McGurn Family Travels: 2020

Our Big Lap Around Australia

In the map below you will find the stops for our trip around Australia. Each pin is a different stop and (after I've written it) will contain a mini-blog about the stop along with some images. If you're having trouble finding the pins on the map, then you can click on this icon in the top left corner of the map

This will give you a list of the places, which you can click on to read more about.
I will also post them on the blog below as I add them to the map.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Patrick.

The purple icons are the stops on our trip away from Melbourne and the orange ones are our stops on the way back.

Table Of Contents

This thing took a lot of coding, I hope you enjoy it😉.

Lockdown, a Car and a Caravan

So, quarantine/lockdown. This next part you can probably all relate to. Sit at home, kids do schoolwork et cetera, et cetera. Fortunately, we had a spacious bush holiday house to isolate in, even if we had wanted to stay home, our house had been rented because we planned to be away for this year.

There was no shortage of jobs to do up the bush, as we don’t usually spend too long there. We shifted wood, installed underfloor insulation, lit fires and did some gardening. As well as physical jobs we had to find Dad a new car online, we were looking for a Ford Ranger and after a lot of trawling through car websites I found the one we ended up buying.

After a month or so up the bush, Mum and Dad started to go a bit crazy, they needed something else to do. Mum started looking at houses to buy as you were allowed to move around for real estate. She eventually decided against that idea.

“What about a caravan?” Mum asked Dad,

“No” replied Dad.

Two days later, we’re looking at caravan websites and caravan sales yards. In the end, we bought a 2015 Jayco Expanda. After buying the van we got very excited, we bought all kinds of accessories for it. Coupling locks, wheel clamps, a shower and many other gadgets.

On the 11^th of June, we left in our van (after a few complications in the car, van braking system and the drive shaft). Our first stop, a free campsite on the Snowy River.

Lakes, Relatives and Coming Home - England, Scotland and Victoria😢

From Les Duex Alpes, we got a bus to Lyon Airport. We had to wait six hours at the airport because of the late planning (two days before), this was the longest I have ever waited at an airport. We just sat there and waited, and waited, and waited, until finally our flight time arrived (at 8 o’clock).

We arrived into London Luton Airport very late and staggered to our accommodation, Emily and I fell asleep instantly even though we were sleeping on an uncomfortable sofa bed.

The next day, we got our hire car and picked up our bags that we had left with our half-sister and started to make our way up to the Lake District. On our way there we stopped at a little English pub for lunch, I had fish and chips. They were YUMMY!

We stayed two nights in a little apartment in Kendal, in the Lake District. On our first day there, visited the big lake in Windemere, the lake was absolutely beautiful, in fact, the whole Lake District is stunning, with its rolling green hills and stone walls separating each property, it was the perfect spot for Emily and Mum to go horse riding. The only downside was the temperature, but that’s the UK.

“We are officially in Scotland!” I proclaimed as we drive past the big light-blue sign with a white cross on it. Our flight home was leaving from Edinburgh the next day so we had time to see my Gran and Dad had to sort out some bank stuff. After visiting two different banks, (that were 30 minutes away from each other) we drove to Gran’s house to say hello.

Gran was doing pretty well, despite not being able to get out, and not seeing to many people. While we were there, Uncle Mark and my cousin Lauren popped in as well. From Gran’s house, we drove halfway to Edinburgh and had a night in a cabin in Lanarkshire. We had chicken biryani and korma for dinner (Unfortunately I will always be disappointed by chicken biryani after the divine one I had in Singapore).

The day of coming home (6 months early) has arrived! ☹☹☹ Our flight wasn’t until 6 o’clock, so we had some time to burn. First, we visited New Lanark which was a cloth mill back the day, there were some pretty waterfalls and a nice walking track next to them. William Wallace (Braveheart) once visited New Lanark.

I don’t really need to go into our time waiting at the airport, it wasn’t very interesting, although we did find the Scottish announcers pretty funny. The flight was nothing interesting, we just watched stuff and slept. When we finally arrived at Dubai airport, our transit point, we were all pretty tired but we managed to get to our gate and, eventually get onto our flight.

From Melbourne Airport, we had to quickly pop back to our house to pick up a few things before driving out to our holiday house for 14 days of compulsory quarantine, but that’s a story for another day (or another blog).

Peacocks, My Birthday and More Virus - Evora, Lyon and Les Deux Alpes

After our stay in Lisbon, Portugal, we had a couple of nights in a cute town called Evora. Evora had castle walls and you weren’t allowed to park inside them. We went on a few walks around the town, met a few peacocks 🦚, and of course, ate a few too many Portuguese tarts.

From Evora, we drove back to the airport and flew to Lyon, in France. We caught the airport train and an Uber to our accommodation, which once again following European tradition, was not on the ground floor. The apartment was very big and it took us quite a while to find the cooking implements.

There was a little French bakery around the corner where I got to practise my French, “Bonjour, quatre pains au chocolat s’il vous plait”. We went for a few (socially distanced) walks around Lyon and on one particularly wet day I got a hole in my shoe while out on one of them. Fortunately, we were on the way to Decathlon, so I didn’t need to endure squelchy feet for too long.

We caught a bus from Lyon Airport to Les Deux Alpes (pronounced “leh derz alps” and meaning “The Two Mountains” for all you non-French-speaking folk) where we thought we would be skiing for the next month. We dumped our bags at the accom, which, you guessed it, was on the 3^rd floor, and went for a walk around town to sort out our skiing for the next day.

We checked in at ski school to make sure we would be good for the next day, got our ski hire ready and bought passes for the ski lifts. Also, we got cold, like really cold, like Europe cold! 🥶🥶🥶🥶

The next day, we got up early and got ready for our first day of skiing! We had to be at ski school by 10 o’clock. Since it was our first day, we only went on two easy runs. The ski lessons only went for three hours, but they felt longer since we had so much fun.

You may be surprised to learn that you can get seriously sunburnt in the snow, but it’s true. The Sun’s rays come at you from all directions because the light reflects off the snow, I found this out the hard way🧴☀️.

You’ve probably heard the old saying ‘When in France, eat bread,’ (at least I think that’s how it goes) we did just that. Every day we ate at least one loaf of delicious, fresh French bread, we had it with soup, with salami and my personal favourite with cheese a.k.a fondue. YUM!! The apartment had a fondue maker and Dad jumped right in (he was very keen, he didn’t actually jump into the fondue maker), also we found out that Mum used to have fondue parties (the things you find out when you don’t leave you parents for months on end).

While we were at ski school, Mum and Dad were following the news and, it wasn’t looking too great. There was talk of closing the ski resorts and we thought we might even have to go home (back to Australia). Every night Dad sat in front of the TV using Google Translate to follow the French President’s speeches.

On Saturday evening, it was announced that the French ski resorts would be closing for the remainder of the season and we would have to return all our ski gear the next day, that also meant I wouldn’t be able to ski on my birthday, which was on the Monday.☹☹

Well, this was the last straw, so Mum and I started to look for flights back to Australia. After a bit of searching, we booked an Emirates flight from Edinburgh, Scotland back to Melbourne. We had to go back to the UK as we had left some bags there, but in the meantime, it was my 12^th birthday.

France isn’t such a bad place to have a birthday, even if you’re in the midst of a global pandemic. For breakfast we had bacon, potato rosti and eggs. We went for a careful walk through town to a bakery where I picked a delicious-looking raspberry and lemon mousse cake. The bakery lady was very specific that we couldn’t eat the cake before 5pm, (since it was frozen) she wrote ‘1700’ on the cake box so we didn’t forget. The cake was 110% delicious and, considering our current situation it was a pretty good birthday.

The next day was Tuesday, (as you would know if you had been paying attention at school, and in the last 200 words) and that was the day we left the snow, 3 weeks early😭 (I googled really sad face to get that emoji). On the bright side, we now owe ourselves a month in the snow somewhere.

Portuguese Tarts

Portuguese tarts are possibly the best desert in the world, and we were staying where they were invented… Portugal. To get an idea of what they taste like, imagine a really good custard tart, now imagine a really good egg tart, now put them together and multiply the yumminess by _∞, this ladies and gentlemen, is a Portuguese tart. YUM!!!

Our rule while we were in Lisbon, was that we needed to have at least one Portuguese tart a day. We tried not to have a tart at the same place twice. Some tarts were served with cinnamon and icing sugar, but some were fine without. We tried two different places on ‘Rua do Arsenal’ and they were both delicious.

Supposedly, the first Portuguese tarts ever made, were made by monks at Jerónimos Monastery (Which we visited whilst in Lisbon!). The monks needed something to do with the yolks of the eggs, they used the whites to starch their clothing.

In 1820, there was a Liberal Revolution and the monks could tell that their monastery was soon going to be closed, so they sold their recipe to a nearby sugar refinery. Three years later, the sugar refinery opened ‘Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém’ and began to bake the tarts, following the original recipe of the monks. Whilst in Belém, we actually got tarts from this shop!

Pastel De Nata (literally ‘pastry of cream’) as the locals call it, is in the running for best desert of the year trip award. I will tell you the winner of this prestigious award near the end of our trip.

Lisbon - Markets, Electric Scooters and Underground Wells

Portugal, a country that I hadn't been to before. We flew with Air Portugal to Lisbon airport, and then caught the metro to our Airbnb apartment.

Following ancient European tradition, our accommodation was on the fourth floor😒. The apartment had a fully equipped kitchen, where Dad cooked all manner of delicious foods. We had a nice balcony, with a view of the street below.

On our first full day in Lisbon, we went for a walk to a nearby square. The Praça do Comércio (the square) was quite impressive.

After our walk to the square, we went to the local market and bought some fruit, vegetables and meat, whilst testing our Portuguese language skills. Later that day we walked to the Convent and an old church that was partly destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1755. Outside the ruined remains of the church, there was a guard wearing a very funny helmet with what looked like hair coming out the top.

Inside the Convent, there was relic from hundreds of years ago; there were pots, swords, engraved loom weights and mummies from South America. We also saw tombs, statues and, outside the church, an old elevator designed by a friend of Gustav Eiffel (the designer of the 'Eiffel' Tower).

We were very busy in Lisbon, and were doing something every day. The next day we caught the tram up to a castle on a hill, but unfortunately it was too expensive to go inside. We walked around this area of Lisbon, with lots of small streets. On the walk back, we passed the place where Saint Anthony was born. At the church we visited the crypt where they even had one of his bones!

A little bit out of main Lisbon, was a suburb called Belem. Here we visited Jerónimos Monastery, a very old and beautiful building with lots and lots of rooms with walls depicting different things. Mum enjoyed taking pictures of gargoyles. From the monastery we walked (for ages) to the Belem Tower. I thought entrance to the tower was included in our ticket, unfortunately it wasn't, but it still looked pretty cool from outside.

All through Lisbon, there were electric scooters that could be unlocked using the Uber app. There were some in Belem too, and as we didn't really feel like walking all the way back, we rode electric scooters. You had to be 18+ to ride, so Em and Mum went on one, and Dad and I went on another. Very fun!!!

The last place we visited was the National Museum of Archaeology. My favourite exhibit was the Ancient Egyptian one.

We caught the tram from Belem back to our accom, and that adventure was over.

Our final adventure in Lisbon was to Sintra. First, we caught the train and then we walked up through the old town to Quinta da Reguleira, a huge piece of land that was filled with old and beautiful structures. We wandered up to a well, which you could walk down underground.

There were lots of towers and tunnels at Quinta da Reguleira, and you could climb up and through them to explore the area. We got a photo from the top of one of the towers.

Now, after a lovely 6-night stay in Lisbon, we’re off to Evora. A small town about two hours’ drive away.

London - Jetlag, Babies and a Site-seeing Morning Trip

I do not like long flights, they are boring, tiring and I can never get to sleep on them. Not sleeping on 13 hour flights (the length of our flight), means...Drumroll please... JETLAG! (Hooray!)

When we finally arrived in London, all we had to do was find the car rental place, and then drive to Greenhithe (about 2 hours!🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃) Fortunately for me and Em, we fell asleep and the next thing we knew, we were there. The reason for us staying so far away from London, was to see our half-sister Sophie and her new baby girl! Her name was Isobel. (She was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute!)

After a couple of days of jetlag, we went with Sophie, Ben, her partner and Isobel to Canterbury. On our walk through the town, we saw lots of old buildings, some more than 200 years old. Then we had lunch in a park. I got to push Isobel on the swing! On our walk back to the car, Sophie bought some fudge, which she kindly let us eat.

The next day, we got up early (as you do when you have jetlag), got in the car and drove into London, for a site-seeing trip. There was literally no tourists there (apart from us). Check out these shots from Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square!

Emily and I wanted to see where Mum and Dad met, so we went to see if it was still there. The building was still intact, and it was still a cafe but it wasn't the same cafe.

Now, I want to know why no-one told me that there is no tower at the 'Tower of London'

I have EXTREME disapointment😞😠. Mum was like
"There's the Tower of London" and I'm like
"Where, where?"
"There"
"I don't see any tower", and finally Mum tells me
"There is no tower at the Tower of London"
This is me, 🤔😕🤔😕🤔😕.

Seeing all the landmarks in London minus the tourists, was very cool.

The turrets don't count as towers.

It was hard to say good-bye to pure cuteness (Isobel) and her parents, but we'll get to see them again later in the trip. For now, we're off to a brand new country... Portugal!

Cebu, Manila and Hong Kong - Coronavirus, Altar Bread and Toothaches

Our flight to Hong Kong with Cebu Pacific was cancelled beacuase of the coronavirus, which meant we had to book a new flight with Cathay Pacific. This ended up being a painful process as Cebu Pacific wouldn’t give us a refund and Cathay changed our flight from, direct to Hong Kong, to Cebu - Manila - Manila to Hong Kong (more info on these problems soon)

Mum had to have an operation on her teeth, so we had 2 nights in Cebu. This wasn’t our original plan but, as Cebu had cancelled our flight, we saw this as an opportunity to get her teeth fixed (also the pain was getting unbearable). We stayed at the Quest Serviced Apartments, which when Mum first said the name of, I thought she said Quest Service Departments, easy mistake.

The room at the hotel had a kitchen with a stove but nothing to cook with. Sadly, that meant that Dad didn’t get to cook for us. The hotel was across the road from a big mall. In the mall was a big supermarket, in the supermarket were big isles, in the big isles there was (da da da daaaaaa) unleavened altar bread🤣, right next to the altar bread was the red wine 🤣🤣🤣.

Funny!

Like I said before, Mum had to have a root canal. We had to go to the ‘Perpetual Heart Hospital’ for her treatment. Em and I waited out side playing on our devices, listening to the sound of a drill! Mum had to keep her mouth wide open for TWO HOURS. The good thing was, Mum felt much better afterwards.

Our last day in Cebu was very busy. We started by getting up at 8 in the morning and walking to the Cathay Pacific office (which fortunately, was not far from where we were staying) to sort out our flight to Hong Kong, that had been changed to stopping for four hours in Manila and getting into Hong Kong at 11 o’clock at night. We arrived 30 minutes before opening because we thought there would be a long queue (there wasn’t). When the office finally opened, we went in and were served first. After what felt like hours, Mum and Dad said

“We’re done” and we left the office.

The new plan was, instead of having one more night in Cebu and flying to Manila and Hong Kong tomorrow, we would fly to Manila that day, have a night in Manila, and then fly to Hong Kong the next day. Before doing that, there was another pesky airline we had to pay a visit.

The reason that Cebu Pacific wouldn’t give us a refund, is that Mum and Dad had closed the credit card account that they paid with. We hassled them for two hours. In the end they said they were giving us a “wired transfer” (I didn’t think the refund was going to happen)

When we arrived at the airport, we went to the Cebu Pacific office there. They told us that they were just going to transfer the money to the closed account and we were just going to have to contact the credit card company and somehow get the money. (Almost certainly not getting the refund)

The flight was uneventful (as most flights are), but the hotel in Manila was very nice. We stayed at the Savoy. It had a very nice shower but the beds were amazing (Dad got really excited about staying in a posh hotel and he took photos of the towels🙃). We were right next to the Airport, and as the stop was really only a transit, nothing much happened. The next day we were off to Hong Kong.

The airport in Hong Kong was extremely busy (not). We were the only people in the foreign passport lane, we were also the only people not wearing surgical mask (which technically means that we were safe, because no one can spread germs if they’re wearing a mask). We were the only people on the shuttle to the Novotel, the whole city looked like a ghost town.

There was nice view from the hotel in Hong Kong as we were on a high floor. Once again we only had one night. The next day we were off to London.

Blue Orchid Resort – Part 2 – Spotting, Snorkelling and Chameleons

The Blue Orchid Resort was actually a dive resort, and since Em was old enough to do Bubblemaker (a try diving thing for kids), she did. The dive master searched their equipment for the smallest sizes of everything to put on Em. Even after all that searching the gear was still too big. It was done in the pool and from what Emily tells me, she enjoyed it. Like I said, the mouth piece was too large for her little mouth and so she didn’t stay down for long.

During our time at the Blue Orchid we went on a boat trip. As with most activities, it required a bright and early start. The first stop wasn’t a stop exactly, you need to rearrange the letters to ‘spot’. WE SAW DOLPHINS! The boatman took us quite far out, and we saw at least 100 dolphins! They went in and out of the water so fast it was hard to get good photos.

After the amazement of dolphins, we thought nothing could impress us, but at the next stop we saw 10 turtles (it was very funny, one of us would say “Look, a turtle!” and then someone else would say “Yep, there’s three over here” 😂), razor fish, barracudas and a sea snake! At our last stop we were dropped off near our accom, and the current slowly drifted us back to the resort.

After our snorkelling trip, we continued our wildlife encounters with chameleons! The owner of the resort was nice, and we were talking to him about our snorkelling trip and all the animals we saw, then, he says

“Hey {Insert Filipino name that I forgot here}, show these kids my chameleons”, and I’m just thinking, did he say CHAMELEONS!

So, the guy that was told to take us up to see the chameleons took us up to see the chameleons, and they were very colourful, wonderful and interestingful. We took them out of their enclosures and they clambered all over our bodies. We even got to feed them crickets! If I could, I would have stayed there all day with those chameleons!

On the last day of our 7-night stay, we woke up at 3.45 to go and see, drumroll please! … WHALE SHARKS! 🐋 (I know this is not a whale shark emoji, but there is none and this is the closest I could get). Fortunately for us, our mode of transport was quite spacious and we were not cramped, even though mum had to sit in the back.

There was a long line to see the whale sharks, the first line we got in was to get our temperature taken and the second was to just get out. To get out to see them, we got on a rowing boat with an outrigger. It was very crowded and we weren’t allowed to go far from the boat or close to the whale sharks. Still, seeing them was very cool. On our way back into shore, I glanced into the water from the boat and saw, a turtle! #philipinesrocks

Blue Orchid Resort - Part 1 - Canyoneering at Kawasan Falls

From La Natura in Coron, we flew to Cebu. Where we left our Grandma 🙁, and started... TAXI WARS!(dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun). All we wanted was a taxi to our accommodation. As we stepped out of the airport and into the taxi rank we were bombarded from all sides by locals keen to get us in their taxis. After we finally decided who to go with, we just had a three and a half hour drive ahead of us.

The Blue Orchid Resort was a little bit out of main Moalboal, it was near the beach. It was very chill and had a nice pool. Unfortunately, the food was not included and wasn't cheap but, it was good. We were in the family room, with two single beds and one queen. The staff were super friendly and helpful. All good vibes.

On our second day there, we went canyoneering at Kawasan Falls! We woke up at 6 in the morning and got a jeepney ride to where we would get kitted out. We all got life-jackets and helmets. To get to our starting point, we rode motorbikes! I held on for my life!😧

After being scared out of my mind by the motorbike ride, we had a 45-minute hike on slippery muddy terrain. I fell over at least once, so did Em. The first jump was only 3 metres but it was the hardest one.

I was the only one who did all the slides and jumps (apart from the 12 metre one, because Mum said I couldn't) Near the end there was a rope swing, where you swung out and let go, falling to your death... Joking, the rope swing was really fun. After two hours of pure fun we had lunch with the falls behind us. This was by far my favourite activity at Moalboal. (More on the others in Part 2).