"Put Another "Shrimp" On the Barbie...."

So ETD Readers, today I want to talk about something very special to me:

Friendship. Friendship and what it means to me. In my world, friendship is more than just hangin' out with the lads or going shopping with the girls. To me it is a mutual equilibrium that knows no distance or time. There is no expiry date on friends.

Over the past few years I have moved around somewhat (to put it mildly), and during this time I have maintained as many friendships as I can, and I have made some very special friends - which has been the saving grace for me! My time overseas wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun, interesting or memorable without each and every one of you and what we have shared together. It truely makes me sad to say goodbye, but rest assured the GAFFAtron will return.

"..Cos, I've had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you..."

And just like the song says, my time has been exactly what I needed and you've all made it special....even all of you annoying, smelly friends! ;-)

There is something I need to tell all of my new friends, and something I'd like to remind all of my old friends. I Love You ALL. I just needed to share that with you.

How To Pack Your Luggage: Part 1 - The Packing List

HELLO!

Welcome back to Eat Travel Dive, to all of our loyal blog followers. With the ever nearing date of mine and Winnie’s departure to travel overseas, I thought now would be a good time to start a blog series related to that woeful task of Packing!

Is this your Family Car on the way to the airport?

Is this you on your last trekking holiday?

I’m not sure I know anybody who actually enjoys this process, but needless to say it is an essential part of any traveller’s itinerary. Boo! I hear you all screaming, but fear not, I am about to try and make life easy for everyone.

Mindil Beach Sunset Markets - Darwin

Hey hey! Gaffa and I are in our last week of work! YAY!!! Only 3 days, 7hrs, 13 mins to go... haha I'm not counting down the time, I swear!

Anyway, Gaffa is working on his packing posts, so I thought I'd sneak one in about the markets in Darwin. We were told about these markets by close friends of Shrimp Dog and Shrimpette who use to live in NT. While we were travelling up through the National Parks and working out our itinerary for the last week, we found out that they were on Sunday and Thursday nights. So we had to rearrange our visits to Litchfield and Kakadu so we could visit the markets. Lucky enough, Kakadu was a quick visit and we made it to Litchfield and to Darwin in time for the markets on a Sunday night - yipeee! I love markets!!

Mindil Beach sunset

WINGAZ 01/05 2011

Product Review - Lululemon Run: Speed Skirt

Hey hey there! Sorry haven't posted for past few days, Blogger was down yesterday...
As you can see above, I love to do jumping photos, and I'm wearing a funky skirt/short/skort....

My first product review of a Lululemon item - the Run: Speed Skirt. If you read my previous post about Lululemon, you would have known that I got given this skirt as a gift from the lovely educators that were working that day at the Ivy George St. store =D

Walking in Outback Australia - Part 1: Uluru

G-Day!

For today’s post, following on from yesterday’s inspired post I have decided to talk about something totally different. I would like to start over a series of blog posts to talk about the various walks, hikes and treks that Winnie and I did whilst we were on our Road Trip from Adelaide to Darwin. I will only cover the walks that we actually did, and give an honest appraisal of them. To do them justice I will cover one walk each time I post on this subject – so stay tuned for the other walks!

No discussion of the Red Centre of Australia would be complete without a mention for that big old red rock that millions flock to see each year – Uluru, or as it is also known Ayers Rock.

Keep Breathing

Howdy Peeps!
To all of our fellow Eat Travel Divers!

I'll start with what I found to be an inspiring photo, and YES I took it, but with Yummy Mummy's camera during her PADI Advanced Open Water Night dive... The following photo was taken in the worst possible conditions and during a night dive, with poor visibility - why bother some would say (in most cases I would have agreed). BUT, with no editing at all, the image came out like this; which just goes to show that something beautiful can come from the worst of conditions....

Welcome Back!

Sunset at Mindil Beach, Darwin, NT

HELLO THERE! :)

Gaffa and I are back from our 2 week Outback Adventure! After 13 days on the road, 5224 kilometres of driving, over 4,000 photos, only 2 or 3 days without showers, a lot of sweat, about 50km of walking/hiking, a million flies and mozzie bites and sleeping in an airport... we are back to work for 12 days and then off on our travels again. Yipee yi yo!

Australian Outback Adventure Itinerary

Happy Friday Peeps! :-)

It's been a busy week, trying to get my visa for the UK sorted out. It dawned on us that we would have to plan our overseas travels in blocks of 3 months because the Schengen Visa only allows Australians to travel through the majority of the European countries for 90 days, then you can't return for another 90 days. Basically 90/180 days you can travel within the Schengen region freely. So what were we going to do for 3 months at a time? The solution was to get a UK Youth Mobility Visa (working holiday visa) and work in the UK to save some money for the next 3 months, or travel to other non-Schengen countries like Egypt, Russia, Ireland, Morocco, Turkey... or even USA! So I filled in the online application, went to the British Consulate to have my fingerprints taken, got some ugly passport photos taken, and then sent off my passport and forms to get processed. I also had to prove that I had 1600GBP to my name. How does one expect to live in UK for 2 years on 1600GBP? God only knows, but that's the amount you need to be eligible for the visa.

Introducing GAFFA

Who is Gaffa? He's the Pommy that entered into my life back in 2008 and my life has never been the same since! He is also going to be a co-writer with me on this blog. Since we're heading off together on 6 June 2011 for our world travels, we'll be using this platform as a way of people keeping up with what we're doing, and also a way of documenting our exciting journey, so maybe one day we can look back and laugh at all the fond memories we shared...

To learn more about Gaffa, have a look at the About Gaffa page.

To learn more about the Gaffa and Win story (or WinGaz as we like to call ourselves), read below:

Kazbah Breakfast Banquet

If you haven't been to Kazbah, you're missing out. This place has to be one of the most blogged about restaurants in Sydney, and their breakfast banquet being the main star attraction.

A Moroccan, Middle Eastern theme, the breakfast banquet is available to groups of 8 or more. Their first location on Darling St. in Balmain was such a hit that they recently opened up at Top Ryde City in January and then in February in Darling Harbour.

We're really not this pale, I swear! 

It was my birthday weekend and the only thing I wanted to do was EAT! So I invited a bunch of my diving buddies, some family and family friends along to have breakfast with me to celebrate my quarter century milestone.