Michelle just got back from 12 days touring beautiful New Zealand with her Mum and the blog, “travelswiththemothership” is a brilliant diary of their time together. Brought back a lot of memories of roadtripping with my own Mum last year.
travelswiththemothership has some mouth-watering food refs, highly amusing anecdotes (nice one on the hire car..) and some beautiful photos. Have a read

Three days with Lisa in Central Europe’s very best city (ask The Economist).

Walking around the impressive cathedrals, churches, opera houses & monuments and trying to work out why I was getting culture shock & finding it all so awe inspiring.

Surviving the heat thanks to the coffee shops, beisls and beautiful Viennese wine.

And, cruising past an awful lot because we were non stop talking, giggling, roaring and people watching.

Dad joined me for ten wicked days in Thailand. We stuck to the South, exploring the islands & bays, in fact Dad didn’t spend one night on the mainland!

We travelled light and along the way took creeky mopeds around town (all three of us on that, really…?), ultra-slick speedboats to the Full Moon party and hitch-hiked to the airport.

Although it was out-of-season we met a lot of brilliant people: locals who wanted to share their regional dishes; little’uns who wanted to share our wallets; backpackers who wanted to drink; honeymooners who wanted to chat; walkers who, er didn’t want to walk; hosts and guides who wanted to help, laugh & hang.

Games, eats and giggles from the days at Baan San Fan.

I visited back in December, and as part of my travels in Asia ‘popped in’ to say hi. I’m so glad I did, and I wish I had scheduled longer. But no worries, I’ll be back…

This is a diary post, so it’s a stream of thoughts, reactions and ideas. I’ll write some proper reflections and insights shortly.

Seven days on the glorious island of Bali. An immediately calming but strengthening environment.

This time I saw more of the beaches and ventured inland to Ubud – a cruise-y, spiritual town.

Fun times were had on surf board, bike, yoga mat and dance floor. And there was plenty of fuel from the nation’s superb Bintang and anything-with-peanut-sauce dishes :)

I hope I make it back again some day…

I don’t know if you’ve watched the film Ratatouille but there’s a bit near the end where the evil-restaurant-critic-guy makes a speech: “…we (critics) thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read…the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so…” I agree, pushing negativity doesn’t tend to be good for anyone and I often think that critical reviews are hasty, subjective and lacking perspective. I’m not claiming to be a critic at all but I do like to review things because I enjoy sharing the good stuff, so it’s unusual, but I’ve thought about it and I’m going to share this bad review with you.

Scores for Bower Blue Door Cafe

Scores for Three Beans, Manly

Six days coasting through the highlights of Victoria and South Australia with my Mum.

Special attention paid to making the most of the good flavours, the comfy accommodation, the gorgeous scenery and an awesome amount of time together.

We discovered that Mum knows heaps about cricket and is ace at crosswords. That neither of us know how to make sourdough but both find it delicious. That I can drive for nineteen straight hours with no problem but that the speed limit changes across the borders :) And that Sangiovese is one of our favourite reds.

Scores for Organicus, Manly