Sculptures by the Sea

For two weeks during mid-October, Bondi Beach hosted the world's largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition, Sculpture by the Sea. This is the 18th year of the very popular exhibition. One of Sydney's most loved events, the spectacular Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk is transformed into a two kilometre long temporary sculpture park featuring over 100 sculptures by artists from Australia and across the world.

This post is mainly going to be an epic photo drop, since there's not much to say other than we spent the morning walking through a very busy but also very interesting outdoor gallery. The out door art often also took into account the environment and many pieces worked with elements of the environment to enhance it's visual or conceptual impact, which I thought was really cool. The thing I found really cool about this show was that it's a completely privately funded event; meaning, it's not put on by the government with some stimulus or other, but rather, it's a legitimate curated gallery show where all the pieces are for sale. Also, I especially enjoyed the small-scale sculpture tent where artists displayed mock-up, exploration or miniature derivatives of the larger scale pieces displayed outside.

Overall, it was a really well-put together event, and the only annoyance was how busy it was! 

Recycled plastic bottle caps and zip ties.

This was Rob's favourite

A Tara in a box

Spirograph!

The last photo taken by the camera before Rob accidentally dropped and broke it... that's the second camera to die while traveling...

Bondi beach walk

A cool sculptural structure

Mock-up version vs. real life piece

Mock-up version, and then the life-size version representing the Bondi Sunset

Loved these dudes

Snakes and Ladders....haha!

Giant frying pan!

At the end of the morning, we headed back to the motorcycle to go home, and we discovered we had been totally blocked in by other motorcycles and scooters. We had parked in that orange space, and had to move the bike beside us over so that we could very carefully try to snake the bike out between the truck beside us and the second row of bikes. Super frustrating, but we did it!

Long weekend in Eden

Day 1 of our trip

 I've got a whole list of things to blog about that we've done over the past month and a half, so I'm renewing my efforts to get them written and posted before Christmas!

Over the first weekend in October, Rob and I took a long weekend (the labour day holiday here in Australia) to have a grand motorcycle adventure. We picked a town called Eden and decided that this would be the destination for our journey. After searching Air BnB for a place in Eden, we ended up extending our search to the surrounding area and found a lovely little place in a town called Tathra, just north of Eden. We booked three nights at Bob and Veronica's place and very much looked forward to our first day out on the road. I made a batch of quiche to keep us fueled up for the day, and we packed up our side cases, and headed out on the open road at the crack of dawn Friday morning.

We decided to take the highway along the coast to head south. This led us through some lovely coastal towns and we periodically stopped along the way to enjoy the quaint little towns. We did nothing more exciting that first day than enjoy lovely views, warm weather, the wind, the waves, the roads, and small town charm. We stopped in Tilba, where we wandered down the quaint streets and stopped at a local cheese makers and tasted/bought some delicious cheeses to have with crackers for dinner. We approached Tathra around 4:00 pm and stopped on the side of the road first to enjoy the view of on-coming mist through the trees, and then just a few more minutes down the road, a mob of wild kangaroos out in the field beside the road. This was the first time we'd seen more than one kangaroo in the wild, and dusk is the time when the roos are most active. It was like seeing a pack of deer back in Canada, they all stood together, watching us warily, and wondering why we were so interested in them. After taking a moment to enjoy this truly Australian tableaux, Rob revved the engine and sent the mob hopping off to disappear into the tree line. We set off once more, elated that we had finally gotten the chance to see the roos. There's a video at the end of this post of the kangaroos.

One of the many scenic look outs as we traveled south along the East coast of New South Wales

Port Kembla, where we stopped for a coffee and some home made quiche (so yummy)

Batemans Bay, where we stopped for lunch and shared a roast chicken and green salad from the Woolworths. This seemed a better choice than fast food or fish and chips.

In the small town of Tilba, we stopped to take a little stroll and check out the local shops. This area certainly reminded me of small town Ontario; I found an awesome tea shop that sold some super cool teapots. We didn't buy one, though, because we were afraid it wouldn't survive the journey home!

Stopping to admire approaching dusk and mist

Top: The evening mob of Roos  Bottom: We arrived at our home base

When we got into Tathra, Bob and Veronica (and their scraggly, ancient dog, Chloe) welcomed us into their beautiful home. The place was just a few minutes' walk from the ocean, and the views in the area were gorgeous. Veronica is an artist and her beautiful paintings and art pieces adorned all the walls of our space; the home really had a warm, inviting vibe. We got free rein of the ground floor, and Bob and Veronica lived upstairs. We didn't have a kitchen, but breakfasts would be taken care of for us and we'd planned to be out and about for most other meals.

After unloading our luggage, we hoped back on the motorcycle for a quick tour of the town and to find a grocery store and bottle shop to get a few supplies for dinner. We weren't too hungry for dinner, and so just a couple of drinks and some veggies, meats and crackers for our cheeses would do us just fine.

Day 2 of our trip

On day 2, we planned to head into Eden to check out the town and maybe visit the killer whale museum. We enjoyed a lovely breakfast of tea and life-changing raisin bread and yogurt, and then headed back on the road. Rather than head straight to Eden, though, we took a few more interesting roads to get there, and stumbled across signs directing us to water falls. We thought, hey, let's check it out since we're here. We turned down a dirt road that we quickly realized hadn't been graded or kept up very well. After a few skull-rattling minutes of very steep, windy dirt roads, we found the clearing with some picnic tables and a public toilet. It looked deserted, and we weren't entirely sure where the falls were as we seemed to be in the middle of a forest. The road continued in a steep slope down into the forest, and we opted to walk down it, following the sound of running water that grew louder the further down the hill we walked. We had to be close now... The road turned into a footpath that hiked us into the forest, and we began to wonder if we were properly equipped for a bush walk through little creeks and up rocky footpaths, but the water sounds continued to grow louder and we really didn't want to give up and turn around now.

Suddenly, the forest opened up, and we stumbled onto this beautiful, secluded mountain falls. We had finally found it! Nethercote Falls is a series of cascades linking a chain of round pools in the rock. The last stage of the falls drops about 40 meters in a double stream into a large deep pool. We thought it would be a lovely place to go swimming, but after setting our feet in the water for a few minutes, the glacial water was a little too refreshing and I couldn't imagine swimming in it, especially at this time of year (early spring). It was extremely beautiful and serene, though, and we even discovered clutches of tadpole eggs and froggies in the rocks.

Searching for the falls

Enjoying the flora and fauna at the falls

The entire opening: pools, rocks, and falls

 After a few minutes relaxing here, we thought we should be on our way and dreaded the march back up the hill to the motorcycle. It wasn't so hard heading down it, but in the half hour we'd spent at the falls, the morning had began to warm up and our layers of bike gear were now a little warm as we huffed back through the forest and up the hill to the motorcycle. We took a moment to catch our breath, then headed back out on the open road to make our way to Eden.

The Eden boardwalk

Eden was a welcome sight after our impromptu morning hike; we were hungry for lunch and had been craving some fresh oysters. We'd seen a number of oyster farms in some of the bays we'd past and really wanted to try some of the local sea food. Sadly, without any good insider info, the place we stopped at for lunch was a bit of a let down. It was overly expensive (even by Aussie standards) and wasn't the greatest, but we did enjoy some fresh oysters and fish while taking in a beautiful view, so I can't be too severely negative.

We briefly considered going to the killer whale museum, but ended up opting to get back on the road and wander the open country side until we got to Bega. Now, I was interested in Bega. Since moving to Sydney, part of our experiences living in a new country is learning all the new food brands in the grocery stores. We found that Bega was our favourite brand of 'standard' cheese (think Kraft or Cracker Barrel) and other dairy products, and I wanted to know if Bega the town was the birthplace of Bega the brand.

It was! We decided to stop at the Bega Cheese Heritage Center and check it out. The centre was a little underwhelming, but offered visitors the chance to try cheeses and to learn about the history of dairying and Bega Cheese in the Bega Valley. They also sold a bunch of souvenirs, farm-themed giftware, jams & honey, and of course, lots of cheese. We had arrived only a few minutes before they closed up for the night, though, so we didn't have much time to look around. We bought two little Bega cows for our travel collection, and continued on our way. Anyone who knows us well knows that we love playing a somewhat silly game called "My Cows" where we claim cows we see on road trips for our personal and extensive (and rather international) herd of cows. The Bega Valley was positively full of cows, to the point where we actually stopped calling them because there were so many, so we thought the cow figures would be a nice way to remember the area! Another day done, we headed back toward Tathra to relax on the couch and do some reading.

Me and Queenie, kickin it old school at the Bega Cheese Heritage Centre

Day 3 of our trip

Day 3 was a great one! Today we planned to visit one of the many fantastically gorgeous beaches we'd been seeing all weekend from the road. The ever-helpful Bob gave us a couple of recommendations, and also advised us to check out a town called Candelo that morning because they had a large spring market happening that day. We thought this sounded fun and headed there first thing. When we arrived, the morning had suddenly gotten really warm. One down side to taking a motorcycle around is that you have to wear your gear after you get off your bike, and carry around your jacket. It was very warm, but we made sure to hydrate and enjoyed wandering through the market. I bought two necklaces; one was a handmade wooden pendant and the other was a leather and gold choker from an antique dealer which I fell in love with. When the heat got to be a little much, the idea of visiting Nelson Beach had become even more inviting. We hopped back on the bike and headed to Nelson Beach.

When we got there, the temperature out by the ocean was a lot cooler. From the parking lot, there were two options: The Ocean Beach path and the Lagoon path. We opted for the Ocean beach and headed down a shrubby Secret Garden-esque path that popped us out on a glorious and largely empty beach. I think the Lagoon is more popular for swimming, etc, so our beach was very empty. We picked a dune and settled in to sunbathe, read, and enjoy the soothing sound of ocean waves.

The Secret Garden path out to the beach

Our very own private 2kms of beach! 

Nelson Beach was pretty easy to find, thanks to all the great signs!

 By mid day, we'd gotten a bit peckish and decided to head back to the bike and search for food. While I stopped at the public toilet before we'd head back on the road, I heard blood-cuddling screaming coming from the parking lot. It sounded like a young boy throwing a temper tantrum over not wanting to go home, but when I returned to the parking lot, Rob was standing with a very obviously upset little boy, desperately holding on to a boogie board, dressed in swimming trunks. He was sniffling and wiping his nose, and I knew in a moment that he was lost. Or, more specifically, he'd lost his parents. When I got over to the two of them, Rob looked very uncomfortable (he told me later he was afraid someone was going to think that he was trying to abduct this screaming kid), so I introduced myself and got the little boys name (so that I could identify calling parents) and then Elliot launched into tearful tale of woe. We decided to set out together to take a look for his parents, the whole while reassuring Elliot that we'd find his parents, no problem. And we did! His father was coming up the path as we were heading down to the Lagoon, and, embarrassed, thanked us for returning him. Good deed done for the day, we headed out to the bike for some well-deserved lunch in Bermagui.

We stopped at an awesome fish and chips shack and shared the most delightful fried swordfish I've ever tasted, and deep fried pineapple that was absolutely sinful. Afterward, we headed up to a look out point, and stopped for a beautiful ocean vista view when someone said something about a breaching pair of humpback whales. We could see them flapping their tails and making their way south along the coast, which was super cool and extremely unexpected.
 

Awesome-sauce fish and chips!

You can't see the humpbacks, but my finger is pointing right at the spot where they were breaching.

 We got home just in time to watch the Aussie Football League final tv, and see the Sydney Rabbitos take the cup. We felt decidedly Australian.

Day 4: Homeward bound!

Day 4 was our trip home, and the day dawned cold and grey. We were determined not to let the weather get us down, and took an absolutely beautiful road west through this mountainous parkland. It was extremely foggy on our way up, and it made the curvy mountain road feel mysterious and ghostly. The higher we climbed on the bike, we started to get glimpses through the layers of fog and trees that hinted at the promise of a breathtaking valley vista. Suddenly, the mist parted in what I can only refer to as a 'dramatic' fashion, and a scenic lookout appeared directly in front of us. We had to stop, and the view was magical and I could have stayed there for hours. It was like we had driven up a mountain straight into the sky, and had breached the clouds and could gaze out over the horizon. We watched the early morning sunshine glitter off the cloud tops, mountain peaks poking their noses up out of the misty clouds like the curious, playful humpback whales we'd seen only the day before. It was the kind of view that inspires artists and poets, I think. I was loving every tiny little detail, and the photos do not do this view justice. It's the kind of place that makes you fall in love with the beauty of nature and the wonders of creation.

The view from the lookout

The lookout, and stopping afterward for some coffee to warm up

On the other side of the mountain, the sun had appeared and the day warmed up, and we decided to take the long road home to ride through Canberra, the capital city of Australia. After such an awe-inspiring view that monrning, Canberra was a little underwhelming, but we did ride up to the parliament buildings and took a quick selfie on the bike before heading back home to Sydney.

The Australian Parliament

     

36 hours of Brisbane

Another adventure is under our belts here for Team Phillips. A few weeks ago, Rob and I decided to buy tickets to fly to Brisbane on a Saturday morning, and fly back to Sydney on Sunday night on September 27-28. The excuse? A fireworks festival in Brisbane called the Sunsuper Riverfire. It seems like kind of a weak reason to fly to a new city (especially since we can see fireworks from our roof top every Saturday night), but it gave us a reason to buy some tickets and have a whirl-wind adventure in Brisbane.

Rob getting his caffeine on before the flight

We were up super early to make it to the airport for our 6:30am flight. I hadn't been to the airport since we first landed in Sydney, and I was excited to feel the wind beneath my wings again. After some strong long blacks with milk (that's how we have to order coffee here... Australians drink mainly espresso; you're hard pressed to find drip-brewed coffee here. So, getting a nice big dose of coffee similar to the Canadian Double Double requires some specific requests in a cafe), we await boarding and catch up on Facebook using the airport WiFi. After a 1 1/2 hr flight, we landed in sunny Brisbane.

I wasn't really sure what to expect of the city when we arrived. We had done a bit of research to plan what we wanted to do and see while on our 36 hr visit, but you never really know what to expect of a new city until you get there. Honestly, I have to say that I can't imagine ever traveling again without an iPhone and Google Maps; we never got lost and we were able to make our way around the CBD with ease.

Sunrise as we board our plane to Brisbane

Brisbane is the Capital of Queensland state, and the 3rd largest city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne). It started as a penal colony in the early 1800's, but look where it is now!! We booked only one night at the Rendezvous Hotel, with check in at 3:00pm. We were downtown by 8:30am and had some major time to kill before checking in. Obviously, our first order of business was breakfast! If you know anything at all about Rob and I, you know that food and drink are big factors when we explore a new city. Breakfast was at the Pancake Manor, which sounded and looked more amazing than it actually was... A re-purposed church building, to be exact. But don't worry, we had a lot more of Brisbane to discover, and food and drink around every corner!!

Rob modeling our food over 2 days in Brisbane, including our Saturday breakfast, afternoon beer, Sunday breakfast, and lunchtime Pho (the first time we've ever eaten Tripe!)

After breakfast, we made our way, luggage in toe, over to the bridge to Southbank. Something interesting about Brisbane is that the CBD is built straddling the (less-than-blue) Brisbane River. There are a total of 15 vehicle and pedestrian bridges in Brisbane that let you move from Northbank to Southbank. Over the course of our time there, we probably crossed the bridges at least 6 times. Anyway, Southbank is where the art galleries and museums in Brisbane can be found. They are conveniently clustered together within 2 city blocks. Here you'll find the State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Art Gallery, The Queensland Museum, Queensland Performing Arts Center, and the Gallery of Modern Art. We opted for the Gallery of Modern Art, since it was free, and also we saw this confused fellow outside the building:

So. Intrigued.

The gallery was lovely, with an interesting mix of Australian and Asian modern art. Some of it I was attracted to, some of it, not so much. Here's some of the good stuff!

 The stuff on the left are sculptures I really liked in the gallery. You may notice a wardrobe change (one plus of carrying your luggage around with you) for my picture with Barnacle Beard (I named him thus) outside the Queensland Museum.

After trying to decipher some particularly challenging pieces of modern art, Rob and I were parched! We decided to take a moment to enjoy a newly opened James Squire brew pub. We shared a couple of tasting paddles (a couple sips of 8 different beers, they were largely underwhelming in flavour, but there were a couple that stood out!). I liked that they gave us a card so we knew what we were drinking and could keep track of what we'd tried and hadn't tried. Thanks, Squire!

Note: those are tasting glasses, not full pints or anything; the camera angle makes them look huge! We would've been *out* if we'd had 8 full beers in the 30 minutes we spent there!

As we sat discussing tasting notes at the brew pub, we looked across the street to where the entrance to the Brisbane Wheel was. We definitely wanted to go on the Wheel since Rob and I had never been on a ferris wheel together before. It would also give us an opportunity to get a bit of a birds' eye view of the city and an overly expensive photo op. We figured, what the hey, we're tourists for 36 hours, might as well do some touristy things!

We made our way over to the Wheel (which Rob continued to call the Sydney Wheel... even though Sydney doesn't even have a wheel), bought tickets, and climbed aboard. It was pretty cool to get a good view of Northbank, the really interesting wavy highways along the River, and the skyline. You can watch a video of our Wheel experience down at the bottom of this post as well.

Please don't judge the brown water...

After the Wheel, we crossed back over the bridge to Northbank and found our tummies rumbling. Lunch time! We ventured into the very busy Queen Street Mall, an open air mall of over 700 retailers that incorporates heritage Victorian building with modern refurbishments. This juggling trick makes it feel like it's got one foot in the past and one foot in the present. Here, we were able to find a Chemist (think Shoppers Drugmart) to grab some toothbrushes and toothpaste, and an amazeballs rotary sushi place. This is the first time I've ever had sushi from a conveyer belt, and the nice thing about being in a busy pedestrian mall is that the restaurant was really busy (that's what you're looking for at a rotary sushi bar to make sure the food is fresh and has not been spinning along a conveyor belts for 6 hours). It was great fun watching all the dishes travel past me, and the sushi was excellent.

Enjoying a classy beverage at the Bier Cafe

After sushi, we decided to head to the Hotel to check in. The room was small, but definitely perfect for a one night stay. We took a few minutes to freshen up (and I may or may not have had a 20 minute sushi-fueled power nap) and then headed back out to leisurely explore the city, finally free of our overnight bags. We wandered into the swanky Eagle Street Pier, a destination on the water that features a multitude of cafes and classier restaurants and bars overlooking the river. We spent some time at the Bavarian Bier Cafe drinking tasty beer and people watching. At one point, a Super Hornet did a fly-by and I almost pooped my pants. See, this Riverfire Festival we were here for is a pretty big deal, and I guess they got some Super Hornets to do scheduled fly-bys, as well as some dude on a water jet foot thing, which was crazy, and a military helicopter. Now, we knew nothing about this schedule until we heard this insanely loud fighter jet boom overhead. There has been talks recently in the Australian news about terrorist attacks and how the terrorist attack meter has gone to 'imminent' or something like that because of all the craziness with ISIS, and I'm not gonna lie, there was a moment where I was like "holy crap, are we under attack?!" I definitely got an adrenaline spike!

The military helicopter hovering outside out window at the Cafe, and the man on his Rocketeer-esque water jet thing.

 After all this unexpected entertainment, we made our way back over to Southbank for dinner, but not before stopping on the pedestrian bridge to watch another scheduled fly-by of hornets. Again, you can see this featured in the video at the end of the post. We made it to our dinner reservation at an Ethiopian place, then headed back to the bridge for the fireworks. We didn't take any pictures or videos of the fireworks (as we wanted to actually enjoy them real time), but the internet has been generous enough to provide an image for us:

Nothing to sneeze at

20 minutes later, the fireworks were spent and so were we, so we walked back to our hotel to rest after our full day of adventuring.  Thanks to YouTube for the awesome 25 minute video of the fireworks - we were too busy watching them to record!

The next morning, we got up and returned to Eagle Street Pier for breakfast. The place we found made fantastic breakfast, possibly the best we've had in Australia (you may remember our breakfast from the modelling shots Rob did earlier). There was a little vendors market set up in the Pier and we browsed for a little while after breakfast. Rob fell madly in love with an expensive pair of cufflinks that we didn't end up buying, and we talked to a lovely man who makes and sells Doc Martin-looking cow fur shoes... highly entertaining, he's got his pitch down pat!

From here, we took a hop on hop off sight seeing bus which took us on a bit of a tour through and out of the downtown core of Brisbane. This is the route:

We took the bus up to the Mt Coot-tha Lookout which was totally worth the long and twisty mountain ride. Brisbane played a huge part in the Allied Campaign in WWII; the South West Pacific Headquarters were based there as well as many American artillery outposts. The tour gave us a much broader perspective of the city and it's history. They definitely make a big deal about their Botanical Gardens, and the difference between the 'old one' and the 'new one'. It was nice to be able to get on and off where we wanted. Getting off at the Lookout, we took some pictures and gazed out at the wide vista of Brisbane and the surrounding area.

The view from Mt Coot-tha Lookout. The CBD can be seen on the left.

 On our way back to the CBD, we elected to stop in Chinatown, which ended up being a fantastic decision. We spent the rest of the afternoon here, as you'll see more details of our experience in the pictures below. We had stopped to have the big bowl of noodles we were craving (enter Pho place where we ordered giant bowls of soup with noodles, tasty broth, pork, chicken, tripe and squid... could not finish) and ended up finding a bunch of other cool things to see, including the Mammoth Brewpub that we spent most of the afternoon at.

The CBD from the west side of the bank

The colourful third-story brewpub with giant jenga blocks,  bocce ball, astroturf, and lovely new one-time friends!

I just loved how this place was decorated!!

Rob took an artistic photo of me enjoying the decor and the breeze through the open windows

Yes, the stairs up into this place is Star Wars opening

Enjoying the multitude of public art in Brisbane

It was a lovely time. I kind of wish we'd had a little more time to explore, but I definitely had enough time to decide that I liked the city very much and would recommend anyone go and visit!

To end off, another picture of the CBD from the lookout, and City Hall

Rob excited for breakfast!

And....... the video!

Coming up next; Rob, Sheila and I head out to Tathra for a seaside relaxation weekend.