Tags
Australia, Biggera Waters, Gold Coast, Movie World, Queensland, Sanctuary Cove, travelling with family
A long weekend with family and friends
Canberra 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.
It 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.
I 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…
Until 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.
Also nice to see the Gold Coast skyline behind us as well as views along the shore.
After 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. 
Along the way we drove through the golf course and were fortunate enough to see a mob of kangaroos and one mum with her baby!
After 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.
And I love it when the sky changes colour whilst the sun is setting…
One 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.
And 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!
We 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!
And so many other little gardens areas as well as a pond with a few goldfish…
We 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.
I 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.
There 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!
This 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!
My 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.
It 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!
When 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.
Nigel 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).
And beautiful Rhossili Bay – I can only imagine what the views are like on a summer’s day.
As 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.
By 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.