Into the Blue: Airlie Beach, Queensland.

My first adventure of 2016 was a five day trip to Airlie Beach. Airlie Beach is located in North Queensland and is the gateway to The Whitsunday Islands, aka blue heaven. The Whitsundays are made up of over 70 islands but the ones you are most likely to know are Daydream, Hamilton and Hayman. These islands are developed with luxury resorts are a familiar to the rich and famous. 

I had high expectations of crystal clear skies and waters and our trip did not disappoint. Every day was perfectly sunny, hot and humid. Our first day included a day trip out to Daydream Island and Hamilton Island. Daydream Island was practically just the resort. The resort have incorporated their surroundings in to the resort through their very incredible "living reef" which is an artificial reef with stingrays, reef sharks, coral and fish that pans throughout most of the property. As it was stinger  (jellyfish) season you needed to borrow a stinger suit to swim in the ocean water so we just stuck to sun baking by the pool - this was meant to be a more relaxing day trip after all. The next stop was Hamilton Island which was much the same, resorts and not much else. We had a quick lunch and then headed straight to see Catseye Beach. It was the same situation of needing stinger suits to swim in the water so we just stuck to swimming close by the shore. The water was crystal clear but very warm as it was so hot and 100% humidity. We had a quick swim at the Beach Club before heading back to Airlie. To be honest I had higher expectations of Hamilton Island and was a bit disappointed. I'm not sure exactly why. I know that I wouldn't spend the money it would cost to stay there when there are so many other places to see with more things to do.

The absolute highlight of the trip was an overnight sail cruise we did on the SV Whitehaven. We had a full day snorkelling on the reef in the clearest of waters seeing the most spectacular coral and fish. When snorkelling it wasn't hard to get lost in imagining how cool it would be to be a mermaid and live under the sea, just like Ariel in 'The Little Mermaid'. And the the coral, the coral! I can't tell you enough how much of an amazing natural wonder it is! The shapes! The colours! The texture! The gorgeous yellows, greens and pinks that line the ocean floor in which the multi-coloured fish swim over the top to create a most wonderful contrast is just like magic to the wanna-be-mermaid soul. The photos don't do this incredible environment any justice. You need to see it with you're own eyes to be truly touched.

After the day of next-level snorkelling we anchored to watch the sunset and carry on with dinner, drinks and forging new friendships. The next morning started at the crack of sunrise with us setting off to explore world famous Whitehaven Beach. Did you know that Whitehaven Beach has some of the purest, whitest sand in the world?! I didn't. The sand is so pure in fact that NASA are the only organisation to have permission to remove sand to use in their satellite dish reflectors....! Walking through Hill Inlet, to make another movie reference, is similar to Leo walking through the jungle and finding the beach in 'The Beach'. Queue Moby's Porcelain. And there you are, standing on a wooden look out, starring straight into the bluest of blue water that is met with the whitest of white sand surrounded by an untouched tropical island. After taking it all in, 'being in the moment' and getting a few pics for Insta it was time to hit the beach. The sand felt like powder under your feet, the softest sand I have ever felt, and the water, was warm and clear as day. Spending three hours frolicking on Whitehaven Beach was no hard task. It was by far and beyond the most spectacular beach I have ever been to. 

After setting sail back to port in Airlie Beach it was time to shower, nap, get ready and go out and cement the great friendships already made on the boat. The shenanigans wrapped up in the early morning hours like all great backpacker-cheap unexpected nights do. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

I would encourage anyone and everyone to visit the Great Barrier Reef/The Whitsundays. This was my second Great Barrier Reef experience and I can't wait to go back and do it all over again. I would also encourage you to invest your money on getting out and exploring the reef rather than spending it on sterile hotel experiences. You won't regret it! 

Baked Peach & Apricot Pavlova with Honey & Pistachios.

And just like that Christmas has been and gone. The back end of this year had me powering through life that I didn't have the time to get as excited about Christmas as I normally would have and now having some time off, and the luxury of retrospect, I wish I had of been more festive! Christmas really is my favourite time of the year. I love having our family all together and having the whole day to spend with one another without any time restraints. With age I am really starting to enjoy giving gifts more so than receiving them and of course, Christmas Day means we pull out all the food stops for an incredible lunch to share together.

Alas I bottled up all of that unused excitement in the weeks prior to Christmas to deliver quite possibly the best pavlova ever on Christmas Day. Three days on I am still super chuffed with it! Little does anyone know it's actually a Jamie Oliver recipe from this years Christmas edition of Woolworths' Fresh magazine. It was sweet, but not sickly, soft but with delicious crunchy bits from the meringue and the pistachios and slightly sticky from the honey - an unexpected yet very pleasant delight which was met with raving reviews from fellow family members. What more could you want on Christmas Day?!

Amsterdam.

The last stop of our whirlwind two week Europe taste tester was beautiful Amsterdam. The first thing my mind thinks of remembering Amsterdam was just how lost we got every.single.time we went to go somewhere... and it was not because of happy herbs, I promise! After navigating London and Paris without too many problems we were a little dumbfounded at how we kept messing up the streets and directions we were meant to be walking in! If anyone else has experienced this or has a reason why we might have been getting so lost I would appreciate hearing it!

After having an amazing run of sunny weather we arrived to a cold and wet day for our first full day in Amsterdam. As days like this are best spent indoors we made our way up to the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum is the museum of the Netherlands and houses artworks and artefacts from the Middle Ages to present day. We ended up spending half a day inside the Rijk as there was so much to see. As we were making our way out my sister Ruby found an exhibition called 'New for Now' - the origins of fashion magazines. To say I was enthralled would be an understatement. I often wonder how things begin but it never really crossed my mind that magazines had to start from somewhere. Now I know that magazines started, of course, in Paris. Women of the upper echelons would wear their finest items to a park in Paris on a Sunday afternoon and artists would draw what they saw which would be distributed in to a fortnightly magazine. I might have to do a whole post on this because I have some really amazing photos of the illustrations that continue to inspire me to this day. 

Other 'things to do and see' on our list for our two-ish days in Amsterdam were the flower markets, Vondelpark, Rembrandt Square, Spuirstraat 199 (street art area) and De 9 Straatjes (vintage shopping, cool cafes). Riding bikes has never been a strong suit for us Paton girls (we grew up on a hill so we never bothered with bikes!) so we went without hiring bikes and getting in the way of all of the Dutch bike rider extraordinaires. However we did eat magnificent Dutch pancakes and cheese croquettes that I will remember fondly until next time. There was a calmness about Amsterdam that I quite enjoyed compared to the hustle and bustle of the other cities we visited. Maybe this is because everything is surrounded by water. Maybe it's because all of the people need to be active to ride around from A to B. Or maybe it's because of how they unwind? It was really pleasant to have some sort of calmness before returning home to the race of every day life. 

Paris: A Moveable Feast.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Bonjour! It's been a long time between travel posts. I apologise profusely. Here we are now, in Paris, the city of romance. From these images above I hope you can see why. On our first day in Paris we headed out to see the most notable sights: the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and the Champes Elysees. I truly underestimated the popularity and scale of people who flock daily to snap away at these famous monuments. It was exhausting to walk through the teaming crowds of people and to watch them all crowding around these magnificent icons, selfie sticks in tow. We managed to negotiate the crowds to take our own token tourist shots before being quickly squeezed out. 

After a massive afternoon of walking and negotiating crowds in the sprawling city centre we plonked down at a signature Parisian cafe' for our first French meal and a glass of rose to unwind. Day one of Paris felt very overwhelming and a little unsatisfying.

It wasn't until the second day when we went on our Hidden Paris Walking Tour of Montmartre that we felt like we had discovered the real, raw, magical Paris that we had been hoping to discover. Montmartre is home to so much history, especially in the arts and writing movements. It's where Picasso lived and worked for a lot of his career. He would meet up with Dali, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein in the 1920s. It's where 'bohemia' emanates and where one of my favourite movies of all time is set, Midnight in Paris. We walked around winding cobblestone alleys, saw forgotten windmills and a secret vineyard. Marvelled at the mixture of architectural influences that make up the Sacre-Coeur and the hidden convent that resides next door. Our wonderful tour guide pointed out all of places to eat including a bakery which had won the "Best Baguette" in Paris - which turns out is a pretty big deal as the winner becomes the official supplier of bread to the President and the Elysees Palace for a whole year! Once the tour was over we made sure to eat as much amazing food as possible and shopped like true Parisians at the many amazing boutiques. 

That evening, continuing with the Montmartre theme we had a quick creme brûlée at Le Chat Nior and then took ourselves to see a cabaret show at the La Nouvelle Eve. To top it all off and come back to present day Paris we took and Uber back to our hotel.