Ben & I have both visited Australia before, separately, with our families a long time ago. It’s a trip we’ve talked about taking together for a couple of years now. Ben’s uncle lives on the West Coast and although the flight is stupidly long {and has been at times offputting}, last January I realised that we just had to visit this year to escape the grey and have a couple of weeks of summer. We realised it was now or never, it’s not a trip we’d take often given the distance so before we start to think about children it seemed like January 2018 would be the perfect time. We started planning it a whole year ago with non stop rainy weekends leaving us holed up in bed or in the sofa trip planning. We realised with the journey and jet lag {and sheer scale of the country} that we’d need three weeks to make it really worthwhile. I called up the travel agents for flights before they were even released! There were so many places we wanted to visit but also we were conscious we didn’t want to be on the go the whole time going from place to place. We wanted a decent enough amount of time to really get a feel for an area and relax in, booking Airbnb’s for the whole trip so we feel a little more local and have access to a kitchen to not have to eat out the whole time. I wanted to go as soon as possible after New Year but it’s school holiday season in Australia so prices would have been peak and the beaches packed so we decided to wait until the end of January so by the time we get to the east coast beach towns it will be into a Feb with schools back. In the end our trip looks something like this;

• We fly on Tuesday evening and arrive into Perth late on the Wednesday. We’ll pick up a car to drive south a couple of hours to Dunsborough in the Margaret River area. This is where Ben’s uncle and his wife lives that we’re so excited to visit. Some of his other family have been out and it’s an area I’ve researched lots online. The beaches look insanely gorgeous and the area is known for its scenery, food and wineries. We have 5 days here to visit places like Smith’s Beach, Hamelin Bay, Busselton etc. Lawrence will show us the best places and we can go out on his kayaks, borrow bikes etc. 
• From there we have 2 nights in Fremantle, mainly so we can visit Rottnest island for a day. I’ve been dreaming of visiting for so long and cycling around stopping at all the different bays. The water looks so beautiful. Fremantle itself looks great too and we might have a half day in Perth if we fancy? Or we might like Fremantle so much? Then we fly overnight to Sydney. 
• In Sydney we have 4 nights/5 whole days. Again in an Airbnb in what looks like a central but quiet part of the city {I’ll share all our accommodation and thoughts after}. I’m hoping to do some of the spectacular looking coastal walks as well as ride the ferries and take in the botanic gardens and famous harbour views. I hope to wander around Surrey Hills and find some trendy brunch spots. The grounds of Alexandria is also top of our list for a morning. We’re not wanting any typical tourist stuff like walking the harbour bridge or Darling harbour. Just any nice Sydney lifestyle bits that combine pretty beaches, food or on trend parts of the city I guess. Haven’t quite worked out transport in the city yet as this will be the only place we won’t have a car. 
• From Sydney we fly up to to Gold Coast airport and drive to Byron Bay. We’ve got 4 nights here and this was probably one of the main focuses of the whole trip. I visited years back and love the laid back, endless summer surf vibe where anything goes. After following ‘that’ tribe on Instagram {Courtney and Jet Set Mama} and seeing the endless pink sunset skies and beaches during our winters I couldn’t wait to experience all the fab looking healthy brunch spots for ourself. We’re looking forward to lighthouse walks at sunrise, visiting the hinterland like Bangalow and The Farm, eating allll the brunches and finding hidden beaches/tea tree lakes. 
• We’d originally booked a whole week in Byron but then so many people said we couldn’t miss Noosa which feels v similar to Byron but is a little more polished? I deliberated a lot, the main reason for having a week somewhere would be a more relaxed trip getting to really know an area rather than keep moving around. But Noosa looked amazing and so we’ve booked 3 nights there to end our stay. I hope we won’t regret it! It’s always hard knowing just how long you’ll need in a place before you get there. From Noosa we then fly home from Brisbane. 

What do you think? Are you Australian or have you been? Any suggestions will be gratefully received and thank you to those of you who have already sent messages our way. I really love talking travel and will try to blog once a week whilst we’re there so I can recap on what we’ve been up to and share/back up some of my favourite photos.

Finally, I know we’ve already been incredibly lucky to have some winter sun with that unexpected rescheduled trip due to Hurricane Irma to the Turks & Caicos last week but that was mostly for work. This Australia trip is purely for our chasing the sun in winter dreams that we’ve been planning for a long long time. Travel is something we really prioritise and feel incredibly grateful to be able to experience. We’re both taking our laptops though - being self employed is a huge blessing but also means you feel you should stay on top of everything and do a little work whilst we’re away!

Three weeks to me feels like a really long time to be away for. But I’m sure once we’re there it will fly by. It’s also a perfect time to escape England with the days pretty desolate and no garden/allotment to worry about at present. I’m a little apprehensive about the spiders, sharks and snakes down under but will report back! Let’s hope we don’t see any of the above eeeek. Some of you may also be aware of Ben’s skin cancer in the past, and we know how strong the UV is in that part of the world but also how sun safe they are as a nation so will be interested to buy lots of suncream there. I’ve heard that in some cities they have free suncream stations if you forget which sounds like a great idea. We’ve also bought this shade for the beaches as most are v wild without umbrellas like you’d find in Europe or at resorts, it looks amazing and fits into cases even hand luggage so we can take it with us in carry on this summer for European beaches.

We’re almost all packed! I hope you’ll enjoy following along with our Aussie Adventure. I know we travel fairly often but this feels like the biggest most wild trip we’ve taken in years {since our south east Asia trip in 2011!}.

Back soon and will have lots of renovation news. We start our new loft the day after we return!