Today consisted of doing this at the resort all day:
Dinner was Fijian BBQ at Sunset Point. We watched the sun go down, ate delicious BBQ and then sat near the open fire enjoying the night time beach vibe. On the way back to the room, a horse chased us….which was kind of exciting / terrifying.
From the mud baths we returned to the resort for another quick shower and a change of clothes before taking part in a Sunset Dinner Cruise on Captain Cook Cruises.
The sunset was spectacular and the food, drinks and dancing were also good. Due to the fact our hotel was a fair way out than everyone else’s – we got a private transfer instead of the same bus! Score! Patrick the platypus had a great time on the cruise and drank way too many cocktails.
We went to bed at 8pm last night after 30+ hrs of no sleep. Both of us slept through fairly solidly and woke up at 9:30am to rush off for our included breakfast.
We then nabbed a beanbag right on the beach and from 10am – 2:30pm just….lazed around. We went in the pool, took advantage of the swim up bar, sat in the spa, read books and drank cocktails.
At 2:30pm we headed back to the room to get out of the sun a bit before our sunset beach horse ride. The horse ride was….interesting. Firstly, we ended up with a random 8 yr old kid on the horse ride with us. Alone. Which seemed…somewhat unsafe. It was also not particularly romantic lol. Then, B got the super angry, pregnant horse that kept charging people and got left to control it on his own. THEN it turns out my bad knee means I can’t gat off a horse, even with steps to assist me.
While the sunset view (and unexpected free bubbly!) was nice, I think we can safely say that my first time on a horse will also be my last!! After the horse trauma/experience was over, it was happy hour so I drank two $10 margaritas and felt a lot better about life.
Cocktail count: 2 x fruit daiquiri, 3 x pina colada , 1/2 bottle bubbly, 1 x classic margarita, 1 x pineapple margarita
Today’s lesson: in the world of Mel, riding a horse is like riding a mountain bike…difficult and likely to result in a(nother) broken wrist.
We did an overnight flight from Melbourne to Fiji. Not ideal for travelling but not totally awful either. We left Melbourne at 11:50pm AEDT and arrived at 6am Fiji time…so just under a 4hr flight time. While at Melbourne airport I realised I HAD FORGOTTEN MY TRAVEL MASCOT PERCY – again! This time, we bought a tiny ring in, his name is Patrick.
On arrival, we went through customs and then caught a taxi for about 25 mins to the main reception area for Sonaisali Island. We had to catch a tiny boat across the inlet! It was barely 7am, the sun was just coming up and nobody except staff was up at the resort so there was opportunities for amazing photos.
We relaxed on beach chairs and napped for the morning before being allowed to check in three hours early (midday). Our bure is pretty cute. We share a common wall with next door but they are all set up like that and we are right smack bang on the beach in front of where the sun sets. We cuddled up on a beanbag on the beach for awhile in the afternoon before I convinced B to “move” the beanbag on to our deck. I’ve written a pleading note asking them not to take it back lol.
All the beanbag shenanigans was exhausting (and we hadn’t slept for 26hrs) so it was nap time. Then beautiful sunset photo time!! Amazing. I picked the 9 best out of like….63.
Dinner was at the main restaurant at the resort and was traditional Fijian curry. Yum!
Day 1 cocktail count: 2 mudslides, 1 pina colada, 1 fruity dacquiri and 1 Moscow mule
Today’s lesson: max out the duty free coming over on wine and bubbly – the cost here is obscene. A $17 bottle of wine in Aus is $80 here and a bottle of bubbly is literally 4x the price!
Today was the last day of school for semester one, 2018 and tomorrow we fly to Fiji for a full five nights of glorious relaxation! When we decided to do a relaxation trip I settled on Fiji pretty quickly (only a 3hr flight from Sydney) and immediately started researching for my two main requirements – a swim up bar and an ocean front villa or room. Turns out those are damn hard to find in peak season! I also initially had “childfree” as a main requirement but all the strictly adults only places needed another flight from the domestic airport so B vetoed them this time around and we just aimed for a smaller resort without a huge kids club to attract families. I’ll come back to you another time LikuLiku Lagoon Resort.
We are staying at the Doubletree Resort by Hilton which is on Sonaisali Island. It’s very close to the main island and is only a 25 min taxi ride from the international airport with a 2 min boat ride across the inlet.
We have booked to stay in a King Premium Ocean Bure (hut) facing onto the beach. The pricing was exceptionally good (this whole trip is cheaper than what it cost us to go on what we politely refer to as “the Perth trip from hell” in 2016) and the inside of the bure looks amazing!
We have one short day trip planned to visit the mud baths and the garden of the sleeping giants but other than that it’s basically all about relaxing together, drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them and frolicking in the water while Canberra freezes through -5C temps. Here are some photos of my recent suffering – working on a farm school site requires multiple layers, thermals, a beanie and good gloves at the moment!!
The doggos (yes – note the plural! We have formally adopted Jet as of two days ago) will have a family of pet sitters coming to stay – highly recommend Emma Lily Grace Services in Canberra – and the big babies won’t even miss us a tiny bit while they have kids to dote on them and give them all the pats they want.
Fiji, here we come!! 🏝 🍸 🍹 🏖 😎
I was so pumped for this. We went with the tour on Viator (AAT Kings was the local provider) and it included the drive to Phillip Island, a stop at a wildlife park and PENGUINS! PENGUUUUUINS ON PARADE! Our AAT Kings bus collected us from our hotel at 12:45pm and by 1:15pm we were on our way out of Melbourne.
The first stop was at Maru Koala and Animal Park and I will admit – I was skeptical. I mean, I’m Australian…what the hell interest do I have in these animals? Turns out they are adorable and very used to people so they come up for pats. It’s also a rescue hospital so *thumbs up*. They have koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, a llama, Dingo’s, rabbits, a kookaburra, emu and more! 
it was about another 30 mins to Phillip Island from there and our first stop was at Nobbie’s beach for some amazing scenery.
We then drove down to the tour centre for the penguins. B and I had paid an extra $40 each for the Ranger Guided Tour and it was so worth it! Not only did we get a personal guide for 10 of us but we got commentary and prime viewing position to the right of the stands….without having to bags a good spot 3hrs early! It also just so happened that on this night, 80% of the ones coming ashore did so in front of us instead of the main stands. Score! Before the photo ban kicked in, I got some lovely night time shots
Now, because people are essentially all idiots they have actually outright banned photography at the penguin parade. This is a harsh stance in comparison to when I was at Moreton Island feeding wild dolphins and they let you take pics, just with no flash. This total ban is completely understandable though – the only way to get a good pic at almost-dark is with a flash and flash hurts their tiny little penguin eyes + upsets them – so if you ban all photography you avoid idiots using a flash when told not to. Easy. The ban on photos meant I spent the whole time excitedly nudging B about how cute the little penguins were and (quietly) cheering them on as they returned to their nests.
At 7:30pm we boarded the bus for the 2hr trip back to the CBD. Home time tomorrow.
Here are some cute penguin photos provided by Phillip Island to visitors in place of allowing photography:
I booked a late lunch today at the much raved about (and heavily reviewed) Rice Paper Scissors. Last year we tried for dinner there but with no bookings and a “we will text you when a table is available” dinner approach it didn’t really work in between comedy shows. Also, we are way too impatient for that sort of “popular eatery” shit. This time I booked lunch (hooray – a booking system exists for lunch) and we went for the 5 dishes for $59 shared option http://ricepaperscissors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SS-RPS_Menu_148x297_CITY_221117-draft.pdf
With a shellfish allergy I always have to be careful in Asian restaurants (we got one fish dish just for B and the rest was shareable) and we rated our first 4 meat based choices as excellent, with the crispy barramundi coming in as a bit “meh” compared to the rest.
Tonight was the last night of the comedy festival. Booooo! We came quite late this year because of when school holidays fell so hopefully next year we can come a bit earlier. It was also our most expensive comedy show ($45 a ticket) in the form of Wil Anderson and his show “Willegal” about his unplanned adventures with the law last year. We were in the front row which was initially very worrying but because this show was unlike his others and more narrative focused, there was very little crowd interaction.
After Wil Anderson it was dumplings for dinner at my favourite “no interaction with wait staff” restaurant China Red and then bed time before a big day tomorrow.
Tomorrow – PENGUIN PARADE AT PHILLIP ISLAND! Then home.
The zoo was AWESOME! We ubered there and back ($12 each way) and also paid an extra $25 for a close encounter with a seal. That meant we each got to have a seal kiss! Seals are also known as the dogs of the sea if you refer to B and his weirdness….and google…. It was only $27 for the experience and I considered it $27 well spent.
We explored all the different sections of the zoo and were there for more than 3 hrs in total – it was closer to 3.5hrs. My favourite animals were the orangutans.
Other animals included giraffes, meerkats, baboons, a hippo….and more! The lemur walk through experience was amazing, they just hang out right next to you and you can take lots of photos.
After the zoo we had a brief (too brief! Waaaah my feet) rest and then it was off to the Elephant and the Wheebarrow for comedy show number 7 “Battle of the Superhero’s” which was a debate with 4 comedians about who was the better “super” – Hulk, Microwave Man, Jessica Jones or Daenerys? The winner (by 2 votes) was Hulk….I voted for Daenerys Targaryen though. Mostly because she’s one of the performers from my favourite improv group Impromptunes.
We than had a quick on the run dinner at Nandos before our second Impromptunes visit for the festival – if you ever get a chance, we can’t recommend these performers enough! Tonight’s musical was “La Musicale” and featured an opera singer, a ballerina and the hit song “you’re a pig dog”. It also, weirdly enough, featured the lovely lady who led our seal encounter at Melb Zoo today! Turns out they hire performers.
After that it was a short walk to the final venue for the evening (the Town Hall) to see Joel Creasey. We saw him last year and really enjoyed it, it’s great to see his popularity is growing and he’s in a mucccccch bigger venue this year.
Day 1:
Today we started with Cafe Issus and the ever popular Nutella brioche with fairy floss. Afterwards it was time to explore Degraves Lane with my nice camera.
Once shopping time (ahhhh Dangerfield ahhhhh) had ended it was late lunch time and Meat Maiden was the go – as recommended by the QANTAS magazine. B highly rated the brisket and I thought the lamb shoulder was decent. 
At 5pm we went to Zero Latency. This time I was a spectator and B played Singularity and Zombie Survival with 7 strangers. He wants to go AGAIN next year which tells you how much he liked it…even if he only managed to place first once this time around.
Then it was Impromptunes – the improvised musical. They really lived up to their “adults only” theme tonight, boy did I feel bad for the teacher who had brought in a school group! Tonight’s musical was “Garlic Bread” and it contained multiple simulated orgies haha…hence my sympathy for the school group teachers!
Once Impromptunes finished it was off to a late night showing of “let’s get practical” with Melbourne favourites the very good looking initiative at The Malthouse. Food was average at the venue and I’ll be blunt but polite here and say…this was just not our cup of tea. We both had regrets about missing other late night shows for whatever the hell this was meant to be. We probably should have taken a hint from the audience of 20 people who all seemed to know the performers before we walked in. I’m all for alternate or subversive humour but this just missed the mark for both of us.
Day 2:
Well, today was the long awaited booking for Vue de Monde at lunch. I had to book months in advance for this (and that was just for lunch – dinner was gone ages before then) but far out it was worth it!! You are talking $1000+ for two people to have the chefs degustation and prestige paired wines but B and I both rated it number one restaurant to date. The food, the view, the wine, the service….all A+++ 
After a wine/food induced afternoon nap, we managed to miss Improv Comedy at the Highlander Bar (dammit!) but did make it to a cabaret/singing show out at the Melba Spiegeltent in Collingwood. Now last year the Spiegeltent was a highlight (drag cabaret) and I though this years acapella performance (Ginger and Tonic) also rated pretty damn high. B didn’t think it was as good as the drag cabaret show YUMMY but enjoyed some of the jokes – it was a bit more female oriented in terms of humour.
After that was an $8 Uber ride back into the city to Coopers Inn for the late night “comedy boxing” show with no names we knew beforehand but a lot of adult giggles. It was the first show we have been to that hasn’t run to schedule but was also our first late night one so possibly that’s a common thing in the later shows. We enjoyed the humour although felt a little bit “odd one out” since most of the audience were, to put it politely, wasted.
Eeeee, here we are again! As the school term started later this year, so have school holidays so we have only managed to come for the last 5 days of the MICF this time around but have booked 11 shows within that time!
Our hotel for this trip is a little more fancy since I slept about 12 hours over a week last time we stayed in Adara on Collins and was super grumpy. This time we are in the Novotel on Collins and it is super nice! Our room has a lovely view of St Collins Laneway and the pretty light features.
After settling in at the hotel, we both went shopping – I spent *mumble mumble* at Dangerfield and Fossil while B considered purchasing new electronics. We then had an early dinner at China Red (a favourite from last years MICF visit) which not only has amazing dumplings but also uses touch screens so there’s very little social interaction. It’s my kind of place. After leaving there, we walked to our first venue and encountered a street artist touching up some work in Hosier Lane.
Our first show tonight was 6:30-7:30pm and it was Urzila Carlson at the Forum Melbourne. We have watched her quite a few times on HYBPA and enjoy her take on life. I hadn’t realised I had booked front row though! Lucky she’s nice to audiences. 
Our second show was 8:15-9:15pm at the Swiss Club where we saw Rhys Nicholson. We actually saw him perform last year at The Great Debate and really enjoyed his snarky, self-deprecating humour. We could have gone front row for this one but I went with second row instead.
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