week forty five | merri creek and fairfield boathouse, melbourne

It looks like spring has officially hit Melbourne (sort of). As this past weekend was a pretty big weekend, I took some much needed relax time on Sunday afternoon and went on a bit of a sunshine bike adventure with lovely Max.

Living north side has a lot of advantages - Max’s house is really close to lots of bike trails along Merri Creek – a beautiful little creek that runs down into the Yarra. These bike paths are a lovely oasis within the city and with the dappled sunlight, it looks just like the kind of place fairies would hang out. (Okay, I loved all those books as a kid!)

We had a lovely ride, a bit of an explore, a drool over the houses backing on to the river and eventually made in to the Fairfield Park Boathouse for some refreshments and to feed the ducks.

Fairfield Park Boathouse is cute and quaint, a little too – LOOK HOW HISTORIC WE ARE. WE’LL CALL EVERYTHING OLD! – for me, but on a lovely spring day it is a very pleasant place where you can sit on the grass, watching the ducks swim by and people trying to navigate rowboats Mr. Darcy style.

I love Melbourne and I love spring, so all in all it was a pretty rad day.

5/5 sunny bike rides 

week forty four | darwin, northern territory

Quite coincidently I have spent quite a bit of time enjoying Darwin over the last few months, a welcome relief from the freezing Melbourne weather. It all started with my trip to the Northern Territory with Max in early June – we had a full day to spend in Darwin on our way home and enjoyed the sunshine, the markets, the crocodile centre, some great Mexican food on the waterfront and a movie at the amazing moonlight cinema. 

Just three weeks later I was back with Kaisha and Bree for another day of rest in Darwin before our flight to Melbourne - these flight times from Darwin to Melbourne seem to be doing the world of good for Darwin’s tourism industry!

We hit the Parap Markets once again (it’s just so good I had to go back!) and got great laksa and gifts for family and friends back home. We then tried to hunt down somewhere to cool off and found ourselves at the wharf where Darwin’s smarty-pants town planners (in a stroke of genus) have built a wave pool and an artificially beach where you can swim without fear of the jellyfish that might kill you. It was a really fun day sitting in the sunshine and enjoying the last of the warm weather before heading back to freezing Melbourne.

With all these trips I have become very fond of Darwin and would highly recommend a visit. And if you do go, have a seafood laksa for me and please don’t feed the possums at the moonlight cinema, they only LOOK cuddly!

5/5 laksa's in the sunshine