Gold Coast (2)

Wednesday 4th February

Morning poolside then afternoon on a river cruise. We opted for a conventional approach rather than take an Aquaduck:

The return journey was considerably enlivened by sailing along with a small pod of dolphins.

Once the cruise was over, we headed for the tram again - this time travelling south to Broad Beach and the huge shopping mall there, followed by a quick beer at the Lucky Squire then back to our resort on the tram. We ate casually in Chapter and Verse.

Thursday 5th February

Another day trip - this time south to Byron Bay across the state line in to New South Wales. Lots of photos on WhatsApp but none of them do the place full justice - it's lovely. Even our lunch at what was little more than a shack shop was very good:

We went back to the iconic lighthouse with Jo swearing all the way that there was no way she was going all the way down this time, so we mocked up a pretend photo of her coming back up exhausted:

An hour later, after changing her mind and going all the way down to the beach, here's the real thing:

There was a quick pit stop at Stone & Wood before we hit the motorway north again:

We were too tired - and sweaty - to go out again so we just ordered a couple of cheese plates and a glass of wine each from room service.

Friday 6th February

Final full day in Surfers Paradise so we spent it all at the resort - packing, poolside and a leftover cheese platter for dinner. I forgot to take any photos but Jo took a couple poolside:

Tomorrow morning we drive to the airport, drop the car off and fly back to Adelaide - just in time for Chris' birthday bash at Uraidla.

Gold Coast

As usual, we both awoke far too early on Saturday morning. Whenever there's a flight to catch the anxiety sets in. We did the remaining tidy/clean-up of our little cottage and awaited our Uber, who turned up bang on time at 6:20 am.

It took exactly 30 minutes to reach the airport and check-in and security were straight-forward. Now we were ready for some brekkie. The Virgin flight was relatively short and timely - not that either of us remembered much about it.

We picked up our little Mazda at a busy Gold Coast airport and drove north to Surfers Paradise, arriving at our lovely upmarket resort before noon. Now the waiting began as our room wouldn't be ready until 3 pm. A spot of lunch and some book-reading helped pass the time.

Once settled in to our suite and having unpacked, we decided to take an exploratory stroll downtown via the vast sandy beaches. Coming upon a hive of activity on Elkhorn Avenue we lucked out when we stumbled on Surfers Brewery where we had a couple of very nice beers - but unfortunately not food. We were a little dismayed when we found out that this was their last day in business - it was being taken over the following day and they were running down their stocks prior to the handover, which we subsequently discovered was not going to be a brewery at all - the place was being stripped to be replaced by who-knows-what.

We eventually found a nearby little Thai restaurant and ate there:

Sunday 1st February

Our first full day and, after a lovely but busy breakfast, we headed for the quiet corner of the pool complex, where we used to sit the last time we stayed here. On that previous occasion we occasionally were accompanied in the pool by a large Eastern Water Dragon but it seems to have moved on now - perhaps it was a bit scary for the kids in the pool.

Later on we wandered downtown again and located the House of Brews which we recalled visiting 9 years ago:

 

We strolled back to our resort along the esplanade:

..... but returned in good time for our meal at the teppanyaki table at the in-house Japanese restaurant, where, as usual, our chef put on a show:

We went full Japanese with some sake samplers:

Monday 2nd February

We had originally planned to drive up to the Tamborine Mountain rainforest today but it was overcast here at the coast and the forecast was for a potential thunderstorm inland so we decided to postpone this trip for a day.

We spent the day at the resort including a stroll along the short walkway next to the river pontoons at the back of the hotel. In the evening we ventured on the G:link tram service north a few stops up to Southport to visit a relaively new brewpub there - SOCO. Nice enough place and the pizza was good but the beer was, frankly, disappointing:

Tuesday 3rd February

Weather forecast had improved - no threat of storms - so off we headed to the rainforest. We started at the Skywalk which took us through to Cedar Creek:

Further on there was a lookout with the final piece cantilevered. Jo was very reluctant to come out to the end which was rocking and rolling from side to side as we moved along the platform:

Heading back to the local town centre we stopped off en route and took in the trail walk down to Curtis Falls:

We had lunch at a little restaurant/winery opposite the German Cuckoo Clock Nest, which is, as the name implies, full of cuckoo clocks:

Downtown again that evening we ate at the Italian Kitchen and then wandered back, stumbling upon and stopping at the enormous Four Pines brewpub.

Adelaide (4)

Saturday 24th January

Kelly took us on a ride out to Woodside for a return visit to Melba's Chocolate Factory where we all stocked up with treats. Asher dashed out of camera range as I attempted to take a photo:

Unfortunately, the adjacent cheesewright's was closed.

Sunday 25th January

The final day of the Tour Down Under and the start and finish were in nearby Stirling, where we had arranged to meet Matt and take in the buzz. Thousands lined the streets and there was a Sunday market on too. We managed to find ourselves at a shaded table in one of the parks, with a good view of the giant screen following the race.

Monday 26th January

Public holiday for Australia Day - or as many now call it, Invasion Day, so not one celebrated in the Steele household. Besides which, much had still to be done to clear out the Old Noarlunga house prior to it being tarted up professionally prior to sale. The seemingly endless work was bringing poor Chris to his knees. The work done so far had given a slightly eerie feeling to the house, bereft of its furniture etc:

Kelly had arranged a meet-up with one of his old school pals for Miller - over at Moana Beach, an old stomping ground for Jo and I. Unfortunately Miller's friend arrived pretty late and by then, Miller had been out in the sea and sun for a while and was beginning to show the effects on what was the hottest ever Australia Day on record. We had no option but to leave barely half an hour after Miller's friend had arrived. Asher and Miller had had a good time in the water, however - and Kelly, Jo and me had a bit of a splash too:

Tuesday 27th January

This was the day that Asher was due to start his new school but the temperature was in the 40's and, besides which, Miller's start had been delayed until tomorrow, so it made sense to keep Asher off today as well.

We helped out while Kelly and Chris juggled their busy home and work lives. Our almost daily walk between their rental and our Air B&B took us past the pub, behind which, and across the creek, was the "historic" Bridgewater Mill, currently closed unfortunately:

Today we did have use of the one of the cars so Jo and I decided to take a short run out to the lovely town of Hahndorf, originally formed by immigrant Germans and still maintaining a Teutonic feel about it. The town was very quiet - few tourists and the locals hiding indoors trying to escape the continuing heatwave. A walk up and down the main street and then lunch for us at the German Inn, which I think is a relatively new business that took over existing premises. Big place but very nice - and Jo got the German sausage she was craving. The slightly surprising thing about this very middle class, touristy place, was that I had to pay A$15 deposit for the glass which held my beer! Apparently they're very collectable  and people were walking off with them.

Wednesday 28th January

It was still hot but it had eased sufficiently to allow the boys to start their respective schools today. We all wondered how they would fare but they both settled in immediately and made friends too. As they say here - no worries.

Jo and I took a bus to Stirling - Jo wanted to go back to Matilda's and buy a book. At our bus stop there was an advert for Miller's school:

We got off the bus at Aldgate - the nearest village to where Chris' and Kelly's new house is going to be - and took a little walk around then stopped for a coffee before catching the next bus on to Stirling.

Thursday 29th January

We had one of the cars today and were doing the school pickups later on. When we got back to their rental house, Lily's anxiety had got the better of her again:

Friday 30th January

Another day when we were doing the school pick-ups - and very happy to do so. Asher's classroom is in the middle of the building just off the playground:

This was our final full day for now in the Adelaide Hills. It had been a really hot week. One night the overnight low had not dropped below 34 C - an all-time record for the area:

After a lovely evening, we Uber'd back from their temporary home - it was dark by the time we left and nobody was in a fit state to drive. We had an early flight to the Gold Coast tomorrow.

Adelaide (3)

Tuesday 20th January

Can't recall what we did - didn't take photos to remind me!

Wednesday 21st January

It was surprisingly cool as we walked the boys along the railway line back to their rental house, having been earlier dropped off at our cottage:

Thursday 22nd January

We took the boys to the cinema at Marion to see Anaconda, starring Jack Black. They managed to twist our arms afterwards to get yoghurt slushies:

Friday 23rd January

Miller had been invited to a birthday pool party at Marion outdoor pool so Jo and I drove him over there and went shopping until the party was over:

In the evening we were all going to have dinner at the local pub - the Bridgewater Inn:

While waiting to go, I sat outside our front door:

It was heating up nicely for the weekend and we had a lovely table next to Cox Creek for our dinner with Kelly, Chris, Miller, Asher, Chris' brother Matt and his daughter Abby. Jo managed - just - across the stepping stones but refused the return journey, opting for the bridge instead:

Adelaide (2)

Saturday 17th January

Not sure what we did during daytime hours but in the early evening we paid a quick trip over to Aldgate ro see how the site for the new house was coming on (WhatsApp has the photos).

Sunday 18th January

Our first, and so far only, proper walk. The Heysen Trail is a long distance - 1,200 kms (750 miles) - trail in South Australia and part of it passes through Bridgewater - right behind our little cottage, in fact. We took some advice from Kelly on what we could do and she recommended a loop up the Fire Trail that should take us approximately an hour or so.

The first bit is easy - flat, wide and well-defined - barring the odd termite mound:

We then turned off the main trail and went up the Fire Trail which involved a bit of elevation. We reached what we thought was the high point where, to complete the loop back to the main trail the name changed to Ridge Trail. That's when it started to get a little tricky. The path narrowed and we continued to climb. We passed a sign for a turn-off to the summit of Mount George, just 150 metres away, but carried on the Ridge Trail. It got pretty rocky and given the problems I was still having with my knee, post-op, and Jo with her COPD, we struggled a bit. When we eventually came to the end of the ridge and started the downward loop it got even more tricky and progress was slow.

I'm happy to report that we did eventually make it back down to ground level without any mishaps:

The moving part of our walk took us an hour and three quarters but the total elapsed time was 3 hours - there were frequent stops on the way. At the end of our walk the trail passed below the rear of our cottage - a view we hadn't seen before:

In the afternoon, Kelly drove all of us - bar Chris who was still working on clearing the Old Noarlunga house prior to it going on the market - over to Grunthal (https://grunthal.com.au/) - formerly Grumpy's but now transformed.

Monday 19th January

We all headed over to Old Noarlunga. While Miller was meeting with an old school pal, Jo and I took Asher for a short drive along the coast to revisit some of the places we used to go to - Port Noarlunga, Christie's Beach and beyond:

Of course, we had to bribe Asher with a visit to Beck's Bakehouse for ice cream.

Adelaide

A little later than scheduled, we arrived in Adelaide to a welcoming party of Kelly, Miller and Asher. They whisked us off to a deli where Kelly had ordered a huge "breakfast box" - fruits, breads etc. We are still working our way through it over a week later.

We checked in to our "charming historical cottage" in Bridgewater in the Adelaide Hills. Handily nearby is the Bridgewater Inn which has an enormous beer garden looking over Cox Creek. Across the road from that is a small shopping centre which has a decent-sized Coles supermarket where we were able to stock up our accommodation with essential food and drink supplies.

The owners of the cottage had left us a generous welcome pack of essentials, including champagne, luxury ice cream and chocolate. Everything seemed perfect but we later noticed that there was a bit of a damp issue downstairs where the utilities, bathroom and bedroom were. We soon resolved this matter by running the dehumidifier daily - as instructed by the owners.

Kelly, Chris and the boys had just moved in to a rental property nearby while their new house is being built. It is just a 10-15 minute walk along/beside a train line used occasionally by freight trains.

Our first full day in S.A. was Friday. It's school summer holidays here so we arranged to take the boys to Stirling while their parents worked. It was just a 10 minute bus journey from our place. We had planned to take the boys to Cacao, a chocolate/coffee shop but it was closed. We did manage to pick up books for Kelly at the library and we had lunch with Miller and Asher in the smart Stirling hotel.

The return journey meant a 15 minute walk from the bus stop to Kelly and Chris' rental, passing this odd looking tree:

Finally, we arrived:

That evening we all drove to Lobethal for a return visit to what used to be one of our favourite places - the Bierhaus. It was mobbed but Chris had booked a table so we were fine. We enjoyed a paddle - and a couple of cask ales in the atmospheric surroundings:

End of (full) day one - Friday 16th January.

2026 Down Under - stage 2 - Darwin

From Singapore we flew in to Darwin - in the middle of cylcone season - but all was calm during our 3 nights/2 days stay. Our accommodation was at a fairly upmarket airport resort run by 3 diffeent hotel brands. We got picked up by the resort shuttle for the short journey to our room. We were so close to the airport that we could have walked it. Despite this proximity, planes landing and leaving never disturbed us - we never heard them.

Our room was at the fringe of the resort with what looked like jungle backing on to us. We had our own little pool too - lovely.

After a decent night's sleep followed by breakfast at the Pool Bar, we ordered an Uber to take us on the 15 minute ride downtown. The Tourist Information Centre gave us some good advice which we planned to follow, starting with a wander round the harbour:

A big part of Darwin's history relates to the second world war when it was attacked incessantly by Japanese war planes. There's a fine exhibition, complete with 360 degree vision via VR sets. It's attached to the history of the Flying Doctor service where we used the VR headsets again to fly over King's Canyon and land the small plane on a short dirt strip. There are static depictions as well:

Walking back to the town centre we had planned to jump on a bus to take us to the main museum but the timetable worked against us and we wouldn't get there until 10 minutes before it closed, so we decided to just chill with beers at a local bar before riding with Uber back to our resort.

We used room service and had a nice meal and a bottle of wine before turning in.

On day 2 we decided that, rather than go back to downtown Darwin we would have a well-deserved rest day and just enjoy the lovely resort instead. After all, we had a very early start in the morning so it was room service again and an early night.

Morning arrived and the shuttle took us back to the terminal. Some dark clouds were just about visible - a short storm was passing through. We boarded the plane but had to sit on the runway for 45 minutes to allow the storm to fully pass but soon we were on our way to Adelaide.

From snow in Banchory to the heat of Singapore

I definitely spoke too soon in my last post when I said winter hadn't started. Somebody must have heard me because the snow suddenly arrived between Christmas and New Year - with a vengeance. Gary and Luca didn't dare to travel from Inverurie to Banchory for their New Year's Day dinner - steak pie and trifle - and they made the right decision as they might have got stuck in Banchory for a few days. We had also had to cancel our plans for a Hogmanay late lunch in Drumoak with Anne and Leslie.

Once in to 2026, our main concern was getting out of Aberdeen. The day before we were due to fly to Singapore via London, our airport was closed, but thankfully the snow relented a little and we were able to leave on schedule.

We arrived in Singapore in the early evening and checked in to our beautiful colonial themed hotel just in time for a quick bite in the members' lounge before heading to our small but well appointed room for a good night's sleep.

We had 4 nights - 3 full days - in the city state and walked round places familiar and new to us. Often cloudy but the temperature never strays far from the 30 C mark - not even overnight.

One of the familiar spots was Fort Canning park:

Jo overcame her fears and made it to the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel this time - and felt completely safe looking over the whole country from 50 + storeys up:

One of our favourite evenings was when we went to what is known coloquially as "Satay Street". The road is blocked off at both ends and long tables are set up alongside a whole row of street vendors basically doing nothing but barbecued satay - lovely.

The Family WhatsApp group contains a number of photos taken on our stay in Singapore so I'll end here.