Up North

So life in Perth is rather slow, but really relaxing. Anni has just finished her exams for the semester so Anni, myself, and four other crazy friends travelled the five hours north from Perth to Geraldton, a city of just under 40,000 people and where another one her friend lives.  

On the way up to Geraldton we stopped off at some pretty amazing locations...

Lancelin - Sandboarding anyone?

Woo! Um, hope I don't crash!

The Pinnacles - eerily quite and weird but spectacular...

The park ranger said "no touching" but surely he didn't mean I couldn't sleep on it?

At one point Anni and Kara were sitting in the boot of Anni's car as the other friends drove it round and the view was amazing. 

From Geraldton we travelled even further north to Kalbarri, and walked around the Kalbarri National Park (well, we drove into a large proportion of it and then got out and walked). For being in winter it was rather warm and Anni almost got sunburnt with the endless blue skies.

This is Nature's Window

The Australian bushland is kinda weird looking and unfortunately we saw no Kangaroos. 

The next trip is home to Melbourne for Anni's Oma's 70th Birthday. Hopefully we can go see a footy game at the MCG, Collingwood is playing!

Anzac Day in Perth

Whilst the east coast of Australia is all cold and gloomy, Perth is still glorious and sunny. Today it was 28C with incredible blue skies. So why not have a picnic in Kings Park!

If Anni wasn't working, we would have gone to the dawn service, but it just wasn't feasible with public transport and getting to work on time. But we still went to the State War Memorial to pay our respects, being so thankful for all that the servicemen and women have given up for our country.

The view from Kings Park never disappoints, so here's another photo:

Kings Park

Kings Park is 400.6 hectares of green grasslands, botanical gardens gardens and native bushlands, with two-thirds of the area being covered by native bushlands (the Australian bush is kinda weird looking). It was the first parkland designed for public use in 1872, with the purchase of more land in 1890 bringing it up to it's current size. The name was changed from "Perth Park" to "Kings Park" in 1901 in reference to King Edward VII.

Anni and her friend Kara went on the free guided walking tours offered by the Kings Park Volunteers. The walk on offer that day took us around the Botanic Gardens, pointing out and describing all the interesting plants and flowers from the different regions of Western Australia.

At the end they went and visited the State War Memorial, which has incredible views of the Swan and Canning rivers. It was constructed in 1928-29 and designed in a obelisk shape, similar to that of the ANZAC memorials erected in France and Belgium. Whilst it was built to commemorate those who had served in WWI, it has since become a place of reflection for those who have served in the Armed Forces in all of Australia's deployments.

One of the best parts of Kings Park are the views over the city. Love coming here at night and seeing all the sparkly lights.

Kings Park is a great place to visit any time of the year. We're going to do another tour in the wintertime when all the wildflowers come out in the bushlands.

Happy Australia Day!

Australia Day is celebrated on the 26th of January, and to celebrate, Anni and I with her housemates Laura and James and her school friend Annette went down to Cottesloe Beach (only 5 mins from our new home in Perth!) to join in the fun of the Havaianas Thong Challenge.

P.S A "Thong" (normally "thongs" as they come in a pair) are what you may call flip flops, jandals, or sandals.

Movies

On Friday, Anni and I, along with her housemates James and Laura went to see "New Years Eve" at the Moonlight Cinemas. It's been really hot in Perth this week, and so being outside once it had cooled down, drinking champagne and eating crisps was exactly what a Friday night called for.

Perth

Hola Amigos!

Sorry about the lack of postings, there are no excuses other than laziness and lack of excitement (sad but true).

But welcome to Perth, Western Australia, where Anni and I now live!

It's hot and sunny and lovely, we live near the beach, and have great housemates. Anni is studying full-time at UWA (doing her Masters in Infectious Diseases... how cool?!), so our adventures have been rather quiet, but there are plans in the pipeworks, and so despite our lack of posts in the past, we promise to go out and explore Perth, the rest of Western Australia, and if miracles happen, the world!

it's almost time

Anni and I have been relaxing, just sitting around doing nothing much, except... PACKING! That's right, the big move west starts on Wednesday! Hazaah! Finally, I get to go see stuff!

Only problem is, every time Anni starts packing, the cat tries to help out too...

Haha, how cute is that?

winter pasttimes

Update for all those lucky people living in the Northern Hemisphere: It's cold down under. It's winter time, and whilst we don't get snow and freezing conditions like you do, it's still cold to us. So Anni and I have been stuck inside, watching movies and drinking lots of tea, and playing around with our blogs. And one of the coolest things we've made is a fancy button!



<center><a href="http://angus darcy.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/theanita1/angusbutton.jpg" /></a></center>

Tada! How cool is that? We got the coding from For The Love of Blogs, and edited the photo using Picnik.
Sorry we don't have any exciting travelling adventures, but thanks for popping by and keeping us happy!

reminiscing

Okay, so having come back to Melbourne our lives are rather quiet and there's not much travelling going on, sorry about that guys. Countdown update: There's about 5 weeks left until Anni and I move to Perth, Western Australia, so that's exciting!
Today, the first of June, is the first day of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. And the forecasted weather today in Melbourne is sunny with a top of 19 degrees (celsius). STARK contrast to the forecasted weather on the first day of winter six months ago in London...


This photo was taken on Anni's way to work at about 7am, whilst walking through Parsons Green.


However, the weather today is strangely not much different to the weather experienced a year ago on the first day of Summer in London. This picture was taken in South Park, Parsons Green whilst Anni was walking home from the supermarket (oh how we miss Sainsbury's) after work at about 6.30pm.
How wonderful. And today in Melbourne kinda looks like that. It was incredibly foggy driving to work this morning, and now that the fog has been burnt off, the sky is this blue you could get lost in and the sunshine is making the possibilities of summer and beaches and ice cream seem not like lost causes. Best kinda day to rug up in a blanket next to a window with a great book and a cup of hot chocolate.

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español

Anni is learning Spanish! That is rather exciting, hopefully sometime in the future we can go to South America! Or even back to Spain! Oh, so many places you can go when you know Español...

Photobooks

A little bit off topic, but Anni and I were wondering if anyone had any recommendations for where to get photobooks printed, or even software to use to make photobooks etc. It would be cool to have my travels published in a book!

Newcastle and Northern Beaches photos

Anni forgot to upload the pics from our trip! duh!

So here are some photos from our lovely trip up north. There's one of me at Nelson's bay, one of me at Newcastle beach atop Anni's sandcastle, and one at the "Summer Bay" Beach (Palm Beach).

Newcastle and Northern Beaches

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Newcastle is the second most populated area in the state of New South Wales.

And that's where Anni and I found myself during the last school holidays, visiting Tash, a friend from Melbourne who has relocated up to the port-side city and loves it.

The weather was fantastic whilst we were there, sunny blue skies, warm enough to sunbake in the middle of the day, cool breeze coming up of the ocean. The cafes are fantastic there also, lots of yummy soy lattes were consumed. And a sandcastle was built, in which I was the king of.

The reason for the trip was to attend a wedding down in Sydney for Beemo, so we flew up to Newcastle and stayed with Tash for a few days, and then caught the train down to Sydney to stay with Rach on the Northern Beaches, and then we went to Beemo's wedding next to the Harbour Bridge.

The Northern Beaches of Sydney are like nothing you've ever seen before. It's like it's own little place away from the world, and yet only twenty minutes drive from the city. And the Northern Beaches is where "Home and Away" is filmed! Rach took us there, and I got to have my picture taken on the famous beach, and I even put my feet in the water!

After the wedding, some more yummy cafe food and some beautiful beachside scenery, it was back up to Newcastle for some amazing fish and chips and a ridiculously early flight back to Melbourne.

If you ever come to Australia but you're short on time and you want to see something other than Sydney, we definitely recommend Newcastle. Two hours on the train from Sydney, it's amazingly beautiful, old but upcoming, and the weather is amazing.

Only 8 weeks left until the big road trip to Perth!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! Anni and I have had a luxurious two weeks school holidays which has included a day of wine tastings and a trip to the beachside. We've just returned home for Easter so Anni can start back at work in a few days. Then it's only twelve weeks until the "Big Road Trip" with Debdeb. Very exciting times!

a note from us

Dear Readers,

We just thought we should update you as to what has happened to our ever adventurous duo of Angus Darcy and Anni
We returned back to Australia mid-February, and since then, we've been a bit under the weather, a bit blue, a bit hesitant to reminisce too much about our European adventures, because we're really quite sad that it's over, and we miss our London friends very much! Sure, we've kept the blog updated a little bit, but it's been hard because Anni has started full-time work, and there's been no new exciting adventures.

However, this doesn't mean that "The Adventures of Travelling Angus" are over. Far from it! In the next few weeks we are venturing up to Newcastle in New South Wales, as well as going wine tasting and playing golf. And later on this year we're moving from Melbourne west all the way across to Perth, and to get there we're driving!

So whilst life in Melbourne is quiet and our adventure updates are lacking, please feel free to suggest places in Victoria, Australia we could go to on day trips, or go back and read some of our past tales of awesomeness.

Thanks for reading, we'll be back on the road soon!

Anni and Angus

Last Week in London: Wednesday

Tuesday was somewhat of a lazy day at home; Anni started to attempt to pack... By the picture you can see it was going to take all week.

Wednesday was not just another day in the last week of us being in London, it was Anni's 25th birthday! So to celebrate we went on a beautiful outing to Richmond Park. It had rained the day before so Anni got to wear her wellies, and along with Timtam's little girl we jumped in all the big mud puddles.

We also had some tasty toffee ice cream, and then fed the ducks and swans. Ungrateful little creatures came and chased after us when we ran out of bread. Eventually we found the elusive deers, and some of the young bucks were practising their fighting (well, that's what it looked like anyway).

Then we went shopping in Richmond and Anni bought some really cute boat shoes, which fit in perfectly with her birthday outfit!

For dinner we went to Anni's favourite Mexican restaurant, Wahaca, at Shepherd's Bush. Her friends bought her some very funny birthday presents, including some personally decorated rubber ducks and some fake poo. Ha ha ha.

All in all, I thought Anni had a very good birthday

Last Week in London: Monday

Anni has been lazy in updating my blog *makes angry face at Anni*

So for the last week Anni and I have graciously been put up by Timtam's boss (Timtam is a live-in nanny) near Northfields, which makes for easy access to a lot of the parks that we haven't yet been to. Today we went to Kew Gardens, and it was amazing weather for it. We took Timtam's little charge and had a fantastic time chasing the peacocks and taking photos of flowers. When it came to lunch time, Timtam bought this lunch pack thing for her little girl, and told her to dip her carrots in what she thought was a dip, which turned out to be peach yoghurt! hahaha.

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful. Sorry.

Last Week in London: Saturday

So we flew back to London, and whilst being delayed by over an hour, we made it back to the city we have called home for the past 18 months in two pieces. And the immigration line at Heathrow was the longest we have ever been in. As always, the air conditioning wasn't working at Heathrow, so the next 55 mins was agony for Anni, especially seeing as her supposed best friends frapped her and changed her facebook profile shot to be the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, whom she absolutely detests. Why was being patient and allowing the borders of the United Kingdom be protected so annoying for Anni? Because we were running late for her BIRTHDAY party!

The "Fantastic Nerdy Party!" was held at the King's Arms, in Fulham. This pub is fantastic. On the corner of New Kings Road and Fulham Road, right next to the Putney Bridge, it was the perfect place to have a great party. It was really quiet that night, but Anni and her mates managed to fill up the place in their lab coats and school dresses. Her mates made some lovely cupcakes, complete with a rubber ducky made from rice krispies!

So that completed day 1 of the last week in London.

Roma

At last we reached the last stop of the Kamuka tour Anni and I found ourselves on. The tour actually didn't include any time in Rome, it just dropped us off on the side of the road and continued on it's merry way. Brilliant.

Anni hadn't downloaded the instructions on how to get to the hostel we were staying at (because the last hotel we were staying at didn't have any...?! See, if we were staying in backpackers then there definitely would've been internet! Stupid tour. Seriously!), and so it took us three and a half hours to get to the amazing Hotel Lodi.

Absolute rave here: Hotel Lodi is fantastic. Yes, it's a little out of the way, but the service and friendliness and cleanliness totally make up for it. And they are so accomodating. Anni hadn't booked a second night (stuff up with the airflight booking which could've been rectified had we had the internet...), and so although they didn't have any official rooms left, there was one that was half renovated, and so at a reduced rate they let Anni and two other girls stay there. And they carried Anni's bags up the three flights of stairs, which was incredible, seeings as Anni had four bottles of wine in there! They served you breakfast and there was unlimited internet and it was a nice end to the tour.

Rome was as brilliant as it was last time we visited. This time Anni and I went around with what Anni claims as a very gorgeous trainee blonde Italian firefighter (everyone has different tastes), and so we threw a coin in the Trevi fountain again, so hopefully we will be back there, climbed the Spainish steps, went around the Vatican, saw the incredible Vatican museum including the Sistine Chapel. Now, just on the Sistine Chapel, may I say do not go just to see where David touches God, but instead spend some Euro's and go with a tour guide who will explain the whole Chapel to you, because it is AMAZING! You learn so much more and it makes the whole experience so worth while. But make sure it's a registered tour company also.

So that was the end of the Kamuka tour. I don't know whether I would recommend it, but it fulfilled the purposes of going to Paris and Florence, but we missed out on Pisa, and the tour leader wasn't that nice.

Unfortunately you remember that Anni broke her camera in Florence, so any photos were taken on her blackberry, and they are awful (another reason why we should go back there). So that's why there are no photos attached to this post. Sorry. After this we fly back to London for our last week there before returning to Australia!

San Gimignano

Our next stop on the Kamuka tour was Roma, the capital city of Italia. But before that we stopped at a little Tuscan town called San Gimignano, where Anni and the gang had the most amazing wine tasting session, which included a huge plate of cheese and salami, a big bowl of bread and bean stew and some beautiful biscotti, along with four huge glasses of wine (the bus from there to Rome was very quiet...). The views from the small walled town were incredible, you could see all across the Siena countryside. Unfortunately Anni's camera was broken, so she borrowed the token kiwi girls camera and downloaded the pictures.

This place was amazing. The town was peaceful and quiet, full of tiny little art galleries. Highly recommend you visiting there.