When The Pilot and I left Melbourne, we planned to arrive in Sydney late in the evening. We booked an Air B&B near the airport with thoughts of crashing there and making our way back to DC the next morning. Unfortunately, when you're flying standby, things don't always work out the way you planned and, after making our way to the airport and not getting on our flight, we found ourselves with an extra day to play in Sydney.
That morning happened to be the Sydney Marathon which I would have loved to have spectated but by the time we got back to our place from the airport, the race was already over. My friend Claire had run the 10k as her first race ever and we made plans for brunch so that we could recap her race.
Before we met up with her, we made our way to The Grounds at Alexandria, a spot that our Air B&B hosts had recommended, which turned out to be an amazing recommendation! On the one hand, I want to call this place Sydney's best-kept secret but given how crowded it was, I think the secret has gotten out...at least among locals!
This hidden gem that's closer to the airport than the CBD is a coffee roastery, a farm to table restaurant, a functioning farm, an artisan marketplace, a petting zoo, a bakery, and so many things rolled into one and it's absolutely adorable!
It started raining pretty heavily while we were there but we spent a few hours roaming around, exploring, drinking coffee, and having some sweets.
When we met up with Claire, we went to a great little place for "smashed avo" and she discovered that we had been in Australia for over a week and almost left without trying vegemite. She was mortified and changed that pretty quickly. I didn't mind it but The Pilot thought it was awful. We spent the rest of the afternoon roaming in and out for bookstores and stopping for coffee before calling it a day when the weather turned to a downpour.
We had all had early mornings and The Pilot and I had another one coming up. We grabbed a light dinner and headed back to our Air B&B for some tea and a movie with our hosts before getting up early again and catching a flight home (this time on first class!).
We had all had early mornings and The Pilot and I had another one coming up. We grabbed a light dinner and headed back to our Air B&B for some tea and a movie with our hosts before getting up early again and catching a flight home (this time on first class!).
So, there you have it. I've finally finished recapping our trip to Australia, which was absolutely incredible. I fell in love with Sydney and Melbourne and would go back again in a heartbeat. I mentioned before that there were some things we didn't get to that I would have really loved to do but I think in our time there, we were able to do a bit more than skim the surface. We really made the most of our trip and I've had several Aussies tell us that they're impressed with how much we were able to cram into such a short time.
I've said this before and I'll say it again...if you're thinking about going to Australia but aren't planning to because people have told you not to bother unless you have 3-4 weeks, don't listen to them and pack your bags. We crammed a lot more into one vacation than I think a lot of people might have. If we were to do it again, I would probably skip Cairns but we also had some downtime and overall, I felt like the trip was way more relaxing than it might seem on paper. If you get one thing from this series of long overdue posts, it's that I hope you take my advice and go to Australia. I've out this trip off for almost 10 years because had been told that an Australia trip wasn't worth it with essential than 3 weeks but you know what? If I do find myself back in Australia, I think I'd go from the same period of time we went this time. As an American, it's unheard of to be able to get that much time off in one setting and I wouldn't trade our trip for the world
Happy Travels!
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