Edinburgh: A weekend full of surprises

So I was pretty stuck on the Christmas present front for Nathan this year, he wanted a Tardisk Pear (for all you gadget people out there you probably know what this is - I don't) but I wasn't prepared to get it. I said in 10 years time you won't remember that amazing Christmas you got a bloody Tardisk Pear, so I thought I need to make it something to remember.

We both had said we want to go to Edinburgh at some point and with Nath's mum heading up there regularly for work, I thought why not. I managed to get super cheap flights through RyanAir, £35 return each. We wouldn't even be able to get to Burton for that price on the train. And then I went to my trusty old favourite for a place to stay AirBnB. I found a great apartment just outside the city with a fantastic host Ceana, a 45minute walk in, but a 20minute bus (link to the apartment at the bottom). 

Christmas came and I still wouldn't tell him what his present was, it wouldn't be a surprise otherwise. Instead I told him we'd be doing activities in London for the weekend, but basically all he knew what that we had to meet at London Liverpool Street at 5.30pm at the latest on the Friday night. He called me on arrival and asked which platform we were meeting as and I said 6, he was like 'Stansted Airport, are you sure?' It was brilliant, he had no idea. We boarded the train and I have him shortbread as a clue. Would you have guessed that it was to Scotland? Anyway Nathan had no idea, I was even wearing a tartan skirt. Eventually I told him. I love surprises!!

We landed in Edinburgh late Friday night and following advice from our AirBnB host we caught the city bus to the city centre. 

Upon arrival, we headed to Rose Street for a drink whilst waiting to meet our host to get the key to her apartment. We stopped at the Black Cat, with a sign 'sale on' beckoning us inside, £5 for a glass of red and a cider, could hardly say no. 

After receiving the key we got a taxi back to the apartment, as we couldn't figure out which bus we needed to get. The apartment was perfect with a large double room, brand new bathroom, kitchen and lounge. 

For the Saturday I had a full day full of activities planned, unfortunately it did mean we had to set our alarms pretty early. We got the bus into town and crossed the bridge to the Royal Mile and Tron Kirk where we were meeting our free walking tour guide. This was recommended to me by a Edinburgh local and a work colleague who has taken various friends on the tour. It was a cold start to the day, which we weren't as prepared for! We arrived early and headed straight for a coffee shop, coffee for Nath and hot chocolate for me to at least keep us warm for the start of the tour.

The tour took us mainly around the old town, we learnt a lot about the history and traditions of Edinburgh. Our guide was brilliant - despite not actually been Scottish she knew her stuff and a bit more. For the Harry Potter fans out there, the tour also gave us an insight into how the story began, where JK Rowling wrote some of the books, where she got inspiration for Hogwarts (second picture after this paragraph), where she got names from etc. The picture below with Nath is where Diagon Alley is based on. 

Following the tour, we headed to the Grass Market for lunch at The Last Drop. This was also recommended to me, as a particularly old pub. Back in the day it was also the spot where people came to drink after watching a hanging, I guess a clue is in the name. 

The rain stopped during lunch, so afterwards to walked some more around the old town before heading to the famous Edinburgh Castle, due to limited time we didn't go in but we took a couple of photos.

At this point it was starting to get dark and I desperately wanted to go up Arthur's Seat, so instead of going for a drink we made our way over. 45 minutes later and we were at the bottom totally unprepared in terms of walking gear (nb. Wear trainers at the very least if climbing/walking Arthur's Seat) but we started to climb anyway. This was our first glimpse of snow this year as there was a slight dusting as we got higher. We were lucky it was such a clear day as the views were incredible and at the town we had a 360degree view of the city.

We then started our descent down, it was cold so we slipped part of the way down. Earlier in the day, there had been a 5km up to the top and Mo Farah had been there, if only we'd known. On our walk back to the apartment, we happened to pass this pub that we'd seen on Google earlier in the day, which was one of the best pubs in Edinburgh, The Sheep Heid Inn and it lived up to it's title. It was quaint, tucked away with a beautiful roaring fire. 

My organised activities didn't end there. I had done some research before and The Guardian suggested The Ship on the Shore in Leith as somewhere to eat, so I booked. It was a bit of a mission from where we were staying as we had to get several buses but it was worth it. The food was amazing and very seafood focused. We had our favourite, oysters to start, followed by a huge seafood paella with lobster, clams, scallops, salmon, mussels you name it and a lovely bottle of red! 

Post dinner, we went to the pub next door for a night cap whilst we waited for the rain to stop. It was literally torrential, but eventually getting several buses back to the apartment. 

Unfortunately that was the end of our trip to Edinburgh with an early morning flight home. However it was definitely not a goodbye, more of a see you later Edinburgh.

Next destination: currently unknown but somewhere we can ski! 

Xo

Ps. Link to the AirBnB apartment -https://airbnb.com/rooms/6176750?s=8&user_id=12841972&ref_device_id=823ebbdc2d1ccdb8fccc977fdff9f63c6ed8f551 

Fraser Island 4x4 tour

Fraser Island is best described as 'out of this world' and has been Nathan and my highlights of the east coast so far.

Fraser Island is an unusual combination of rainforest and sand which makes it perfect for a bit of adventure. It is also 4x4 territory only because the entire island is made of sand and other vehicles just wouldn't be able to hack it. 

A few facts about the island:

🔘 Home to more than 230 species of birds - one of the largest and most varied in Australia

🔘 25 species of mammal present and isolation has ensured there is also the purest breed of dingoes (wild dog)

🔘 Native mammals included wallabies, possoms, flying foxes and echidnas

🔘 During the migration of Humpback Whales they stop by some of the sheltered bays of Fraser Island

🔘 The waters which fringe the island have been home to more than 50 shipwrecks including the famous Maheno shipwreck

So we had an awesome group of mainly girls. 2 nurses from Taunton, another girl from Taunton but living in Oz, a guy from Germany, a girl from Netherlands, a girl from Staines and another girl from Norwich. These group tours work so much better if you actually like everyone in your group. 

So our first stop was Lake Mackenzie. The clearest water, which this picture doesn't necessarily show.

We weren't allowed to go in with sun cream or have a quick wee in the lake in order to keep the water as pure as possible, as the only water to go in is rain water and it leaves by evaporation. 

Our next famous area we visited was the Maheno Shipwreck. It is the most famous of Fraser's shipwrecks and has become a landmark attraction. The SS Maheno was one of the first turbine-driven steamers which was built in 1905. Normally her route was Sydney to Auckland however until she was commissed as a hospital ship in Europe during World War One. In 1935, she was sold to Japan for scrap, her rudders were removed and they were been towed to Japan. When they reached Queensland Waters, a cyclonic storm snapped the tow chain and the Maheno drifted onto Fraser Island's Ocean Beach. 

That night we stayed in an Aboriginal campsite where we all stayed in tents and cooked food within our groups and drank lots of goon (cheap wine). 

Early the next morning our group went on a walk along Ocean Beach from our campsite.

 

Later that day we travelling to Indian Head overlooking the Ocean where we spotted a few Humpback Whales, turtles and a sting ray.

Our next stop was Champagne Pools, which gives the 'illusion' of champagne as the waves crash over the rocks, but it was way too cold for me to swim in but it was our first chance to sun tan in while. 

That night we cooked up a feast of steak, buttery potatoes and salad.

On our final day we headed to Lake Wabby, on parking up it took us a good 40 minutes to actually walk to the lake.

It was quite a tough walk up hills and through sand but it was worth it when we got there. There was this huge and I mean huge sand dune with Lake Wabby sitting at the bottom. It was slightly eery and creepy, like you could imagine it on a high school horror film. 

We spent quite a long time here, topping up tans before heading to the mosquito infested Eli Creek! I don't have any pictures of this. 

Anyway we had an awesome time with some awesome people and I'll just leave you with a few more photos! 

Xoxo

NB: all of the facts and bits of information about Fraser Island were taken from the Fraser Island website.

Bundaberg Rum Factory

So after leaving Airlie Beach, we spent a few days getting some miles under our belt whilst the weather wasn't as good, which included quite a few rest stops. Our next major stop was Bundaberg, primarily for the Bundaberg Rum Factory as picked by Nathan. 

So this is what I learnt. By the time Australia was settled by Europeans in 1788, run had become a sought after commodity. Sailors in the first fleet were provided with rations of rum and spirit was widely used as a bartering tool within the British Colonies. 

Bundaberg Distilling Company was officially incorporated on 22 November 1888 and despite having 2 serious fires since then that threatened to ruin Bundaberg Rum, it has done the opposite and has thrived and become one of Australia's favourite rums. We also learnt that 120 bottles of rum are created per minute. 

After the tour of the factory, we got to the  best part, the tasting. Unfortunately for me, I was driving so I could literally only taste the tiniest of bits. I settled for a dessert style rum tasting of chocolate and coffee and it was delicious. I also had a sip of a carbonated rum flavoured rum, similar to Rekorderlig cider (Swedish sweet flavoured cider) but rum flavoured. 

Nathan tried a blended rum to start with, which had been barrelled for 4 years before it was bottled. It was barrelled in a variety of different alcohol barrells including Jack Daniels and Port. The last one he tried was a spiced rum. Both he said were good but didn't quite match Captain Morgans. 

So this ended up being our only stop in Bundaberg and we headed to Gin Gin a free rest stop not too far away. 

Xoxo 

The Great Barrier Reef

We caught an early plane from Melbourne to Cairns and arrived in hot, sticky Cairns before lunch time. We checked in at Global Backpackers where we managed to get a check double room rather than a dorm. We then booked onto the Great Barrier Reef tour for the following day. For dinner we got a voucher from our hostel, for $6 for a main meal and a drink and went here as we hadn't yet done a food shop. 

The next day we got up early for our Great Barrier Reef tour and walked out to the jetty. The day included a introductory scuba dive. I have never been scuba diving, so I was ridiculously excited if not a bit nervous. Also at this point I was also a bit gutted that Nathan and I had not done the PADI course in Koh Tao, Thailand last year. As apparently it's the cheapest and best place to do it in the world, may have to make a return trip. 

We had a perfect day, the sun was shining and not too much wind so we assumed sea sickness could be avoided. However you'll soon find out this wasn't this case. We both took ginger sea sickness tablets to be on the safe side (NB.. Does not always work). 

Our boat took us out to the outer reef and we stopped at Norman's reef, which according to the travel guy was meant to be one of the best. We were the third group to go on the intro scuba dive so we went snorkelling to start with. Obviously taking with us our favourite toy, the GoPro. 

All suited and booted in our wetsuits, just waiting for the all go to jump in. 

So there was a video I wanted to post here, which was taken from the GoPro but it won't seem to let me, might only be possible on a computer. We had an awesome time snorkelling and saw lots of colourful fish and beautiful coral. 

After a half hour snorkelling session, it was our time to get into our scuba gear. Unfortunately the pictures of us in our gear was rubbish (taken by someone else) so I won't be putting it on here. And because it was our introductory dive, we weren't allowed to take any cameras underwater, as they wanted our full attention on the activity at hand. But luckily we had a professional following us around taking pictures, I have only 1 saved on my phone which I will share with you shortly. 

Scuba diving is a completely crazy experience and definitely nothing like I've ever experienced before. I was pretty nervous to be quite honest. The key point to remember was 'do not stop breathing', which they drilled into us. Sounds easy right? But I was then overthinking, what if I forget to breath! Obviously I didn't but it did make you panic. Every metre or so we went further underwater we had to pop our ears and the further we went down the more I felt in my comfort zone! 

It's a completely different world but I was fascinated, I felt like a mermaid. Because it was our introductory dive, the instructor took 4 of us down and we had to link arms with him the whole time, which gave us less freedom but it made sense, seeing as we weren't trained. He took us 10 metre below the surface and got us to sit on the sand and we held a starfish. Then out of no where this huge fish came over. I now know this is a humpback wrasse. It is pretty much a pet dog of the fish world, following all the divers around and we were allowed to stroke it's lips. This is my professional photo.

I mean talk about awesome!! We also saw lots of nemo fish! But before we knew it, it was time to come back to the real world. As soon as we reached the surface and had removed the breathing tube, Nathan felt really unwell. According to our instructor this is normal, as it is articifical air that we are taking it and people react differently to it. Stupid ginger tablets didn't work. 

Once we were back on the boat we were given the opportunity to go on a second dive, which would be longer as we didn't have to do any training but it would cost. I decided straight away I had to do it. And we were allowed to take our cameras down. Nathan opted out as he wasn't feeling great. 

The second dive was even better. We were allowed a lot more freedom and could swim by ourselves rather than linked arms with the instructor. 

This is my selfie with my scuba gear. 

This is my underwater selfie.

We saw a sea cucumber, a flat worm ( easily the most elegant thing I have seen which is actually a worm, wish I could upload a video), lots of colourful fish, some huge ones and lots of little ones. Don't ask me for names, because I have no idea. I was hoping to see a turtle but luck wasn't on my side. However I did see a reef shark, caught on video but not by picture. Luckily whilst I was scuba diving, Nathan went back in the water and did some more snorkelling. 

Just a quick tip, those of you that go underwater with your GoPro whether it is scuba diving or snorkelling or just playing in the sea or a pool. I'd really recommend buying a floatie device. It's bright orange and attaches as a back door onto your GoPro. That way if you drop it, it will still float and you've less chance of losing it. We also attached our extendable pole, which is perfect for getting up close and personal with the fish and for taking selfies without having to ask others for help. 

We had an incredible day on the reef and it's safe to say we were very tired on the trip back to Cairns.

Here's one last picture of Nathan feeling a lot better with his certificate.

Xoxo