Terrigal & north coast

There's a lot going on. again.

I just moved to Liverpool on Sunday and started a new job here on Monday. Hopefully I'll be staying here for my last 6 months. Fingers crossed everything will go according to the plan. 

A bit about my last few weeks.

Easter Sunday, me and few other backpackers went on a day trip up the north coast. We went all the way to Newcastle and back and stopped at the best beaches and lookout points we found. We saw Norah head lighthouse, the beautiful beach it was next to, a pelican point, cave beach and more. The lighthouse was beautiful, it's pale white and 28 meters tall. One of the backpackers was a photographer so we took few shots on the Caves beach. It was good fun. We also stopped to have freshly made fish and chips by the sea. The guy at the counter told me that the fish and chips of the day is not ''too fishy'', but it sure was fishy to me. Definitely not the best fish and chips I've had.

The trip up the coast was good. Not too long and not too short. A perfect little road trip for sing along in the car. It was a beautiful day and it went by a way too quick. I recommend at least 2 days for such trip, If you actually wanna look around a bit more than 15 minutes at a time. 

 

On the way back there was a thunderstorm, It was beautiful. Nothing compared to the thunderstorms in Serbia tho. 

We went to Terrigal with Simon on the previous week and actually stayed over night so we could see and do more. The beaches were great and most of our time we spent on this little side beach with no waves and a lot of pelicans. There was also this lovely little restaurant right on the beach with a great view. By the way if I haven't mentioned earlier, Pelicans are my all time favourite birds. I even got a pelican selfie!

Terrigal was small and idyllic. Just enough to see for the weekend. Nice little cafe's and surf shops. And it's only 3 hour drive from Sydney. Our flat from Airbnb was amazing. Actually all the places we were looking from Terrigal were pretty awesome and not at all expensive.

So, here you go. Pelicans for days. Your welcome. 🔝

No place like home

I recently came back from my 3-week surprise vacation in Finland. My original plan was to go there on July-august, when it's summer there but someone really important to me passed away and I had to attend her funeral. As you would think, everything happened really quickly and I had no time to plan my trip what so ever. Could't even mentally prepare myself for the 24- hour flight. I flew through Doha and Both flights went by quicker than I thought.

I was lucky enough to have a steady accommodation at my Dad's place, while he was away on a holiday with my younger siblings. I did some dog sitting. I looked after our cute Neapolitan mastiff, Princess. I was really busy everyday, seeing friends and family. I love keeping busy and it does me good. After a long day it was good to go to an empty home and just be by myself. My family lives in the island I grew up in. I've mentioned it in my blog before. You can check it out here. 

The weather in Finland was beautiful. It was a bit cold, -20 on the worst days, but I'd take that over wet and dark zero degrees any day. I must say I really missed Finland and the beautiful views. Not the weather tho. I've completely forgotten how unpleasant cold feels like. I felt like I had to put all my clothes on everyday. I was still freezing outside and sweating like crazy indoors. I never felt hungry either. Working out at the gym was awesome cause it warmed me up nicely. I took it slow for the whole three weeks, I didn't want to push my body too hard after the 50 degree and 9 h time difference. I managed without getting a flue or influenza. 

It was hard to go back. Especially when someone who I've missed terribly wasn't there any longer. My worst travel fear had come true. I also realized that nothing else had changed. Helsinki, the whole city was exactly like it was when I left and even better, when I saw my friends it was like I never left. Three weeks is a short time to go back, I had to schedule everything I did and only had few hours a day per person. I managed to see almost everyone I wanted to see at least once. I saw my niece for the first time and my little 4- year old brother first time in 2 years. For me, family is super important and most of my time I spent with my family. I got to attend to my sister's wedding dress fitting, other sister's birthday and my brother's house warming party. Funny thing is, my brother lives at my apartment. So weird when your apartment is someone else's home. I saw my cat's too. 

This is what happens when you ask your brother to take a photo.

My last 5 days I stayed at my Best friend Charlotta's place. I needed some quality time with her. I've missed her so much. We haven't been in touch as much as I would've thought we would be and it was a relief to realize nothing had changed between us. We ran in the snow, went to the sauna, watched movies and did a photo shoot. It was healing and a perfect way to end my trip.

I've been back for a week now. Last Friday I went to the Ed Sheeran concert and yesterday I went to the Easter show in Sydney Olympic park. I've been training like crazy, I've given up on red meat and made promises not to eat out as much. It sure has been busy. Today I had a bikini shoot with a familiar photographer and it was so much fun! I'll get the pictures in 3- weeks or so. Tomorrow, me and my friend Simon will hopefully go to the 8- figure pools. It's a 4- hour hike and I'm really excited. More about that later. 

Melbourne -A city of culture

I recently got back from my surprise trip to Finland. But I'll tell you all about that later, first I wan't to publish this post I've been meaning to publish for weeks now.  I actually wrote a post about this four weeks ago, but I lost the post somehow. Still bugs me cause I thought it was perfect and I wasted hours on it. I can’t redo perfect but I’ll try my best.

I've been staying in Melbourne since Christmas and only cause I had to go back home for a bit I left.

The thing I love most about Melbourne is how there’s always something happening. I was telling about Melbourne markets, a music festival at a winery and outdoor cinemas, which has been on my bucket list for a quite a while now. I was lucky enough to go see the Victorian markets and the south Melbourne night markets. I went crazy about the food and the organic, handmade cosmetics. Obviously. There was live music, bars, food trucks, jewelry, skincare products, clothes and souvenirs. Definitely worth experiencing. Both markets we’re pretty close to where I was staying as well. It was easy to get there with the public transportation. The Victorian markets are right next to the Flagstaff station. South Melbourne markets we’re a bit further but a tram took me right in front of the place.

Did you know that there’s massive wineries right outside of Melbourne? I’ve always wanted to have a winery tour. I just might do that in Tasmania later this year. Anyways I went on a winery music festival. It was in the Yarra Valley. There was four of us going and we had organised a car to take us there. What I found out later, the car ride was actually cheaper than the buses organized to take people there and back. I’ve never been to a festival like that. People had pick-nick chairs and blankets covering the festival grounds everywhere. They had packed snacks and drinks. There were whole families too. I’m thinking of trying to do that on a festival one day too. It looked super chill.  I think I was the youngest person there. I probably knew two songs. As the artist were saying how they love their fans who have been their fans for over 30 years, I realized I probably wasn’t the target audience. Unlucky for us the area right in front of the stage was gated and our tickets couldn’t get us in. We were not prepared for that. We wanted to dance. Two of my friends actually snuck in for a bit and they said it was great. Almost killed my festival spirit. We had good food and some drinks and went to a nice night club after. Turned out to be a great night.

I actually went to the outdoor cinema in Sydney but there’s also heaps of them in Melbourne. I just didn’t have time to go over there cause of all my work. I think outdoor cinema is the right way to watch a movie. It was so much better. There were beanbag chairs, food trucks and amazing atmosphere. I reckon on a warm summer night like that, there's nothing better. Don’t forget your blanket. I dare you to do it.

Byron bay Shell harbor and Huskisson

I flew to Sydney Friday morning on a 6 AM flight. I had the next 4 days off and it felt good to have a plan to do something other than just be. My friend Simon was picking me up from the airport and we drove straight down the coast to Huskisson. Same place and a same house as last year. That was a surprise. All our friends were already there. Quickly unpacked the car and went straight to the beach. All the Beaches down there are amazing, but this one I had never seen before. The water was so warm and shallow. I could spend the whole day there. And we did. Back at the house we had a massive BBQ and after that we started our Australia day celebrations. We played drinking games like beer pong, card games and Dart. It was good to see people I haven't seen in a long time. Late that same night we all walked down to the nearby beach to see the blue glitter in the ocean, like we did last year for the first time.  I guess it's some kind of marine organisms that glow in the dark. It's breathtakingly beautiful. Check out: bioluminescence. It wasn't as bright this time but it was still good to see.  After all a good night with good people.

SECLUDED BEACH

Saturday everybody was awake early, except me. I can't believe I slept for 10 hours. Could have something to do with the fact that I was awake for 26 hrs straight on Friday. Anyways, the weather was great. Like usually in Australia and everyone wanted to go back to the beach again. But I felt like doing something more, go explore a bit. Simon found a blog post about this secluded beach in the national park. It was a 2.3 k hike to the beach but it seemed worth it. We decided to go for it. No one else wanted to come, I suppose hiking is not the best thing to do when hangover. 

The hike was great. I've always found blackened and burnt trees beautiful. There's that many bush fires in Australia, so you can always tell when there's been a bush fire a few years back when the trees are black from the outside but everything else is green. I find it fascinating. I love to look around all the different plants and trees and search for animals. No animals this time but I'm not disappointed. The last 5 minutes of the walk were downhill, and the whole time you could see the most beautiful beach down behind the trees. It was perfect.

The beach was so much bigger than I expected and there we're approximately 10-15 people there which was great. We found a perfect spot to lay and to tan. The water was great too, it was perfectly cool and not too wavy. I'm not fan of the waves cause I've never really learned how to dive waves or swim in the waves. I reckon we spent easily 4 to 5 hours there. As we were leaving we noticed heaps of dolphins in the water too. Some kids tried to swim to them but they were too far. It was amazing to see though. I've seen heaps of dolphins around the world, especially in Australia and America, but It's always amazing. We were a bit worried about the hike back since it was uphill for quite a bit, but it turned out to be good and I felt really good after.

Later that night we all went out to look for a place to have dinner. All the restaurants were packed. Finally we found a Chinese place that had a table for our group of 9. We waited for an hour and half and it was the worst Chinese food I've ever had. 3 of us drove back to Sydney that night. Other than that the day was perfect. Actually the whole weekend was pretty great.

I've been down there twice now and I'd go again.

Sunday I spent training and chilling. Getting back to the routine. Monday I was by the pool pretty much the whole day. I got my tan back that had faded in Melbourne. And Monday night I flew back to Melbourne.

I've had the worst luck lately. I finally had the feeling that I'm getting my luck back. Shouldn't say anything I guess. My flight was delayed for almost 3 hours. And the worst part is, we were already sitting in the plane when they announced about the delay. So there I sat in a fully booked plane almost 3 hours before it even took off. Back in Melbourne around 11 PM it was raining like crazy and I was wearing thongs. Almost slipped 3 times.

I know stuff like this happens, but 3 weeks ago when I was flying back to Melb from Syd again, I took the sky bus cause it was supposed to take me 1 hr to get home with that. Turned out that all the trains to my direction were cancelled and I had to take 2 different buses and a tram. I missed my tram by 30 seconds and It ended up taking me 2,5 hrs to get home. Also as you might have read before, a month ago my Bali flights were cancelled and It was a pain to get new ones. It seems my luck with transportation is the worst. I'm afraid to by the plane tickets to Finland for July. Maybe I get stuck in there.

Fingers crossed that I won't be Donald Duck for the rest of my life. 

The great ocean road and Phillip Island

After Christmas I was lucky enough to have a friend here in Melbourne with me, and we had the time to do all the things we wanted to do here. As many of you already know, I was really sick for the first few weeks of this year and due to that sickness I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted. I got antibiotics and it got better in a week. We did the great ocean road in 2 days and went to the Phillip islands. We really wanted to see the penguins but they show up around 8 PM and it's 2 hrs drive away from Melbourne so we couldn't stay that late. Luckily, there's penguins in St. Kilda as well! And I already went to see them last Friday. They're so cute.

Anyway, back to the great ocean road.
We drove the fastest way possible to Warrnambool, which is a small town on the other end of the GOR. We spent the first day there, mostly in the Place called Tower Hill wildlife reserve, short 20 min drive away from the town. I highly recommend this place! All the animals there are free, wild animals, not caged or captured. We did 1 hr long walk to the volcano and back, on the way we saw Koalas, Emus and Kangaroos. I could've easily spend the whole day there. Later that day we went to check out the beach and the whale lookout point. It's not the whale watching season but I can imagine how beautiful it would be during the season. The beach was clean and beautiful.

The first time I've seen a koala in the wild.

The next day we drove down the great ocean road and stopped at the 12 Apostles and all the best beaches. It was beautiful and a perfect day despite the 40 degree heat. It's a beautiful drive and definitely worth seeing.

Few days later we went to the Phillip island and it was another perfect day. There's a chocolate factory, multiple beaches, including the penguin point, the animal reserve and multiple restaurants. I can't begin to tell how much I love animals, so to me the animal reserve was the best thing. I fed kangaroos, wallabies, Emu's and cassowaries.  Another priceless experience.

Last few weeks I've been working and getting back to the normal work routine here in Melbourne. Next weekend is a long weekend, so I'm going to Huskisson with bunch of friends. Can't wait! The beaches there are amazing. All about that next week!

Happy incoming Australia day all!

Can there be Christmas in the middle of summer?

Oh Christmas..

What a wonderful time of the year. It's dark and chilly. There's only Christmas lights and white snow.
Days go by under the blankets drinking hot chocolate or warm Glogg. (Traditional Christmas drink)
Christmas songs play everywhere and you spend time with the whole family. And for once nobody is fighting or arguing.

At least that's my vision of Christmas.

In Australia on the other hand, October to March it's summer! The temperatures in Sydney and Melbourne can go up to 46 degrees. People eat prawns and other seafood and go spent their days by the beach. Despite the Christmas decorations I can't feel like it's Christmas. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel like I've skipped 2 Christmas's already.

Then again I'm loving the sun. Christmas week only I went to the beach 3 times and I'm going to keep going. I'm willing to give up Christmas in order to enjoy the sun.

This year I did all in my power to feel more like Christmas. My brother brought me some specific food's to Bali and I managed to make a pretty good traditional Christmas dinner with potato and carrot bakes, pickled turkey with Finnish creamy mustard, traditional creamy brown sauce and cinnamon buns. I even managed to find German Glogg from Dan Murphy's. It was close enough.

I moved back to Melbourne on Jan 24th. I've already done heaps of exploring and will write about those adventures later.

Ps. No new years resolution for me, I'm still trying to fulfill the promise I made 3 years ago. 

All about Bali & Lombok

Finally after all the Christmas hassle I'm ready to tell you guys about my holiday in Indonesia!
My last post I wrote about my thoughts on the plane, finally on my way to get where I wanted to go and I'm telling you now my trip did not end up being what I expected.

I got over my home sickness and I finally got to hang out with my brother. I feel like I got my urge to travel and explore back again. And this feeling is amazing!

Without further explanation, let's get to the point: My trip.

My first destination was Ubud. Ubud was beautiful, not at all what I expected. Beautiful rice fields and jungle but also a nice city center with beautiful small cafe's and shops. We had a private villa with an infinity pool. It was surely amazing and an awesome start. Unfortunately I only had 2 days there since I was 4 days late from my original plans. Our only full day in Ubud, we hired a driver who took us to a temple, hot springs, waterfalls, beach and a coffee plantation.

But just as an advice to everyone considering this kind of a trip: Don't take the offer the hotel or Villa offers. Get a private driver and it'll be at least half the price.

The second destination was Gili trawangan, which is one of the gili islands in Lombok.
Early in the morning we had organised a bus for us, to take us to the harbor. We shared a bus with heaps of other backpackers. The bus drive was few hours and following that we had a boat ride for about 1,5 hrs to Gili trawangan. I recommend to take a good backpack, nothing with wheels, they are hard to carry and really inconvenient.  There's no proper harbor so everything extra just stands on your way.

At trawangan we stayed in a hotel, owned by a finnish lady. It was a nice quiet hotel with a pool. ( Then again, everywhere was quiet cause of the volcano.) Personally I think it was the best time to travel there. We rented push bikes and cycled around the island. (Must thing to do!) We found all these beautiful spots with swings and beautiful quiet spots to relax. Most of our time in gili went exploring the island and relaxing at the beach or by the pool.

After trawangan we went to Gili meno. Personally Gili meno was NOT my favourite. I'd say it's for couples and people who wan't to be left alone and just relax in the sun. Our hotel was really, and I mean REALLY close to nature. In our 4 days there I had lizards, birds, a CRAB and a nice huntsman spider in my room or in my stuff. I love animals but all that took my sleep and peace of mind. The crab was somehow in my luggage, so when browsing my stuff I came across it. Yikes. Also the huntsman spider was in my bed. A slight nightmare in the middle of the trip.
We did go snorkeling and it was the best thing in the whole Meno island. After a minor panic attack in the water I got really into snorkeling and definitely going again soon! I saw turtles, statues, shipwreck, a moray eel and heaps of different beautiful fish. Anyways Meno island wasn't my favourite. Everything was really expensive, not much to do and it was hard to cycle around cause of the soft sand. They do have these horse carriage taxis there, but the horses look really miss treated so we decided not to support such business.

Our last destination was Seminyak, Bali. Can't begin to tell you how amazing the Villa was. It was a small paradise in the middle of loud and busy seminyak. Not complaining though, after deadly quiet Meno it was a welcome change. I could've stayed there for another week. We had a pool, a fish pond, living room, full equipped kitchen with a freezer full of magnum ice cream and a big beautiful rooms. My room was furnished with my favourite colour: Blue.

First day there we spend shopping and the second one treating ourselves. I got a manicure, pedicure, massage, waxing and a candle wax treatment. Service was great, but unfortunately the work was bad. So if you wan't to treat yourself, check a place with good ratings.
My brother and his girlfriend Jenna left a day before me, so I had a day just for my self. I saw 3 different temples, went to the local markets and to a monkey temple. I've never seen monkeys in the wild before and it was amazing! One monkey even jumped on my lap out of nowhere. What a hungry cuties. I bought them some peanuts. Unlike I was told, they didn't try to steal anything just curiously following and asking for food.

At first I was worried and thought that Bali would be like Thailand. A lot of people kept telling me that. It was nothing like it. I would go again. Not straight away but at one point. People were really polite and helpful and there was a lot to do and see. I found a few most beautiful places I've seen.

Yes, it's a common thing in Asia that people keep selling you stuff and trying to make you pay for everything, but that's the only similarity I could come up with between Thailand and Bali.