Hong Kong high life

I'd been wanting to visit Hong Kong for a few years now and I finally had a trip booked to Asia's Manhattan with my godmother. And what a fascinating city it was full of life, colour and excitement!

Hong Kong Island skyline

Over 10 days we covered a lot of ground and even had some locals to show us around. We were there for the Mid Autumn Festival - the ancient Chinese harvest festival at Victoria Gardens where lanterns merge and moon cakes are eaten. It was nice to experience a cultural holiday with traditional song and dance.

Mid Autumn Festival

Moon cake

We stayed in the precinct of Kowloon and visited Kowloon Park, Avenue of Stars, Mong Kok Ladies Market, the Temple Street Night Market, and all the shops along Nathan Road and Canton Road. Hong Kong was literally designer paradise with every high end brand you could think of! I got into the Hong Kong spirit and bought some Jimmy Choo sunglasses and a Marc Jacobs bag. I thoroughly enjoyed the market shopping also but all the clothing was one size and you couldn't try anything on so a few of the clothes I bought had to be passed down as they didn't fit.

Kowloon Park

Avenue of Stars

Designer brands on Canton Road with national day
fireworks in the background

We also explored Hong Kong Island where the main corporate area is with high rise buildings that light up the skyline at night. We visited Man Mo Temple, walked up the Mid Level escalators (longest escalator sequence in the world), and went on the Peak Tram to the Peak - the highest point on Hong Kong Island - to get amazing views over Hong Kong.

View from the Peak

The Peak Tram

We went on a day trip to Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island. Accessible by a half hour cable car over the mountains, once we were there we walked 240 steps to the top to see the buddha. When we returned from the buddha, we took advantage of all the summer sales at Citygate Outlets shopping centre before getting back on the MTR.

Tian Tan Buddha

Other highlights included being a kid again at Disneyland, taking the ferry first class to Macau for the day and visiting the Venetian and Galaxy casinos, having afternoon tea at The Ritz Carlton, watching Symphony of Lights on Hong Kong's harbour, enjoying a Chinese degustation at Yat Tung Heen by a Michelin star chef, visiting Sky 100 observation deck at the tallest building in Hong Kong and enjoying the view over Hong Kong, trekking through the New Territories to Hong Kong's main water reservoir and visiting China's Shenzhen.

Hong Kong Disneyland

The Venetian Macau

Dinner with the locals

And with such a jam packed adventured filled trip, what better way to finish the trip than with a nice long foot massage!

Road trip to Cervantes

With my brother finally picking up his new 4WD and a friend, Marica, visiting from Italy, we decided to take the car for its first off road test and visit the Pinnacles - somewhere none of us had been before. 

A 250km drive north of Perth and we arrived at the Pinnacles Desert Discovery within Namburg National Park. The Pinnacles are essentially thousands of limestone pillars within the sand dunes. It was actually quite extraordinary to see such natural landscape.

Pinnacles crew

After driving the 4km of the Pinnacles desert we headed to Lancelin for lunch at the local pub - fish and chips of course - and then went 4WDing and sand surfing in the Lancelin sand dunes (amazing soft white sand). We borrowed a sandboard and found some cardboard along the way but neither were very successful in taking us down the dunes. Nonetheless a fun and thrill seeking experience!

4WDing in the Lancelin dunes

I would definitely recommend local Western Australians and visitors to put this on their list of places to see.

Rollercoaster ride to Surfers

After eight months of being back in my hometown of Perth, Australia - the most isolated city in the world - I was finally on my way to my next holiday... this time in Australia. The Gold Coast on Queensland's Sunshine Coast had been a place I wanted to visit ever since I was a teen and a planned family trip was cancelled last minute. Now back from London, it was on my list of holidays for the next year along with Hong Kong and Japan.

My partner and I met my cousin and her husband in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast and we weren't greeted by the best weather. Rain for the first three days and sunshine for the next four, Gold Coast definitely lived up to it's tropical climate.

Surfers Paradise beach

The Gold Coast's biggest tourist attractions are it's four main theme parks - Movie World, Wet 'n' Wild, Sea World and Dream World. We spent four days exploring these parks and enjoying all the thrill seeking rides. One of the best things was being there in off season meaning there weren't long lines, however it also meant that there were a number of attractions closed for maintenance. Some of my highlights were the Superman, Green Lantern and Scooby-Doo at Movie World; polar bears and penguins at Sea World; Tower of Terror and Buzzsaw at Dream World; and FlowRider, Kamikazee and Tornado at Wet 'n' Wild. 

On the Superman ride at Movie World

Penguins at Sea World

Buzzsaw at Dream World

Ready to ride a slide at Wet 'n' Wild

I must say after four days of theme parks, we were definitely over them. Whilst on the Gold Coast we also enjoyed a romantic dinner at Palazzo Versace, VIP treatment at Draculas including show and dinner (strongly encourage booking the VIP option as the vampires make it known who's high rolling and who's poor), shooting at the shooting range (watch your ears), a visit to the casino in Broadbeach, a night out at Sin City and Vanity nightclub, and everything else Gold Coast. 

In the foyer at Palazzo Versace

Some of the characters at Draculas

Meter Maids in Surfers Paradise