We are falling in love with Hobart!

We first visited Hobart on a 2 week stay in 2022 and we loved our trip.  We loved it so much we cruised back there in April this year and we now have a 4 day weekend planned in just a months time.  

This time it will be winter so we are excited to see just how cold it is down that end of the country and how the place changes with the seasons.

I thought I would share what we are planning to get up to while we are there for this short visit (not as short as our last visit - 1 day in Hobart and 1 day in Port Arthur).

Day 1 (Friday)

We arrive at 10am and head to pick up our hire car at 11.

Lunch at Wicked Cheese and then onto Richmond (if time permits).

An afternoon Distillery tasting and tour at Spring Bay Distillery, Cambridge (this is perfect for us because it covers both gin and whiskey) 2pm.

Check in to our accommodation at 4pm (we are staying at Wyndham Seven Mile Beach).

Dinner at Barilla Bay Oysters at 6.30pm.  

Day 2 (Saturday)

8.30am Salamanca Markets, then onto Willie Smiths artisan markets.

Lunch at Willie Smiths Appleshed 1pm.

A drive up Mount Wellington (this will be weather dependent).

Dinner at Rockwall in Hobart.  This will be an off season 4 course set menu of local Tasmanian produce.

Day 3 (Sunday)

Richmond Bakery for breakfast

Ross (we will probably buy a vanilla slice which the town is well known for)

Oatlands - to complete the walking trail around the town and visit the Callington Mill Distillery (again, whiskey and gin).  Lunch at the pub if we are not too full!

Richmond - the pub for dinner (again if we are hungry)

Day 4 (Monday)

We don't have time for much today so we will head to The Margate Train for their delicious breakfast and maybe a stop for a walk around Hobart waterfront.

12pm Drop our car back 

2pm is our flight home.

This trip we are visiting some old favourite places but also trying some new ones.  I'm hoping that my itinerary leaves a little time to stop at unexpected finds along the way but we will see.  I'll let you know all about our trip when we return!

Singapore Zoo…photo share

This was our third visit to Singapore Zoo and it did not disappoint.  We headed to the zoo early so we could enjoy a buffet breakfast with the Orang utans which was awesome as always. I bought a 3 park pass for the Zoo, River Safari and Night Safari and then had my concierge at the hotel ring to book breakfast and I just paid on arrival because it was cheaper that way for us.  You can do a tour where you get breakfast and your zoo entry if that suits you better. 

I have blogged about the zoo before and you can read my posts here and here. so I thought today I would just do a photo share of our latest visit.

You can also find information about the zoo on their website, link here.

Emma and Nathan both enjoyed holding the snakes at breakfast.

And the high light of breakfast is when these gorgeous animals arrive and hang around for a while. 

The baby was just to die for, super super cute!

 The zoo has plenty of monkeys etc. 

A garden train?

The water park was a refreshing stop for the kids.

The Komodo dragon is Emma's favourite animal at the zoo, go figure.

You get to walk through this enclosure and get really up close and personal with the chameleons and other animals.

We were just walking along the path when I looked up to see this guy and his big branch hanging above me.

Rhino bottoms!

This meerkat could see something up there although we couldn't!

The kids both got to feed the giraffes, another high light (we paid a $5 fee for the food).

And a calming boat ride from one end of the zoo to the other was a welcome respite from walking (we paid a fee for this too).

Singapore has just an amazing zoo, a definite must do when in Singapore!

An amazing day with the elephants in Pattaya, Thailand

During our cruise stop in Thailand we spent a day at an elephant village which was an unforgettable experience.  You can find the website here.  We arrived at about 10am and left at 3pm so we had lots of hours with the animals.  

We first had an elephant ride through water and bush.  Emma and I went first.  I have to say that riding an elephant is not a very comfortable ride, it's really bumpy and whenever I tried to take a photo it was fail due to the movement.

When we got to the other end of our ride we were given quite a bit of time to just pat and feed the elephants. We bought bananas for them at the entrance.  A treat they really love.  The elephant that walked behind us could smell Emma's bananas and keep nudging her with her trunk so she could have one!  Nathan's driver let him back on the elephant to feed it from above. I will also say that elephant's slobber and Emma and I ended up with quite a bit of it on us!

Then we went for a walk through some bush to find out about what the locals do and how they live.  We saw silk worms and a lady making thai silk by hand.

We got to go on this boat which then took us to the other side of the river.  It was just set up on a thick rope which the men wind by hand to move you to the other side.

Once on the other side of the river, these guys below were our transport back to the elephant village.  We sat in wooden carriages with wooden wheels.  It was an awesome experience, we loved it.  

After all that was done we had a really delicious lunch and then had a good hour to hang out with the elephants again.  You could pat them, feed them or just sit and watch them.  The kids had a ball, I don't think they will ever get this much time with elephants again so we took full advantage of it.

To finish the day we had a talk about the elephants.  We learned so much about how they get to be at the village and the work they used to do.  The elephants show all their skills including an old circus elephant who showed us what she could do including picking up 10c coins with her trunk!

And to finish I had to give this gorgeous little one some apples and a big cuddle, he was absolutely gorgeous/

 If you are going to Pattaya a trip to the elephants is a really good day.