March 3, 2010

Sydney to Phillip Island road trip

I have been everywhere man...

We have been on a road trip! Since our dog Sally has epilepsy, we tend to plan travels that are dog friendly. The idea of travelling to the Phillip Island for the World Superbike Championship came often and other things always came up instead. So this year, I decided to just organise it in January no matter when the race would be. Anyway, this year, the first Superbike Championship turned out to be in February and that's what we did!

We took the coast road down to the Island via Brogo (near Bega), Lakes Entrance and Melbourne. Along the way, we stayed at good quality dog friendly places (2 nights at Fernmark Inn and 1 night at Robin House), visited a number of dog friendly beaches, did beautiful bush walks,  talked to the friendly locals and encountered the most expensive vanilla thick shake we ever had (AU$13.20 on the Phillip Island - it was a large! - one of those oops moments).

When we got to Melbourne, we stayed at our dear friends Jaimie and Dan's place. It was so nice to catch up with them, it has been years since we last caught up like that. We had one full day in Melbourne and whilst I would have liked to visit other friends, I didn't want to cramp too much in so hubby and I just spent the day together. We had lunch at the Lentil As Anything restaurant in St Kilda. We watched an SBS documentary on them recently and liked their philosophy. The food didn't disappoint us at all and we happily paid what we would have if we were to have the similar meals in a Sydney cafe. I am glad we visited them. My good hubby also drove me to two of the fabric shops I read about from Nicole Mallalieu's blog, Cleg's and GJ's in Brunswick East. These are my purchases.

We got to the Island on Thursday 25 Feb and checked into our accommodation for the next 4 nights. The Home Away from Home property is excellent (the photos on Stayz.com.au don't really do it justice) and I was very relieved to see that the yard is fully fenced and gated so Sally wouldn't escape... though she did try on the last day and managed to wiggle herself out! Luckily she stayed in the front yard although I don't know how long she was out for as we were at the Circuit track all day... Needless to say we roused at her big time which she seemed to know as her ears went sideway.

The 3-day race event was fun though I must say I was all biked out in the end - hubby is opposite of course. Jaimie and Dan joined us for the 3 nights and we had an excellent time catching up.

The highlight for me is definitely the visit to the Penguin Parade where we joined the Private Penguin Parade Experience tour. The little penguins are so cute and we had a great tour guide who told us all about these little guys.

On our way back home, we stopped at a quaint little town called Lockhart in NSW for one night. The cottage (The Little Rose Cottage) we stayed at is over 100 years old!

I can go on for a bit longer about our trip but in short, we were blessed with good weather the entire trip, safe driving and great company so we all had a fantastic holiday. Even better that Sally travelled very well in the car (a very well travelled little dog indeed), despite her escape from the backyard on the Island...

On another note, I brought with me yarn and crochet hooks thinking that I would get to finish an amigurumi I started before we left but not to be the case... guess that will have to be another post.

Until next time, take care and blog soon! xx

3 comments :

  1. Amanda,

    Thanks for sweet words on my blog :).

    Oh, you are so talented!!! I am trying to learn sewing but never get around with it. Hopefully I can sit down and start threading my sewing machine :D

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  2. Hi Amanda, sounds like you had a wonderful holiday. I'm glad you had really great weather. The penguins are super cute ha? I was waiting for more pictures. Any more?

    Regarding that above message from Anh, it was me that visited her blog and left a message for her. I had to sign in as my blogger account (which you know I don't use) and I had your blog down as a blog I was following and she must of clicked on it thinking that it was mine. So sorry about that. I'm not stealing your identity or anything.

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  3. Hi Yen! only a few more photos of our friends, unfortunately we weren't able to take photos of the penguins as they are scared of the flash lights... The message from Anh - haha, so funny - no worries. I was day dreaming when I saw her message and just accepted it without thinking too much. Then last night when I read her message again, I thought hmmm... don't think that's for me but I don't know how to let her know... See you on Monday anyway and we can have a good chat then!

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