Every year I make a calendar for the following year of our adventures from the past twelve months. I am way behind this year. I only completed it today and it got me reminiscing about the great times we've had over the past 365 days and all the trips we have experienced, both big and small. So I thought I would do a recap of our year.
In January, Emma and I headed to Melbourne for 5 nights for a girls trip. Neither of us had been to Melbourne before so we were very keen and our time there did not disappoint. In true Melbourne style we were in our winter woollies for the first few days before switching to heatwave conditions for the last couple. We shopped, ate and visited all the touristy sites. Below is a list of our hi-lights.
- Seeing the penguins at Philip Island
- Getting to see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child
- Queen Victoria Markets
- Sky Deck
- The many DFO's around the city
- Ice Bar
- The Laneways
- The Myer Christmas windows
- The State Library
- The Zoo
- Sealife
We visited Tallebudgera Tourist Park for our annual Easter holiday. This year was a little different as we didn't have our caravan and we had to hire one.
This is always a great 10 days away with friends we have known for years and it's one of those nostalgic trips that has so many memories attached.
My hi lights for our camping trip were
- Bingo with the girls
- Beach afternoons
- Harbour Town shopping day
- Barefoot bowls
- Burleigh Mountain walks
I manage to tick off a bucket list item this year when we headed to Bargara, Bundaberg to see turtles hatching and making their way to the ocean. This experience was just amazing! We loved it so much that we headed back to Mon Repos this week to see the other side of the process - the turtle laying her eggs. While we were in Bundaberg we did so many other things too! It is well worth the visit.
Our trip hi lights were
- The turtles (either laying or hatching, but the hatching was my absolute hi light)
- The Kalki Moon Distillery
- The Bundaberg Rum Distillery (even though we are not rum drinkers, we liked this!)
- The Bundaberg soft drink tour
- The Hummock Lookout
- The Lavender farm
- Elliot Heads
- The Windmill Cafe
Fiji has always been a favourite destination of ours, especially when our kids were young so this year, not having been there for quite a while we decided to head back to experience the country as a couple rather than a family.
We are really familiar with lots that Fiji has to offer so we chose a couple of favourite places to visit for our trip and had resort days too.
Here are our hi lights
- Malamala Island
- Tivua Island
- The Sleeping Giant (Fiji's Botanic Gardens)
- The Westin Spa
- Port Denarau
We squeezed in 3 weekend trips to Brisbane this year. We visited the Mount Cootha Botanic Gardens (which was a first time for me), we rode the city cat, drank at Felons and visited the Story Bridge Hotel. We went to the casino and ate at Fat Noodle.
Lastly, I really try to visit one place I have never been each year. I was able to scrape that in this year and spend the weekend away with my girlfriends at Byron Bay. We had a short two days but we filled it in with plenty of fun.
My hi lights were
- The Byron Bay lighthouse
- The Cape Byron Distillery (Gin)
- Stone and Wood
- Bangalow Town
And that was 2023 for travel for the Barro's. We have learned since COVID that we have some great spots around us that are great to explore and travel to and while we used to go overseas for all our holidays we've found that we don't have to and we love seeing our country too!
So what's on the cards for 2024? I have 3 cruises to look forward to. Another girls trip with Emma and we have an overseas trip to Borneo booked. It's going to be an exciting year for seeing new places and revisiting old, familiar places too.
