This month I travelled out of Canberra to Queensland a state in northern Australia. I travelled to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland for three days and then flew further north onto Yeppoon which is a town on the coast of Queensland. The reason for my visit was to see friends and have time away from the cold of Canberra so I hopped on a plane and an hour and a half later landed in Brisbane but to make the trip more comfortable, I used my Qantas Frequent Flyer points and travelled in Business Class!
A couple of my friends had recently moved to Brisbane from Canberra so once I was picked up from the airport I went to their home where Vanessa and I enjoyed a glass of champagne overlooking the Brisbane River; the river unfortunately being very brown from the recent torrential rain, but still a stunning view.
On one of my days, my friends and I went to a rather new hotel in Brisbane called The Emporium located on the South Bank river and parklands precinct. Our lunch was at the rooftop bar and restaurant and as the rain had stopped we had lovely blue skies and great views of the city skyline.
Sharon chose our beverage and we started off with a very tasty champagne (feeling there is a theme to this visit) and then we all enjoyed a leisurely lunch. My four friends shared two seafood platters and I ordered spring rolls and a tomato salad. It was a lovely way to catch up with great friends I had not seen for some time. And at the same time enjoying those outside views and also the interior of the bar which is very modern and quite glamorous.
Whilst I was in Brisbane it was National Volunteers Week being Australia’s largest celebration of volunteering. One evening my friend Sandy and I walked home from dinner over The Storey Bridge a steel cantilever bridge that spans the Brisbane River, which was lit red to support National Volunteers Week to commemorate the work carried out by volunteers. And wow…it was so beautiful! And whilst the bridge is very lovely during the day, when it was lit red it was spectacular.
After three days it was time to leave Brisbane for Yeppoon. I had to take a plane to Rockhampton which is about a trip of just over an hour then my friend of 45 years came to collect me. I hadn’t been up to Rockhampton nor Yeppoon before and I hadn’t seen Tracey for quite some years so it was going to be a lovely few days visiting in her new home.
Our first day we went for a leisurely walk with her two beautiful dogs along one of the dog friendly beaches. We had woken early and the sun was just rising with a forecast for the day of mid twenties (degrees) so lovely weather to walk early.
That day we also took advantage of the blue skies and weather and walked along the promenade in town. So glad we did as the next two days the rain has not stopped and it’s become torrential.
Today, we did drive down to the beach with the dogs to see if the rain would stop as yesterday we were fortunate to be able to walk for half an hour; today not so. So we took a long drive for me to see some of Yeppoon; what a pretty place with lovely countryside and beautiful beaches. Beaches look so different without sun and blue skies; but still lovely.
One sight Tracey showed me was of a luxury boat (said to be worth $2m AUD) that had smashed into rocks after wild seas at Statue Bay, taken on water and eventually ripped its anchor resulting in it landing at Lammermoore Beach. I was told the owner of the boat does not have insurance!!! (big mistake) and it was his friend who was bringing the boat to Yeppoon on his behalf. There is a moral to this story and it’s something about if you have multi million dollar luxury boat – buy insurance!!
And locals are said to be angry about the environmental issues (plastics and foam being consumed by turtles/fish), the time the owner is taking to remove the boat and about the amount of rubbish from the boat that is in the water and on the beach – don’t blame them!
So this has been my lovely trip away, one more day to go then back to Canberra where it’s temperature is in the low teens; chilly!
About a half hour drive north from my home in Canberra is a lovely old town called Gunning which is located in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales. The town has a population of just over 600 people and located inside the historic and refurbished 1865 Royal Hotel is a lovely restaurant called Grazing. The restaurant serves decent size portions of food, made with fresh seasonal organic and local ingredients along with an extensive list of Canberra District wines.
It’s a lovely drive to the township through country farms and bushland. We arrived a little early and took the opportunity to walk along the main street and pop into a couple of stores. Then it was time for eating (yay)…we were seated in the main part of the restaurant; there are smaller more private rooms but usually for more than six or so people.
The meals were as good as they were on my previous visit. We started off with a salmon pate on crisp bread which I declined but my friends thoroughly enjoyed. 
I ordered a risotto which the chef was happy to make vegan. It arrived with Jerusalem artichoke and greens; beautifully presented and delicious. One of my friends ordered the original risotto made with braised lentils, Wagu beef cheek, Jerusalem artichoke, chestnut and truffle dressing.
Also ordered was the Barramundi which was oven roasted and came with curried celeriac and crab crust, buttered cabbage and fennel velouté. And we shared the baked eggplant with miso glaze, blackened Baba Ghanoush, sesame and labneh. Again I must say all the meals were beautifully presented.
We also ordered a couple of other dishes but looking at them now I genuinely cannot remember what they are well apart from the Brussel sprout dish; guess it’s such a long time ago and the dishes are not still on the Grazing on-line menu.
Gunning is a lovely little town to visit and Grazing is especially worth a visit with good friends.
I travelled by plane to Brisbane with a short stop-over in Sydney and took the two hour shuttle to Noosa. Initially my friends and I were going to meet at Brisbane Airport and hire two cars to drive to Noosa. But…my friends were unfortunately stuck in Canberra Airport for seven hours due to an issue with their plane. They didn’t arrive in Noosa until just after midnight so luckily there was a shuttle to drop me off right outside my accomodation!!
I decided to go for a walk to familiarise myself with the area and walked to the main shopping street which took about thirty-minutes. It was lovely how lush and green the vegetation was along the way. When I returned to the resort, my friend Mandy and her partner came over for a glass of wine before I retired to my room for an early night.
Early the next morning I did the same walk down to the beach and then met up with Mandy for breakfast at a cafe overlooking the beach called Bistro C. 
Lots of people out and about swimming or surfing or just relaxing like us enjoying breakfast.
It turned out that this was not the only time I was to eat at Bistro C. One of the girls who had arrived late from Canberra messaged me to say that a birthday lunch had been organised that day for Mandy and it was at Bistro C!!
I decided to take the shuttle bus back to the resort as I was a bit weary after my walks…and a couple of hours later, it was time to return to Bistro C for lunch. One of the girls and I chose the roasted beetroot, feta and legume salad with fig, spiced pumpkin, radish, pomegranate and pea hummus. I opted for no cheese and mayonnaise and it really was absolutely delicious. Coupled with a glass of champagne it was a great way to spend a couple of hours!!
Now I know there are many wonderful restaurants in Noosa but I had seen something else delicious on the menu. The next day I walked back into town and stopped off for lunch at Bistro C...the dish I wanted to try was the fried shiitake mushroom, water chestnut and spinach dumplings with Sichuan eggplant, sesame broccoli, snow peas, green onion and ginger broth. Unfortunately I was very disappointed with this dish. The dumplings tasted like they had been sitting around for a while and there was no Sichuan eggplant or ginger broth on the dish.
At the time of our visit the Noosa Food and Wine Festival was on so we had tickets for a four course dinner at Peppers Resort with a few guest Aussie chefs. Matt Moran whose restaurant is Aria overlooking Sydney Harbour and Matt Preston from Australian Masterchef were two I saw and had photos with. Nice to spend time with the girls but the vegan food was incredibly disappointing; so much I didn’t even stay for dessert!
The views over the swimming pools, beach and ocean were beautiful…
We walked down towards the beachfront to the restaurant and because we were so keen we had arrived about fifteen minutes too early. We waited [hungrily] in the shade and soon were seated at a round table near the window.
Our waiter informed us we could eat from the buffet and we could also order anything from the menu – all included in the one cost ($100 AUD). And of course we could order any drink we wanted…
I stuck with my usual sauvignon blanc and the other girls ordered espresso martinis, the resort’s signature cocktail and mojitos.
There was a roast station, hot quiches, pizza, pasta with a large array of sauces and Asian food including all sorts of hand made noodles. I saw more bread and cheeses than I think I have ever seen. My photos absolutely do not show how incredible the food was unfortunately and I didn’t take photos of all stations.
I had become a vegan two months prior so there was so much food I could not eat. But there was so much I could. Tempura/lovely breads/amazing salads/warm vegetables/pasta/noodles just to name a few. I did order an open falafel burger from the menu which was very nice.
Then it came to the dessert area – oh my goodness! Anything you wanted was there and like the entrees and main meals you could also order from the menu. My friends ordered one dessert which was a chocolate ball which when arrived, hot chocolate was poured over. The outer layer of chocolate then melted onto the plate and inside was more chocolate; mousse – incredible! 
And this chocolate cake looked incredible and the chocolate fountain was a hit with the girls, well with all other diners really.
As we were eating dessert (I enjoyed some sorbet), the waiter came around with warm doughnuts and a hot chocolate sauce for those who wanted them…
By this stage we had been at the resort for about four hours and eaten our weight in food…time to say goodbye – what a day!
A couple of weekends ago, I travelled about two hours from Canberra to the south coast of New South Wales to stay with friends Sharon and Brenden. I hadn’t seen these friends for some time so with my little dog Axel we set off around lunch time on a Friday and stayed until mid morning Sunday. Driving along their street is wonderful as there are many kangaroos that come to the front lawns of homes to eat every afternoon and early morning.
We arrived at St. Isidore and wow what a place. A casual feel inside, tables presented nicely and lovely views of the gardens from all windows.
The grounds really are gorgeous, service is great and food very good. We were seated at our table by a very friendly waiter and I took a walk around the grounds to take some photos.
We ordered our drinks and took a look at the menu. I had already checked out the dishes on-line as wanted to make sure there were vegan options; there were!
I ate very healthily. I ordered a pasta dish with broad beans and an olive oil dressing for entree and a tofu and vegetable dish for my main course. My main had grilled eggplant and I love eggplant but definitely not grilled so that was left in the bowl.
My friends ordered an array of dishes which they said were all delicious.
All in all it was a very lovely evening…
I had read about the Chinese restaurant at the Canberra Casino which had very good reviews but had not particulary wanted to go there as it was located inside the casino and guess I didn’t think it would have great ambience being next to gambling tables. But… recently I read another review at the beginning of Chinese New Year (gong xi fa cai to my Chinese friends) which again mentioned how good the food is…so knew I had to go especially over CNY.
We were the only people in the restaurant which had lovely Chinese lanterns all throughout and was served by a beautiful girl who was born in Japan and moved to Australia to be with her partner; an Aussie boy – lovely chatting to her I must say.
I am not sure where the name Natural Nine comes from but all the colourful paper place mats have the Chinese character for the numeral nine on them and also the same character is on the walls. They all look fabulous.
The menu is extensive and great for vegetarians and I think that is why we ordered so much food. 
First up we ordered the steamed mushroom and water chestnut dumplings with black garlic dressing and as Jon loves spicy food and chicken wings he ordered the Sichuan pepper and lime chicken wings. Both dishes arrived pretty quickly which made me think they are part made and heated up when ordered but my dumplings were still very good and Jon said the wings were extremely tasty.
Our next dishes were the sweet and sour plum eggplant with handmade egg tofu – best dish ever!!! I loved it. This came served with a bowl of steamed rice but as we had ordered another rice dish we did not touch it.
We also shared a bowl of exotic mushroom and burnt onion wild fried rice; so delicious and such a big bowl, so we only were able to eat about half. Shame we were so full as it really was very good.
This restaurant is well worth visiting; such good food. After lunch we head to the Casino and watched a few people start with a huge pile of chips and end up with none!! I guess that is why I never gamble!!
When I spoke to the waitress, I had mentioned that the paper place mats were fabulous, so when we went to pay she gave me two to take home…very kind!!
You know when you have heard and read about a particular place and you feel you really need to visit there?? Well the place I had heard about and wanted to visit was the restaurant at Canberra’s Botanic Gardens.
The restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch and I recall thinking the breakfast menu looked a little better than the luncheon menu; more choice! But funnily enough I just took a look on-line to see the menu [to remind myself what we ate] and the luncheon menu looks better than when we visited. So perhaps another visit after a stroll around the gardens.
We sat inside but had lovely views of the rainforest area outside. Inside is really quite lovely too; rather old fashioned which is very sweet.
I think I would probably call this more a cafe than a restaurant as you receive your menu but have to order at the counter. Meals and drinks are brought over to you though by the waitress which is so much better than those cafes where they call out your number and you have to return to the counter to pick up your meal.
My friend Jane’s husband Paul ordered a burger from memory which I forgot to photograph and Jane had the salmon nicoise salad which was a huge plate of salmon with sugar snap peas, sweet potato, olives, a poached egg with cherry tomatoes and Spanish onion then with a drizzle of green goddess dressing! As you can see pretty big meals for a Sunday lunch…
It’s a lovely little cafe and nice for a casual breakfast or lunch and must say the flower display near the front door was stunning!!
Today I also thought I would also introduce my beautiful little rescue dogs Axel and Bindi, who have lived together since they were born. I bought them from a rescue organisation about six weeks ago and we have fallen in love with each other. They are so [so] sweet and really quick learners.
Axel has a very funny little smile with crooked teeth, which he likes to display and sit up when he is allowed on the lounge (after the blanket is put down of course)…
And Bindi has had a nice hair cut for twice daily summer walks.
Sue's Fabulous Travels 
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