First Impressions of Batemans Bay

Our trip to Batemans Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales started on Friday afternoon with a  four and half hour drive from Pamela’s parents house in Carcoar. The mostly small country roads wound through beautiful scenery including rich farmland, lush rainforest and rolling foothills. With five minutes to spare for check-in we pulled into the Moorings Resort, our home for the next two weeks, and were given the keys to our two bedroom apartment style room.

The Moorings Resort, situated  in the small town of Tomakin and on the banks of the Tomaga River, is very basic in nature. Semi-clean grounds, a sandy tennis court and an indoor solar heated pool (it’s not really heated) are the highlights of the resort. Lowlights of the resort include the proximity to the main road which can be noisy, very small television and the lack of an oven are really the only things we can gripe about so really we don’t have much to gripe about at all.

With 83 unique beaches, several national parks, plenty of rivers and lakes this outdoor paradise of New South Wales called the Eurobodalla Coast is branded the ‘Land of Many Waters’ and for good reason. Seemingly around every corner lies a new pristine beach, slow moving river or calm inducing lake. This region, lying about four hours drive south of Sydney, stretches from the town of Shoalhaven in the north to Tilba in the south and is full of small town charm. Holiday activities in the area are abundant and include snorkeling, skydiving, cuddling wombats, gallery tours and big game fishing. Basically, if you have a pulse you should be able to find something to do around here.

After checking into our hotel and unloading our very-packed car we realized we were starving so we jumped back in the car and headed north. About 10 minutes later we were ordering take away fish and chips from a beachside café in the small town of Malua Bay. We spread out our beach blanket and ate our food on the beach watching the surf roll in; perfection.

Saturday morning we woke-up and paid a visit to small but mighty Guerilla Bay for a snorkel. This small beach and two secluded bays are in the Batemans Bay Marine Park and therefore protected nature reserves. The snorkeling in the calm bay was pretty good and consisted of many colorful fish and some corals although I wish I’d had a wetsuit as the water was a little cool for my liking and too cold for Pamela.  If  snorkeling isn’t your cup of tea then you can sunbake, look for shells or take in the beautiful surrounding views.

Following our morning at Guerilla Bay we headed down to the beach at North Head Maruya. Adjacent to the small Maruya airport we were able to watch the skydivers coming in just above us.  The long, uninhabited beach was perfect for relaxing until the wind kicked up and covered us with sand forcing us to make a quick exit to the car and on to crowded but wind free Broulee Beach. Broulee is perfect for lounging on the beach, snorkeling or swimming in the calm and patrolled crystal blue waters. Walking around the point at Broulee takes you to another more private beach with equally pristine waters connecting to Broulee island with bushwalking trails and a reported Emu or two. Fully cooked from the sun we headed back to our resort for a dip in the pool, and a game of tennis before dinner.

Sunday morning we made our favourite ‘Haloumi Slam’ consisting of poached eggs on top of buttered toast with avocado, fried haloumi cheese and a squeeze of lime. Completely satisfied from breakfast we headed 20 minutes north to Murramarang National Park where we spent the better part of the day lounging on beautiful Pebbly Beach. The park, famous for its kangaroo beaches,  is home to a beautiful rainforest and several unspoiled beaches which are inhabited by grazing kangaroos at dusk and dawn. Although we didn’t see any kangaroos (we were there at midday) we did see quite a bit of kangaroo crap on the grass next to the beach so we know the little hoppers are around. The best thing about these beaches are the lack of people, we were there on a Saturday and felt like we had the place to ourselves.

So far our first impressions of the Batemans Bay area are very good. The small town feel, empty beautiful beaches (remember there’s 83 of them) and lush national parks are the stuff Australian dreams are made of. We’re so looking forward to spending the next 10 days exploring more of the area and quite frankly are going to have a tough time fitting in all that we want to do in that time period. Hopefully our next report will include us catching a fish and a wave.

Sorry about the lack of photos in this article. Unfortunately we're only able to utilize a terrible Wifi connection at a McDonalds about 15 minutes drive from our resort. We'll get some photos in ASAP.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

We're back in Australia

Yep, it's true...we're back down under and enjoying what's left of Summer while we plan the next stages of our life together. It wasn't an easy decision to make but we felt it was the right one as our budget was running low and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to explore potential places to settle down and join the real world once again.  South America just wasn't in the cards for us this time but it's definitely still on the radar.

We surprised family and friends here by literally just showing up on doorsteps or in lounge rooms, the surpised looks on some faces were priceless. We've been back for about two weeks and in that time have bought a car, planned a two month roadtrip and visited with many family and friends. Yes, we've been busy.

What's Next?
The honeymoon is not over yet! We've still got at least two more months of travel left in us while we conduct a thorough search of places to live and work between Batemans Bay, New South Wales and Bundaberg, Queensland. As of now the short list of places to live are beachside properties in and around Kingscliff, New South Wales but we really need to visit many places to be sure which is right for us.

Our Roadtrip

Here's the tentative plan/timeline for our roadtrip beginning tomorrow:
2 weeks Batemans Bay, NSW
1 week Sydney, NSW
2 weeks Forster, NSW

1 week Coffs Harbour, NSW
1 week Gold Coast, QLD

1 week Sunshine Coast, QLD
2 weeks Bundaberg, QLD
***Settle Down Somewhere***

 

We'll also be throwing in some fun on our roadtrip. We plan on working on our surfing skills, fishing, boating, bushwalking, sightseeing and just relaxing on the beach. The free time should also get us caught up on blog posts, of which we're behind by many. So please stay tuned for more posts from our time overseas, upcoming surfing adventures and house/job/life hunting.

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

We Love You Park City

 

Heading up to The Canyons Resort in Park City


In case you can’t tell by the title of this article,  we love Park City. With first class snow, an awesome mountain town atmosphere and great dining what’s not to love. We were having so much fun that we extended our planned three night stay to a five nights and would have stayed longer if we had the time.

We caught an early morning (6:30am) flight from Reno to Salt Lake City in order to take advantage of the Quick Start Program which allows you the chance ski/snowboard for free on the day you fly into Salt Lake City. We landed at 9:00am, were quickly chauffeured to the Park Plaza hotel, checked in and on our first chairlift at Park City Mountain Resort by 10:30am. Anyone going to Park City for a ski holiday should definitely check into the Quick Start Program to see if you can save yourself $96 USD per lift ticket the day you arrive.
  After our day on the slopes we ended up back at the Park Plaza hotel hot tub to soak our weary muscles. Unfortunately our peaceful soak was interrupted by a very obnoxious middle-aged Dermatologist (he told us 20 times he was a Dr.) who couldn’t go one minute without saying something rude to someone. I’ll refer to him as Captain Annoying. He told Pamela she was going to get skin cancer about 30 seconds after meeting her, he then proceeded to tell us, and everyone else in the hot tub, many-many tasteless and not very funny jokes. Abandoning Captain Annoying we hopped on a free shuttle to Main St. to check out some of the many art galleries before dinner. Dowtown Park City, aka Main St., has quite a few different galleries to peruse and admire. One of our favorite was a galleria featuring the nature photographs of Michael Fatali. 

There are so-so many places to choose from for dinner in Park City. Our first night we tried out  A Taste of Saigon for dinner and walked out of there completely stuffed from a beef stew and chicken curry. Our second night in Park City we had dinner at the Wasatch Brew Pub, where Pamela had a beer called Polygamy Porter which looked more like motor oil to me.  We also tried out Bangkok Thai on Main St. for a dinner consisting of great satay and massaman curry, we can highly recommend them both.



One of Utah’s advertising slogans is “Utah, the greatest snow on Earth” and to the best of my knowledge they are not wrong. There are three main ski resorts within minutes drive of downtown Park City: Park City Mountain Resort, The Canyons and the ski only resort of Deer Valley.  We snowboarded three days at the Park City Mountain Resort and had relatively decent snow on two of the three days. On the middle day the snow was more like pavement but a couple inches of snow overnight softened things up a bit. We also had a bit of celebrity sighting while on our lunch break, we were eating our lunch and noticed Josh Hartnett was sitting next to us.



Our fourth day of snowboarding was spent at The Canyons Resort.  The Canyons is such a huge place, the fifth largest resort in North America,  and is complete with the Orange Bubble Express chairlift with heated seats and an orange chair cover for protection from the wind and snow. Our après ski experience at Canyons was spent at the “ski beach” watching live musicians and sitting by a fire. While snowboarding at Canyons we ran into Captain Annoying again, this time he was harassing some other young people at one of the ski lodges. One of the girls was recording his ridiculous rants and subsequently uploading them to YouTube, it was pretty funny. 

 

Pamela testing out a thin coverage area



Empty slopes means lots of picture taking opportunities

 

The Sidewinder run at Canyons. We loved this run

Unfortunately the time came around for us to fly back to Los Angeles. Had we more time we would have definitely stayed longer, maybe we’d even be there now if the snow was good. Hopefully next year or the year after we’ll be back in Park City for another snowboard trip.

All the photos from our trip to Park City can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/ParkCityUtah?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Enjoying the views from Canyons



Pamela and I on a really slow chairlift. I feel like I aged a bit.



Looking down on the town of Park City from the top of Park City Mountain Resort



Ready for a massive meal at the Wasatch Brew Pub



Main St. trees at night



Checking out Main St. Park City



Six Months Down - Highlights and Lessons Learned

Pamela having a little rest at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah

Wow! February 5th marked the sixth month, and planned halfway point, of our round-the-world honeymoon. I can’t believe we’ve already been on the road and married for over six months. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun, it seems like just yesterday we tied the knot in Fiji.

This last month of travel has had us bouncing across North America searching for good snow, cruising through the Caribbean and relaxing with family and friends in California. We’ve had a couple bumps along the way but overall this last month has been awesome. We’ve been so busy that I’m almost a week late on this article and several weeks late on many other articles. Hopefully this week I’ll have some time to catch-up as we’ve had some great times the last few weeks and heaps to write about.

Lessons Learned from Month #6

-   Cruising, at least in tropical destinations, is probably not for us. Our cruise was a good experience and something we’re thankful we did, but would have enjoyed spending longer times in each port with less people.

-   When visiting the US Virgin Islands, especially St. John, it is very helpful to hire a rental car. Taxi prices are ridiculous, even charging for your baggage, which makes the cost and freedoms associated with a rental car a better value. Had we hired a car for our St. John trip we could have seen and done a lot more without having to depend on very expensive taxi services. For example it cost us over 70 dollars to get from the airport to the hotel which could have paid for that full days hire car.

-   Using online lift ticket services, like Liftopia, are a good deal when visiting Park City. We saved about $25 USD on each regularly priced $96 USD ticket because we booked in advance. $96 USD is a lot to pay for a single day skiing, especially if you’re on a budget.

-   Eco-lodge travel is definitely hit and miss when it comes to your comfort level and what you’re willing to put up with. Definitely thoroughly read into your destination ahead of time to ensure you’re up for the creature (dis)comforts some of these resorts offer.

Highlights from Month #6
Pamela –  Banff was beautiful but I really-really loved Lake Louise. Walking on the lake with the ice castle was like a dream come true.  I also really loved visiting Key West for the day. The artsy town and all of the beautiful galleries really made my day.

Dave  - Thankfully during this month I got to travel to some of my favorite places so practically the whole month is a highlight. I loved visiting family/friends, snowboarding in Banff and Park City and spending several days on the island of St. John.

Lowlights from Month #6
Pamela – Easy, all of the bug bites I received in St. John. It’s been nearly a month and I’m still itchy in a couple of places, not to mention all of the new scars from my scratching. Never again will we be eco-lodging it on St. John.

Dave – Watching Pamela suffer with all the bug bites in St. John was not fun at all, I felt so bad for her.  It was really hard to enjoy the natural beauty of the island when my wife was suffering so much.

Looking Down on Park City from the Park City Mountain Resort



Stay tuned for upcoming articles from our time snowboarding in Park City and the Reno/Tahoe area.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Cruising the High (and Low) Seas

Pulling up at the Port of Miami to board the ocean liner Carnival Glory was a little overwhelming. Lines stretched out the door like cattle being herded into a paddock, checked bags stacked meters high, swarms of buzzing taxis and a mammoth sized ocean liner in front of us. Herded from one line to another we finally registered, boarded and were into our surprisingly large ocean view stateroom on deck number one. Close to starving we jumped on one of the 20 different elevators to deck nine where we had a late lunch and waited to cast off. Once all 3500 guests and 1200 crew were aboard we slowly pulled out of Miami and headed for the Caribbean.

Our Surprisingly Large Stateroom

We’ll write more about the individual ports of call later but here was our 7 night itinerary:
Day 1 Miami, Florida
Day 2 At Sea
Day 3 Cozumel, Mexico
Day 4 Costa Maya, Mexico
Day 5 Roatan, Honduras
Day 6 Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Day 7 At Sea
Day 8 Miami, Florida

Leaving Miami

Our first night on board we decided to indulge ourselves and dine at the fancy Emerald Steakhouse. The $30 dollar per person additional charge was well worth it, the food and service was exceptional and definitely our best meal of the week. Pamela chose a filet mignon with mashed and I picked a New York top sirloin with mashed for my big dinner. For dessert I had the largest piece of glorious cheesecake I’d ever seen and Pamela had a chocolate sampler dessert that could have been a complete meal in itself. Completely stuffed we rolled out onto the upper decks for some pics and then rolled back to our stateroom for some much needed sleep.

Mammoth Cheesecake

Walking Along the Top Deck

The next morning, our first day at sea, we woke up late and finally made our way up to one of the top decks where we able to find two sun chairs together. On warm sea days it’s pretty tough to find a chair in the sun if you’re up past 10. That day was spent relaxing on deck as we sailed just outside Cuba for most of the day. We were fortunate for the good weather on day number one as our second sea day, the last day of the cruise, was spent indoors as it was cold and windy on the top decks.  During the second sea day we attended a long art auction and almost walked away with a Thomas Kinkade painting that Pamela had her eye for the whole cruise.

One of the Cruise Elegant Nights

To say there was plenty to eat on board the boat is an understatement. Most of our breakfasts consisted of cereal and fruit, avoiding the buffet lines. We did spend two mornings in the proper dining room for a hot breakfast which we felt was just okay, nothing spectacular.  During lunch we took advantage of the 24 hour pizza bar which was pretty good even though the pizza man was super cranky. We tried out the fish and chips restaurant once which was pretty good but hardly ever open. We also tried out the Mongolian grill - not very good, the deli, the grill and the burrito bar. All but one of our dinners were in the Golden Dining Room with varying daily menus consisting of food that ranged from just okay to pretty good. Each night they’d have something exotic on the menu ranging from alligator to frog legs. The chocolate lava cake was Pamela’s favorite dessert while I mostly ordered the fruit plate. Overall we weren’t all that impressed with the food except for the night we paid $30 USD each and ate at the Emerald Steakhouse.

Pamela with her Daily Dose of Chocolate Lava Cake

While on board we focused our attention on two activities; relaxing and watching the entertainment. Late afternoons and early evenings were always spent in one of the many hot tubs on board the boat, I counted 8 tubs but there could have been more. Getting a seat in the adults only Serenity hot tubs was a bit tough so more often than not we ended up in a big hot tub filled with kids or adults but with a nice view of the large outdoor TV.  Skin completely wrinkled we’d get ready for dinner then go watch one of the Broadway style performances in the Amber Palace theater on deck three. We saw three good musical reviews, an illusionist and a hypnotist which were also both very good.  There was a ton of other entertainment onboard including many-many comedy reviews, lounge singers and nightly dance clubs.

Enjoying the Sunset from the Hot Tub

Moving around the mammoth ship was pretty easy once we figured out the many different elevators and where they ended up. The downside of the elevators is sometimes you’d have to wait a long time for an elevator up or down. The elevators are weighted up to 3000 pounds or 16 people but we found due to the size of the people onboard the elevators only held about eight people at any given time. This also affected how many people fit into a hot tub, pool or possibly a lifeboat.

Pamela and Our Ship

Onboard alcohol is pushed to you around the clock. Sitting outside at breakfast you’re never far  from a waiter holding a tray of tropical drinks. We noticed some waiters get really cranky if we didn’t buy a drink, even for breakfast. On the other hand we noticed many, many, many people trying to drink the ship dry but to the best of our knowledge none of them succeeded. That made us feel better, for our lack of alcohol consumption, knowing that the cranky waiters were getting their mandatory 15% tip from each drink purchase. Probably enough to put a down payment on a Mercedes.

Ice Sculpture at the Midnight Buffet

Disembarking the boat back in Miami was slightly easier than boarding. We waited on the top deck until 10:15am when our group number was called. From there we walked off the boat, found our luggage, and joined the long Customs and Immigration line that moved slightly faster than a snail. Through Immigration we joined another line to get a taxi, and were eventually outta there.

Pamela Enjoying a Massage on the Beach in Mexico

We found that the ports you mostly visit when on a cruise ship are not a true sample of the country and culture of that country. The ports are often designed by, and wholly owned by the cruise lines themselves. So while you are on the physical land of Honduras for example, you only get to experience a very small man made cove of beach, in which to get to you must walk through a whole area of shops that are identical to those that are already on board the ship for the most part. This certainly allows for a very controlled experience of culture shock, and ensures a safe environment to visit (as a lot of the Caribbean islands aren’t exactly known for their safety records) so I can see how this appeals to a lot of people for a very easy and safe holiday, as you never really experience the unknown. It’s also a good way to get an overview of the area – visiting a lot of places, but just a short amount of time in each, to see which ones you would possible want to come back and spend more time at. For us I think we prefer a little more adventure and freedom to explore on our own, without quite so many time constraints and guidelines.

The Beach in Honduras

Rainbow over another Ship

Some of the shore excursions were great activities, but were so over priced, unfortunately we didn’t participate in any of them. You could swim with dolphins at several of the ports, hold sting rays, rent ATV’s (quadbikes), visit ruins, snorkeling/diving etc. At times these activities were triple the price of what you could get things for from a company operated externally of the cruise line, but most the time the way the ports are set up, they don’t really allow you the opportunity to book anywhere but through them directly.

Disembarking the Boat in Cozumel

She's a Strong One

Overall we had a pretty good experience on the cruise, we’re definitely glad we did it. We liked the fact that we just had to unpack once to see several different places, liked some of the food onboard and loved the shows. We disliked the large amount of very-very drunk people onboard the boat at all hours of the day, we disliked some of the food and disliked the lines associated with getting on and off the boat at the ports of call. We also disliked the large amount of announcements from the Cruise director and staff which seemed to constantly pump through the boat starting very early in the morning.

Watching the Waves in our Stateroom

I can see us taking another cruise in the future but probably not with Carnival, as they are a little too party orientated for our preferred style of travel,  and probably not to tropical destinations where we’d prefer to stay on the land, and explore places at our own leisure (avoiding lines and waiting in queue quite so much).

More pics from our cruise can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/OurCaribbeanCruise?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave