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Tag Archives: travelling with family

Biggera Waters – Gold Coast – Queensland – July 2019

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by SueT唐 梦 琇 in Travels inside China, Travels outside China

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Australia, Biggera Waters, Gold Coast, Movie World, Queensland, Sanctuary Cove, travelling with family

A long weekend with family and friends

fullsizeoutput_842Canberra is pretty cold in the winter so it’s always nice to travel interstate mainly north to Queensland for a few days of warmth.  That is what I decided to do last month and took my brother and nephew along too.  I booked an Airbnb home at a suburb called Biggera Waters which is about an hour’s drive from Gold Coast (Coolangatta) Airport.

It was really nice to see the home was exactly as stated and had a fabulous outdoors area with views across the river; lovely during the day and equally as nice when the sun was setting.fullsizeoutput_837fullsizeoutput_835It was too cool to swim in the pool so we spent many an hour on the patio reading and  just watching the swans and ducks swim by.  The swans would arrive at 8.30am every morning; you really could set your clock by them.fullsizeoutput_838fullsizeoutput_833fullsizeoutput_845I had made plans to catch up with friends who have a holiday home at Sanctuary Cove and my friend Steve kindly offered to come and pick us up in their boat so we could sail along the river to their home.  How lucky were we!!  So Steve and his son Ryan arrived on our private mooring and off we went…fullsizeoutput_868fullsizeoutput_867.jpegfullsizeoutput_870Until we reached the open waters the boat is legally only able to travel at six knots (no wake allowed) so this afforded me to time to check out houses and gardens that back onto the river…wow some people have gorgeous homes! Once away from residences we could go a little faster which was really nice with the wake behind us.fullsizeoutput_86dAlso nice to see the Gold Coast skyline behind us as well as views along the shore.fullsizeoutput_86efullsizeoutput_869After a glass of wine at my friend’s home we took their golf carts and drove to Sanctuary Cove restaurant area where we had a wonderful lunch at a local Italian restaurant which had a lovely wine bar and to enter you walk through a huge wine barrel. Definitely my sort of place. fullsizeoutput_83cAlong the way we drove through the golf course and were fortunate enough to see a mob of kangaroos and one mum with her baby!fullsizeoutput_839fullsizeoutput_83dAfter lunch we returned to my friend’s home to watch the sunset – I never grow tired of watching either a sunrise or sunset…beautiful anywhere around the world.fullsizeoutput_83efullsizeoutput_840fullsizeoutput_843And I love it when the sky changes colour whilst the sun is setting…fullsizeoutput_850fullsizeoutput_84eOne other day we took my nephew and godson to MovieWorld on the Gold Coast.  Rather expensive and really not what I like to do but I hope my nephew and godson enjoyed themselves.  It was my godson’s first time to eat a snow cone; he loved it and enjoyed some rides.fullsizeoutput_849fullsizeoutput_846And the sweetest thing about the trip was my godson absolutely loved my nephew (they had met some three years ago) so followed him around all weekend and just wouldn’t let him out of his sight…very lovely and my nephew even though he is seven years older, was incredibly patient and loving!fullsizeoutput_830We also had a meal at a local Chinese restaurant on our last night with another friend (my godson’s mum) and as usual I enjoyed an eggplant dish and some dumplings…delicious.  A great long weekend away!

 

 

 

 

 

Seminyak – Bali – Indonesia – January 2019

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by SueT唐 梦 琇 in Travels outside China

≈ 44 Comments

Tags

Bali, Indonesia, Seminyak, travelling with family, Ultimo restaurant, Villa Kubu

I liked it so much I returned!fullsizeoutput_521

Last year in July I met my friend Sandy in Seminyak, Bali for seven days.  I stayed in a hotel with a communal pool on the roof area which was lovely but I wanted to bring my brother and nephew over here and this time I wanted to rent a villa with a private pool.  After much research I chose Villa Kubu and was definitely not disappointed. Gorgeous gardens inside leading from our villa to the front door…img_4484And so many other little gardens areas as well as a pond with a few goldfish…img_4509fullsizeoutput_520

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Our villa has three large bedrooms each with ensuite – well it’s pretty special that one of the two bedrooms downstairs has a private courtyard with an outdoor shower – my brother chose this room; how nice to have a shower outdoors when it is so hot here. But there also is a bath located in the inside bathroom in case it’s too warm outside.fullsizeoutput_526

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The main bedroom upstairs has an open bathroom, lounge room, dressing room and separate bedroom – it really is huge therefore it’s the one I chose (ha ha) !!img_4467img_4468We spend most of our time on the super comfortable lounge downstairs overlooking the pool – its sort of inside/outside (ie no doors or windows but covered overhead).  There is also an air-conditioned television room but we have not put the tv on once since arriving.fullsizeoutput_51eimg_4459I have been getting up early to ensure I exercise so I walk through the tree lined streets then the shopping area down to the beach which is about an hour walk there and back – important for to get my 12,000 steps in ‘most’ days.  On the way I feed the street dogs and try not to get run over by the mad scooter riders.

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img_4511fullsizeoutput_523There are so many amazing restaurants in Seminyak and last night I chose an Italian restaurant called Ultimo.  It’s so easy to travel in Seminyak, we booked a taxi and five minutes and $2 later we arrived!fullsizeoutput_514This turned out to be an excellent choice as the food was truly delicious.  Ambience and service was top notch also.  I chose the Penne All’ Arabiana; a dish of penne pasta with fresh chilli and fresh tomato sauce with basil – wow this was good!fullsizeoutput_513My brother chose the three pasta dish which had spaghetti pomodoro, penne formagi  and fussili pesto.  He couldn’t eat it all.  My nephew chose the Fettuccini Alla Carbonara which like all our meals was delicious and huge; he is not a really big eater so he took half of it back home to our villa.

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My nephew also ordered some cheesy garlic bread which really was very cheesy and came with a pesto sauce – all eaten!  A friend of mine also joined us for dinner and she ordered a couple of entree size meals (which I forgot to take photos of) and the largest piece of tiramisu dessert I think I have ever seen.  She laughed and said she would not be able to finish it; she did it was that good.fullsizeoutput_512fullsizeoutput_515It was an early night which was good as we still have several nights here in Seminyak and we are returning to Seasalt restaurant tonight to enjoy great food and watch the sunset.  Can’t wait!

 

 

 

 

Rhossili and Caswell Bay – Gower Peninsular – Swansea – South Wales – UK – July 2017

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by SueT唐 梦 琇 in Travels outside China

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Caswell Bay, driving with family, Gower Peninsular, Rhossili, Swansea, travelling with family, UK, Wales

A drive to the southwestern tip of the Gower Peninsular!

Image 14When my brother, nephew and I were in Swansea visiting our birthplace, we had dinner with our cousin Nigel at one of the restaurants at the Swansea Marina.Image 31

Nigel kindly offered to take us for a drive around Swansea and to the Gower the following day.  We of course said yes and he arrived early the next day to pick us up and off we went driving a little around Swansea…Image 1Nigel showed us where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have a home (Z-J was born in Swansea) and a similar home next door where Catherine had build for her parents; unfortunately both homes are obscured by huge walls and trees so we couldn’t see them.  We then continued through to Mumbles, a local township which is the beginning of the Gower Peninsular’s coastline [our mum used to take us here to the beach when we were very young so it was lovely for my brother and nephew to see the area).

We continued our drive to Caswell Bay which is very popular with locals; Nigel told us that there are surfing lessons for those interested.  We found this quite amusing as could see no surf and it was summer; certainly no surfing waves like Australia.  But a nice beach anyway with a small cafe truck selling hot coffee, tea and chips.  Nigel and my brother had a coffee and Braydon had a bucket of hot chips; must say they were very good!Image 9Image 8Image 7

It was a pretty cold day but we were not complaining as the last two weeks in London and Wales the weather had been wonderful; unusually warm for the UK we were told (lucky us).  Then we got back into the car and drove to Rhossili.  What a beautiful drive; such lovely countryside and great big homes but by this time it was pouring rain so we were happy to arrive at Rossili Downs where we stopped and parked in a car park and ran to the local cafe – Eddy’s.Image 11Image 14It was definitely too cold and wet to sit outdoors so inside we went and had nice hot cups of tea and coffee and toasted sandwiches – just what we needed.  And the views outside from the terrace area are spectacular – across Llangennith Burrows.Image 12Image 13Image 16And beautiful Rhossili Bay – I can only imagine what the views are like on a summer’s day.

.Image 10Image 17Image 18As you can see Rhossili Bay curves along an arc and the beach is approximately five kilometres long backed with sand dunes which unfortunately due to the weather we decided not to walk along.

On our way back to the car, it was still pouring rain but we decided to walk (run) down a lovely small road alongside the bay and stop at the little tourist shop where I bought a tea towel and couple of small items.Image 20Image 21By now it was time to head back to Swansea for our last night before we head out to Heathrow for Abu Dhabi…a great day especially as we got to have more time with our fabulous cousin Nigel.

 

 

 

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