Smiley Nomad

We thought of sleeping in a bit late today to recover from the jet lag. Woke up around 9am and decided to walk to a nearby mall to buy some stuff and have breakfast. Grocery and pharmacy items were definitely more expensive than in Australia so was our breakfast at Starbucks. Inflation has definitely hit the USA compared when I was here pre COVID. We walked back to our hotel and then packed our baggage and walked back to the LAX airport. We took our South West flight to Las Vegas. Loved the paper napkin which gave a bit of history of South West airlines. Flying over the deserts we reached Las Vegas.  Landing in Las Vegas was quite turbulent, apparently that's the case usually. We were seated on the left side of the plane and as we landed we had a beautiful view of the Las Vegas strip. I'm sure it would be pretty amazing at night. Moment you come out of the air bridge you are welcomed by lots of slot machines, reminding you where you are, Las Vegas. Getting an Uber at the Las Ve...

It was the first time Krish was visiting the USA and our first foreign trip together. He got the USA visa without any trouble at all, but we had our tickets booked through Fiji airways and according to Fiji immigration he required a transit visa to travel through Fiji. Fiji immigration website states that visa will come in 3 days and despite that he didn't receive his transit visa until the day before we travelled. We were on pins until the visa arrived, but finally it came 2 days before. To celebrate the arrival of his visa we did some retail therapy the day before our tour at Kathmandu and bought lots of clearance buys. I was excited too as this is the first time me traveling outside Australia after almost 3 years due to COVID. We drove to Brisbane airport, this time we used Valet parking which was very convenient, dropped the car and went straight across the road to the terminal. First leg of our flight was to Fiji. Our flight was delayed by approximately an hour and finally we ...

It was a weekend off and Krish is new to Gold Coast and I thought of taking him to my favourite place in Gold Coast so far, Springbrook. A bit of drizzle was in the forecast but yet we decided to try our luck. After a 50min ride we were at my most favourite spot in Springbrook, Purling Brook falls. Similar to us so many other visitors wanted to try their luck despite the bad weather.  Purlig Brook has a 4km track which takes you to the bottom of the waterfall which starts at the carpark. Make sure the track is done in a clockwise manner to ensure you wont be climbing too steep. It's not the easiest track nor it is the most difficult. The first stop is a lookout from which you can see the falls from a distance.  The second lookout has a view of the valley with its mighty gondwanian vegetation and a smaller waterfall falling by.  Make sure you dont stop and keep walking to the bottom of the falls. It is well worth the visit to the bottom of the falls. It started to rain as ...

If you ever look up for places to visit in the small Victorian town of Bairnsdale, St Mary's church would almost always come up as the top pick on the list. At the end of my locum in Bairnsdale, we could not leave this quaint little town without visiting this piece of history.  After having a sumptions breakfast at Mr D's cafe we took a small stroll to the church. Built in 1913 this church is an unmistakable red-orange brick structure in Bairnsdale standing proudly in the middle of the town right on the main street. The main tower has a sculpture of Mary welcoming you to this place.  It is the inside of the church that is very special. The walls and ceiling of the church have beautiful murals done by an italian migrant artist, Francesco Folriani, who was looking for work in this region over 70 years ago. For these murals, this is definitely not your average regional Australian church you would visit and I could realize why it makes to the top of the list in the things to do in...

It was my last day locuming in Bairnsdale. As the lockdown restrictions eased, Tan could join me in Bairnsdale. After over a 7 hour journey from Warrnambool, he came to Bairnsdale around 5.15pm. I picked him from the station and without wasting anymore time, we wanted to go and see the silt jetties. I have heard the sunsets here are mesmerizing and wanted to see it to ourselves before leaving Bairnsdale. Mitchell river silt jetties are located about 10km from Bairnsdale. It is porbably better you have an SUV / AWD to get there as the latter part of the journey is on dirt road with so many potholes. Silt jetties are a natural formation of finger like elongated deltas formed by silt, minerals and mud over millennia. At 8km Silt jetties in Bairnsdale are the second largest in the world and the largest in the southern hemisphere.  By the time we reached there the sun had already set but it was still casting a mesmerizing array of colors at the horizon. It was only us there and the thic...