We arrived in Australia for the easy part of our trip last Sunday. The familiarity of the country came back so quickly and it feels quite like home for me (for those of you who don’t know, I am three-quarters Australian and have spent a lot of time here in the past). We have all also been finding it a relief to be able to read menus and be understood most of the time, except of course when we’ve used Canadian words like “tuque” and “washroom” 🙂

We’ve taken a different approach in Australia to most of the rest of the travelling we’ll be doing. Generally we are trying to stay in each place for about a week. For Australia though, there are many people to visit and lots of places to quickly see, so we’ve rented a car and are doing a bit of a road trip. Amazingly the five of us and our bags fit in a mid-size car, and we’ve been enjoying the flexibility of car travel as we cruise around the east coast of Australia.

First stop – Bondi Beach, Sydney

We spent our first few days in Australia at Bondi Beach, one of my favourite parts of Sydney. It’s a beautiful beach area that’s close to the city, quite an unbelievable spot. We stayed at Hotel Bondi and were definitely the least hip guests there. With the beach in front of the hotel, the kids headed straight for the water and we couldn’t get them to do anything else for the first two days. We tried a swim in the Icebergs Pool, an iconic seaside and ocean-fed pool, but it was chilly and the kids preferred the waves of the ocean.

When the weather turned a little cooler and rainy, we were able to tear the kids away from the beach and did some city exploring in Sydney. I lived in the “Rocks” area of Sydney for a few months back in the late nineties, so it was fun to wander around that area where the British landed with their first boatful of convicts in 1788. We enjoyed the Sydney Aquarium as well but I think our Sydney highlight was seeing “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Sydney Opera House. It was an exceptional performance that captivated even the smallest of us.

Our favourite food experience in Sydney was going to the Fish Butchery which we first heard about while watching Zac Efron’s “Down to Earth” on Netflix. We had the most amazing minced-tuna burgers there but sadly there weren’t the fish eyeball crackers from the show which the kids were hoping to have. Thank you to our friend Flavia for recommending season 2 of this show as great inspiration for our trip – I highly recommend for anyone about to go travelling!

Blue Mountains canyoning

I was keen to see something in Australia that I hadn’t seen in previous trips, so we decided to head to Blue Mountains at the recommendation of my brother (thanks Harry!) for a bit of an adventure. The Blue Mountains is a world heritage area west of Sydney with dramatic cliffs, beautiful scenery and lots of canyons. We did a family canyoning trip with Blue Mountains Adventure Company which involved donning full wetsuits and carrying waterproof backpacks while we waded and climbed through a canyon with steep cliffs and waterfalls. Definitely thrilling and wet at many points, but so fun and wonderful to be out in nature again after a lot of city time. The kids were amazing climbers and feared the cold water much less than me!

Visiting friends in Canberra

After Blue Mountains, we drove south to Canberra to visit our old friends, Kathy and Mike, who graciously squeezed the five of us into their house. I dragged the two families to Parliament house in search of a painting of my great-great grandfather Elias Solomon who was involved in the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Unfortunately we didn’t find the painting, but I did appreciate everyone humouring me and participating in the search, and it was fun knowing that our ancestors were involved in early Australia politics. Kathy and Mike also took us around the city and to the Tidbinbilla Reserve for our first kangaroo and koala sitings! Thank you Kathy and Mike! We also were lucky to visit old family friends from Ottawa, Gill and Mike, who moved from Canada 30 years ago to very wisely avoid the Canadian winters. So nice to see you Gill and Mike, you still look as young and active as you did back in Ottawa!

Oceanside in Newcastle

The road trip continues… our most recent stop was in Newcastle to visit my aunt and uncle John and Pam (also early life escapees from Canada!). They live on a beautiful vista overlooking the ocean, surrounded by rainforest, with kookaburras that they feed by hand. It’s a pretty idyllic location! We enjoyed more beach time, as we can’t seem to get enough of it, and were able to explore coal deposits, petrified trees and a blow hole along the beach too. We also visited Bogey Hole, a pool hand-cut out of the rock beside in the ocean (by convicts!) in 1819. Not surprisingly we suffered our first sunburns of the trip as we’re out of practice at sunscreen application, and the sun is so strong here, but we’ll do better next time (I promise Mom!). This stop was such a nice break from touristing and it was very fun to meet some more of our extended family. Thanks John and Pam!

Currently…

We’re currently in Bellingen, a hippy town about five hours north of Newcastle, on our way to Brisbane tomorrow. It’s our first youth hostel stay and a reminder that I don’t like shared bathrooms, but otherwise is a really nice place to be. Nearby Dorrigo National Park has incredible rainforest and on our walk there today there were luckily no snake sitings, so I consider that a win.