Completely Spoiled in Sharm El Sheikh

This about sums it up.

Half a world away and just over three months ago we were travelling through Egypt ending up in the resort town of Sharm El Sheikh at the very bottom of the Sinai Peninsula.  Sitting here in Australia it feels like that part of our round-the-world trip could have been a lifetime ago. Looking back on that part of the trip puts a huge smile on my face and our five nights in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh really stands out from the crowd. We had just spent an exhausting 10 days touring Cairo and Alexandria then travelling up and down the Nile via train, boat, donkey car and any other means of crappy transportation available. We were definitely in need of some rest and relaxation and were very excited to get to Sharm for a much needed break.

The view of marine park Ras Mohamed from the airplane.

 A very scenic morning flight from Cairo had us to the Sharm airport by 10:30am. After a long argument with a  taxi driver we were off to the Hyatt Regency Sharm El Sheikh where we were to spend the next five nights. We used our Hyatt points to book a room in the Regency Club section of this property, it only cost us 50,000 points for the five nights and was well worth it. This was the fourth or fifth Hyatt we’d stayed at on our Honeymoon and were sure looking forward to the hospitality and service that comes along with Hyatt, especially with the Regency Club.

Home away from home for us :-)

Checking in we were given an overview of the services at the hotel which included many restaurants, pools, beaches, gym, spa, waterslide, nightly entertainment, house coral reef and so much more. We were stoked and off to our room for a quick change before hitting the beach. Quickly admiring the amazing views from our room we were off to the Regency Club private beach area where we were met by Beach Butler Gomma, who saw to our every need while on the beach. Seriously, this guy had our ideal beach chairs set up and coffees ready for us after day one.  Pamela was under the weather so Gomma made her a special herbal tea every day. This was the type of great service, and this just one example, of what we experienced while at the 471 room resort.

Admiring the sunset from our room.

Prior to the beach or pool every morning started the same way, with a trip to the included breakfast buffet. Of all the breakfast buffets we’ve had on the trip, and we’ve had many, this was one of the best. An egg chef masterfully cooked up whatever kind of eggs you wanted while you added to your plate any number of breakfast items including freshly dripped honey from a honeycomb. After downing the eggs we’d head over to the pancake and waffle chef for freshly cooked Belgian waffles topped with chocolate, strawberries, coconut, nuts and anything else we can throw on there. Fresh strawberry and orange juice would wash it all down before rolling out of the buffet. Thinking about it all now makes my mouth water.

Pamela thoroughly enjoying the breakfast buffet.

The Red Sea is renown for it’s amazing diving and snorkeling and boy did it not disappoint. The Gardens Bay Reef was literally a stones throw away from the beach at our resort. Swimming out in about one minute, I was quickly blown away by the variety of hard and soft coral formations and colors that seemed to jump out of the water. It had to be one of the best examples of shallow reef I’ve seen in a long time and it was right on our doorstep!! I only wish our underwater camera worked as we would have some great shots of the colorful coral and fish.

One of the beaches at the Hyatt. You can see the wall of the reef just off the shore.

Our original goal was to spend the days at the resort and visit the town of Sharm El Sheikh at night for dinners and nightlife. In the end we never even left the resort. Prior to dinner we’d head over to the Regency Club lounge for appetizers and drinks, each night was a different theme including a sushi night and fondue night. We loved it!! The resort was decked out for dinner choices including a beautiful Thai restaurant called Sala Thai serving up some of the best Massaman Curry we had our on trip. Chatting with the head chef we also tried several other amazing dishes during the couple nights we dined here. The Souk, another dinner option, is an open air restaurant that allowed you to choose from many different types of cuisines including seafood, Mediterranean, local cuisine, Asian and a dessert shop. While dining you can watch a different entertainer each night, we saw a good belly dancer and a great troop of acrobats.

With the Chef at Sala Thai Restaurant

Enjoying dinner

When not snorkeling or stuffing our faces we lounged by the pools, there’s at least four of them, worked out at the gym or relaxed in the spa, sauna and steam rooms. The latter being the favorite of Pamela as we all know she loves a good soak, sweat and steam to get her through these tough days. The waterslide and grotto in the main pool area was a nice touch along with the poolside libraries when you were done with a book. Some of our best times were just lounging on our patio watching the sunrise over the Red Sea and distant Saudi Arabia.

Acrobats at The Souk

The belly dancer at The Souk

Departure day came all too fast along with our 6:30am flight back to Cairo then onto Abu Dhabi. We picked up our packed breakfast boxes and jumped in our resort provided transfer back to the airport. I’d have to say that getting a transfer from the resort is so much easier than dealing with the local taxi drivers. The taxi drivers try and charge a ridiculous amount of money for a short ride, save yourself an argument and let the resort take care of your transfer for you, it’s worth it.

Sunrise view from our room

Our time in Sharm El Sheikh, really the resort, stands out amongst the crowd as we approach the eight month mark of our Honeymoon. We’ve stayed at over 70 properties around the world and this experience was right up there with the top. The exceptional personalized service has you feeling like you’re at a luxury boutique hotel rather than a large 471 room property with hundreds and hundreds of guests. This has to be the best use of hotel or airplane points/miles I’ve ever used. For only 50,000 Hyatt points we were treated to five nights of pampering luxury that we won’t soon forget. A huge thanks to the staff at the  Hyatt Regency Sharm El Sheikh for making this part of our Honeymoon so special.

More pics from our time at the Hyatt Sharm El Sheikh can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/SharmElSheikhEgypt?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Forster, Week 1 – Beaches, Fishing and some Junk

Shelley Beach in Pacific Palms

A quick four hour drive from Sydney had us in Forster, the third stop on our East Coast road trip. We managed to book a timeshare bonus week at the Seashells Diamond Beach Resort which is about 20 minutes North of Forster and close to the small beach towns of Blackhead and Red Head. We had spent the previous week in a surprisingly sunny and warm Sydney, where we able to catch-up with friends and spend some quality time at the beach.

Pamelas' latest painting titled "Maldives Bliss"

The Seashells Resort is an older style property with some nice amenities including two spas (one adult only), game room, sauna and gym. The property is on the beautiful and un-crowded Diamond Beach with just a small sand dune separating the resort from the sand. A two minute walk from our room had us on the beach where we could fish, unsuccessfully I might add, admire the surf or search for shells on a seemingly endless stretch of sand. Unfortunately the many days of rain hampered our enjoyment of the beach just a few steps away from our door. One of the hot tubs at the resort was an enclosed “adults only” tub on a reservation system which had you sign-in on a white board when you wanted to use it.  It was funny to walk by the adult hot tub while it was reserved, day or night, and listen to the sounds coming from the room. As it was enclosed there were just screens for windows so all sounds came through. I’m glad we don’t have kids just so we didn’t have to explain all the different noises coming out of that room.

Morning stroll on Blackhead Beach near Forster.

Sunday morning we headed to Pacific Palms, one of our favourite places in Australia. Pacific Palms is a small beachside community about 25 minutes south of Forster near the Booti Booti National Park. Home to fabulous beaches including Elizabeth, Shelley, Boomerang and Blueys and bordering the beautiful Wallis Lake, there is seemingly endless waterways for swimming, surfing, boating, fishing or whatever else floats your boat. Fishing and beach gear in hand we parked and took a bush trail 500 meters to the beautiful and private Shelley Beach. On the way we spotted some awesome butterflies and a very large monitor lizard. Once at the beach we spotted something even more surprising, naked people, lots of naked people, lots of large naked people, lots of large naked people letting it all hang out. Unknowingly we visited a nude beach, a large nude beach for that matter.  No matter to us, we were there to enjoy the beach and fish. Casting into the water I was just careful not to catch any “junk” so to speak. Even without catching any fish, or unexpected sunburns, we had a great day at the beach.

Our car imitating a male kangaroo. There's actually squid bait in the bag.

The area around Forster is full of amazing beaches and scenery.

On subsequent days we visited other beaches in the area including Blueys, Cellitto, Blackhead and Red Head. We also attempted a bush walk in Red Head but were soon covered in leeches, so much so that we decided turning around was our best bet. After searching for some decent fishing we finally found it on the Forster jetty leading out to the ocean. Using squid we managed to catch and release three fish while getting many-many more bites. So far this has been our best fishing experience of the road trip. We’ll definitely be visiting this jetty again during week number two in Forster. Our first week in Forster was great. When the weather was half-good we visited beautiful beaches and national parks. When the weather was bad we cooked some good food, watched some good TV and Pamela painted an amazing scene from our time in the Maldives.

We're back in Forster for another week so stay tuned for another post from this beautiful part of New South Wales. Here's more of our pics if you're interested: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/ForsterNewSouthWales?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Soaked in Batemans Bay

Patting 'wild' kangaroos at the Murramurang Resort in Durras

Following our first impressions of the Batemans Bay area we were both really excited to spend two weeks in this beautiful area of Australia. We had a list of all the different beaches we’d visit, bushwalks we’d take, markets to visit and so on. We also had big plans to catch waves surfing and many fish as this area is known for its great surfing and fishing.

Take away fish and chips beach dinner in Malua Bay. 

Two and a half days into our stay it started to rain, and it rained and rained and rained and rained and…..you get the picture. Most days it wasn’t just soft little raindrops, it was like the sky opened up and dropped, more like threw, buckets of water at you, wherever you might be standing. With roads in the area flooded the only real safe thing to do was hang out inside our “lavish” accommodations. I say lavish when I really mean crappy.

The rain did bring about some good, Pamela painted two amazing pictures, one of the Dead Sea and one of a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. It’s amazing for me to watch these paintings come to life from a blank canvas. Other rainy day activities included watching terrible daytime television on our 19 inch TV with only 6 channels, reading books, cooking and playing the Wii. Thankfully we brought our new Nintendo Wii which helped us weather the storm. I can safely say that we’ve both become pro’s at golf, bowling, tennis, ping pong and many other sports we practiced over and over during those long days of rain.

Guerilla Bay, along with being a great place to snorkel, is just one of the many quiet beaches in and around Batemans Bay.

During the rainstorm, Pamela’s mum and brother joined us for a weekend of Nintendo Wii. While they were visiting we drove down to Moruya to visit the outdoor markets. Fortunately for us, the few vendors that did brave the weather were pretty good. We walked away with fresh honey, peanuts, avocados and other things that I don’t recall. When I go to the markets I tend to tune out a bit so my recollection of the event isn’t always that great. From Moruya we drove down to the beautiful seaside town of Narooma to take some photos of the area and have a coffee at a really cool boathouse café called the Quaterdeck. It’s a shame the weather was bad as we would have loved to spend more time in the little picturesque town. On our way home from Narooma we stopped at a cool dairy/café in the very small town of Bodalla where we picked up some cheese, fresh yogurt (they packed it for us) and some cool photos.

With our car at Lonely Beach

Enjoying Pebbly Beach in the Murramurang National Park

Eight days after the rain started it stopped for about a day and a half. The sun was out and we took advantage. Two mornings in a row of successful surf lessons, read about them here, had us in the little town of South Durras which is about 20 minutes north of Batemans Bay. The town, which lies in and around Murramarang National Park boasts some amazing beaches and the Murramurang Resort which has an amazing location on a small protected beach at the north end of town. Following our surfing lessons we headed to the resort for a coffee and a day at the beach which would include patting wild kangaroos, spotting the many dolphins that frequent the area, fishing off the beach or rocks, collecting shells and just lounging about. This place was one of my favorite of the whole trip and I would recommend it to anyone. At the most we saw five other people on the beach at any given time so it’s safe to say there are more kangaroos than people. Fishing, although not fruitful, was still very relaxing. The views of the surrounding beaches and islands are amazing and the steady stream of dolphins really helped brighten up the day. Who doesn’t love dolphins?

Dallas, Jannie and Pamela enjoying the views from Narooma

Surprise, surprise, shortly after our day and a half of sun it started to rain again. We spent the next couple days inside practicing our Wii, not that we need much practice anymore and watching terrible TV. The day before we were about to leave the rain stopped for a few hours so we headed off to the river for a last ditch fishing attempt, we hadn’t caught a thing so far. Casting our lines into this new area we started to get nibbles just about right away. Unfortunately, most of the nibbles turned out to be just that…Until I landed one! Not a whopper by any means but just the same it was a fish. Throwing the little guy back we were just happy to not leave this place without catching something.

A very quiet and relaxing beach at Murramurang

The last day we packed up our car and headed north with just one more stop to make in the area. We’d heard about a park in this area that lets you cuddle wombats and were confident that Birdland, just on the outskirts of Batemans Bay, was the place to do it. The $20 dollar fee gets you into the park to look at the many examples of Australian wildlife including two koalas, many kangaroos, birds and best of all the wombats. Birdland, should be called Wombatland, is a rescue for orphaned wombats and twice a day they bring a young wombat out to run around and play with guests. The trainer brought out “Bubbles” whom we got to pat and then hold on our laps. These cute, furry, little animals can run up to 40ks per hour (over short distances) and are not light by any means. I felt like I had a bowling ball with fur in my lap while I was holding her. I’m not much on cuddling animals but if I could have taken this wombat home with me I would have. Needless to say I spent the next 24 (more like 48) hours talking about how we have to get a pet wombat. The next day, walking around Bondi Beach, I thought how great it would be to be able to walk my pet wombat up and down the beach.

Pamela and her new friend "Bubbles"

Holding "Bubbles" the wombat

In the end we made the most out of our 14 (11 of them wet) days in the Batemans Bay area of New South Wales. We played with captive wombats, pet ‘wild’ kangaroos, learned to surf, caught a fish and enjoyed the pristine beaches and countryside.  Most of all we got to spend some quality time together in a semi-normal environment. We cooked all but one of our meals and stayed in the same place longer than nine days which had been our previous record over the last seven months. Although a bit far from any major city, I’d definitely come back to this area again and  hopefully stay at the Murramurang Resort when it’s not so wet.

More pics from our time in Batemans Bay can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/BatemansBayAreaNewSouthWalesAustralia?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Surfing Lessons – Day 2

       

 

The alarm went off and we slowly rolled out of bed for our second morning of surfing lessons. Click here for our article from day one.  Pamela was having a hard time lifting her cereal bowl and was seriously doubting her ability to get in the water. Fortunately for us her arms started feeling a bit better and we were out the door to meet Graeme, our Soulrider surfing instructor, at the beach in South Durras.

An empty half moon shaped beach at South Durras was calling our name. It will be hard to go back to the very crowded beaches of Sydney or Los Angeles after spending so much time at these untouched gems of beaches here on the South Coast of New South Wales. The smaller waves were perfect for today’s lessons of paddling out and catching waves in deeper water.  Prior to paddling out we reviewed popping up and standing styles to correct some of our errors from lesson one. Several practices under our belt we strapped on our leash and paddled out into the blue, more like green, water of the Tasman Sea.    

          

The first few waves were definitely warm up and just refreshing or memory from the day before. It wasn’t until Graeme called out a challenge to see who could ride a wave the longest that Pamela and I both caught the same wave together and rode it into the beach.  Riding the wave together was so much fun, I really think we’re hooked on this sport. Pamela ended up riding that wave all the way back to the sand and therefore won that competition. From there it was paddling out to try for wave after wave. Thankfully we took some breaks relaxing on our boards and having a good chat waiting for the next set of waves to arrive. Graeme caught a bunch of waves to show us how it’s done and was always there providing tips, and sometimes a nudge to get us on the wave.

After about two hours of lessons we had each caught quite a bit of waves and felt a lot more comfortable out in the surf. The hardest part at the end was trying to get our weary muscles to push up on the board to stand-up. The lessons from Graeme at Soulrider have really paid off, his lessons have really provided us with what we need to know to go out on our own and start surfing. If you're looking for surf lessons on the South Coast we'd highly recommend Soulrider. We’re both excited to surf again and have started looking at purchasing wet suits of our own with the hopes of surfboards in the near future.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Surfing Lessons – Day 1

Totally exhausted but very happy. That’s how we felt just after our first surfing lesson. Pamela and I have decided that since we’re planning on living the beach here in Australia that we should learn how to surf. We’d heard it was great exercise but had no idea just how exhausting it was going to be.

Pamela catching one of many waves

We kicked off the first of our two lessons on a beautiful Monday morning in the small beach town of South Durras on the South Coast of New South Wales. We hadn’t seen the sun in seven days and were beginning to get cabin fever so the surfing and sun couldn’t have come any sooner. Situated about twenty minutes north of Batemans Bay, the small town (pop 400) of South Durras, looks to be more beach that anything else. Large, empty beaches line the coast here and we couldn’t think of a better place to learn to surf.

Having a great time trying not to fall off

Having a fun fall

We met our instructor Graeme, from Soulrider Surf School, beachside at 10:00am. A bit nervous, Graeme’s chilled out demeanor put our minds at ease as we put on our provided wetsuits, grabbed some foam type boards and headed to the sand. With the sun shining on our faces we practiced popping-up/standing on our boards again and again with Graeme demonstrating then providing feedback on our techniques. Confident that we got the pop process, we headed out to the waves. As this was the first lesson we simply held onto the leash and walked the boards out to keep them pointed in the right direction. From the beach the waves looked a bit small but as we walked out the waves seemed to loom larger and larger.

Dallas showing us how it's done

Once in the surf, Graeme helped us by telling us when to jump on the board, telling us when to paddle and telling us when to jump up. For the first few waves he even helped us by holding the back of the board to keep it straight. Catching the first few waves sounded like this Paddle-Paddle-Paddle-Paddle, Up-Up-Up-Up. Within the first few minutes all three of us had stood up on boards and caught a wave. Standing up for the first time was such a great feeling. Over the next 90 minutes we practiced catching waves until we could no longer lift ourselves off the board. Our arms felt like they had anvils attached near the end there and we were relieved to pull our boards in for the day. It was a great first day of surfing and we definitely got what we came for. Up next, day two!

Dallas, myself and Pamela completely buggered from our first lesson

More photos from our first day of surfing can be found on the Soulrider Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.197471743691952.35561.142365005869293&type=1

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Reno - Good Friends and Good Times

In search of good friends and good snow we boarded a plane from Los Angeles to Reno on a sunny January Friday afternoon. The day before we spent a beautiful day on the beach in Hermosa so were a bit skeptical of the snow quality in the Lake Tahoe area. Landing at Reno airport we waited a few minutes for the free shuttle to the Peppermill Resort Casino which was to be our home for the next three nights. We were excited for the jacuzzi suite we had booked and were not disappointed especially considering the low price per night of $100 USD on Friday and Saturday and just $70 USD for Sunday night. Dropping her bags, Pamela (aka The Sultana of Soak) immediately fired up the hot tub and was in her element for the next few hours.

Our jacuzzi suite

Our good friends were driving in that night and I really tried hard to wait up for them. I found myself at a nickel video poker machine until about 11:45 just trying to stay awake. Near catatonic I gave up and fell fast asleep as soon as I hit the four poster bed in our room. Saturday morning we were up bright and early to catch the 8:15am ski bus to the Mt. Rose ski area. Boarding the bus we met up with our friends Patrick, Jen, Kevin and Alicia. The forty-five minute bus ride was full of laughs as we had some time to catch-up before our day of snowboarding.

Dave, Pamela, Alicia, Kevin, Jen and Patrick taking a break at Mt. Rose

We had a great day snowboarding with our friends! The recent (and only) snowfall in the area had occurred just the week before so the slopes at the 9500 ft high Mt. Rose were still in good shape.  The mountain was celebrating Chinese New Year which included fortune cookie deal, skiing dragon and food/drink specials. We hopped on a run with the dragon and scored some buy one get one free deals and crappy $5 dollar tee-shirts.  After a full day we jumped on the 4:45pm bus back to our hotel in Reno for a big night out.

Pamela, Alicia and Jen

That night we were celebrating birthdays for friends Patrick and Connie. With a group size of 21 we headed to the Peppermill Island Buffet for a colossal meal consisting of everything from crab legs and prime rib to mammoth ice cream sundaes.  Rolling myself out of the buffet we headed up to Patrick and Jen’s suite for after dinner drinks. Hanging out with our friends from Northern California was such a good time, it was great seeing everyone. While we were in the room an anonymous person, whom we’ll call Jason, pulled out a bottle of moonshine. The next thing I know I saw my wife and some of the other girls taking pulls off the bottle and Jason is having a good laugh at the whole thing. I’m not saying it was Pamela who started it but I have my suspicions….the next thing I know the girls are wheelbarrow racing down the hall of the top floor of our hotel.

The girls wheelbarrow racing down the hall.

Patrick, myself and Robert lounging after a big dinner

Nonsensicalness behavior finished we were off to the casino for some roulette and craps. Fortunately Pamela has a talent for roulette and was able to sit down with only forty dollars and play for hours, all while accumulating a mass of free drinks. The cocktail waitress was a bit terrible, all Pamela wanted was a vodka soda and of the five times she ordered it not a single time did the waitress get it right.  In any case the drinks were free and they kept coming so she wasn’t complaining that much although I did here at least one expletive after each drink delivery. Finally, much to my happiness, sleep in our four poster bed was calling our names.

Enjoying a last attempt to win some cash at the Reno airport

The next day we said goodbye to our friends and were on our own. I tried my hand at roulette and promptly lost $40 dollars in about 5 minutes. I didn’t hit a single thing….with the dealer telling me I needed a break we took the rest of the day and relaxed. We had a 6:30am flight the next day to Salt Lake so we ended our trip to Reno with a quiet night of sleep. Looking back, it was so great catching-up with friends and definitely had us missing living in the US but hopefully we’ll see everyone again soon. Maybe in Thailand? :-)

More pics from our great weekend in Reno can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/RenoAndMtRoseNevada?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave