything they have... or skip all the signs and just awe at the prettiness.  The Eureka Tower was nothing to write home about.  We heard that Brunswick street was a place to go but again our lack of hipster-ness got in the way.  It felt like it was possibly dole collection day and the dole office was on Brunswick street... and a free "Bottle Shop".  We all agreed that Chapel street was the perfect balance for us.  Our final night in Melbourne was at the theater watching the incredibly funny, slightly inappropriate, Book of Mormons.  If this wasn't a food and travel blog I could happily write pages on how amazing this show is but I will limit it to simply insisting that you go and see it!

Out of all of my friends that have moved abroad, the majority have moved to Australia.  The pros of  pristine beaches, top quality food and wine, and gorgeously hot weather far out weigh the cons of being eaten by a shark or bitten by a killer spider.  A final family BBQ with our Christmas family back in Perth let us throw some Shrimp on the Barbie for a proper Aussie send off.  Without a doubt I will be back to do the North and hopefully in time to see the Great Barrier Reef before it disappears altogether.  Until next time, I may have a break from avocado...