Hey Bees! I thought we’d take a break from our regularly scheduled DIY-programming to chat about my recent trip to Australia. If you’ve been following my Instagram or other social networks you’ll know I returned from three weeks down under—my first visit since I lived there in 2010. It was a wonderful trip! We started in Sydney before flying to Tasmania for a few days. Up next was camping near Nowra, NSW, and then a road trip to Melbourne before heading back to Sydney via Grampians National Park. Three weeks seemed like a long time when I booked the flights back in July 2017, but in hindsight I really wish I’d just sprung for an entire month! I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to leave Australia, though—it holds a pretty special place in my heart 😊
While I was in Aus I hosted three Humblebee & Me meetups; Sydney, Hobart, and Melbourne. They were great, and easily the most successful run of meetups I’ve ever had, with 6–8 people attending each one. We had so much fun chatting, laughing, getting to know one another, and sharing our DIY stories! Meeting other people who love to make things is a pretty rare occurrence for me (though it’s becoming less rare as the years go on!), and I’m so honoured that so many people took some time out of their days to come say hello, share a drink, and laugh. I left each meetup positively glowing over how lovely everyone was. If you’d like to attend a Humblebee & Me meetup, please follow the Humblebee & Me Facebook page; I use Facebook events to organize them. At this point in time I schedule meetups during trips I take for other reasons (I don’t travel just for meetups) so I can’t really predict if I’ll be near you at any point in the future, but I do know I’ll be in Toronto in June!
The 12 Apostles (there were never actually 12, ha)
Rather than give you a blow-by-blow of my entire trip I thought I’d share some observations and reflections from my travels, plus lots of pretty photos. For more photos be sure to follow me on Instagram—I’ll be sharing photos from this trip for quite a while as I took hundreds of them!
The humidity!
Oh my, the humidity. Swoon. My skin is not naturally super dry, nor is it “addicted” to lotion or lip balm—I just live somewhere really dry. Within days of landing in Australia I no longer needed hand lotion and rarely needed lip balm thanks to the delicious, delightful humidity! I know humidity isn’t for everyone, but I love it—it doesn’t seem to impact my hair at all, but leaves my skin so much happier than it is in Calgary.
My mugshot from the Old Melbourne Gaol
I use far less product than I think I do
That, or three weeks is not as much time as I thought. I brought a wee 15mL jar of facial lotion and was worried about running out; I barely made a dent in it. Ditto for my hyaluronic acid serum and cleansers and pretty much everything else.
… well, except for sunscreen
I went through at least 400g of sunscreen in three weeks. I used the UVLens app to remind me to re-apply and keep an eye on the UV index, and thanks to my diligence I almost entirely escaped any sun burns (or tanning), and never got any serious burns.
The traveling + hydration struggle
At home I’ve got it pretty easy—constant access to both fresh water and a bathroom. When I’m out and about all day both of these things are a bit harder to guarantee. Lack of easy access to a bathroom made me wary of consuming tons of fluids, and when my water bottle is empty it wasn’t always easy to find somewhere to fill it up. This lead to a cycle of trying to balance not being desperately dehydrated but also not catching myself urgently searching the streets for a public toilet every hour.
Sand gets everywhere
Why do I always forget this? It gets everywhere, sticks to sunscreened skin like it’s been glued down, and I’ve remembered I’m a bit prissy about having dirty feet. When I was packing up the evening before leaving I upended my backpack outside and what seemed like half a cup of sand came pouring out 😂
Looking out over Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park, Tasmania.
Australian dairy trounces Canadian dairy
Specifically in the yoghurt and sour cream departments. Aussie dairy is richer, thicker, and creamier. Their sour cream is practically solid 😍You can spread it on things like cream cheese! Fairly standard grocery store yoghurt (especially passionfruit mango!) blasts premium Canadian yoghurt out of the water. You can also buy milk that is whole milk with added cream. Swoon.
The melty-melty struggle is real
“I’m just going to leave this butter out to soften… aaaaand it’s liquid.” Seriously. I left a stick of butter out to soften before dinner (for maybe an hour?) and came back to a yellow puddle on a plate! At home I’ll leave a block of butter out overnight to soften it up before baking with it. I can’t imagine a situation other than my house burning down that would result in liquified butter on my counter.
Carrying a packet of Tim Tams home? Be prepared for melted chocolate everywhere in the packet once you get home and open it. I left my cleansing balm in the windowsill and came back to find it had melted through its paperboard tube. And honestly, it never felt hot enough for any of those things to happen. Obviously it was, but I wasn’t dealing with 40°C (104°F) temperatures—low 30°C’s at best. Does the entire packet of Tim Tams liquify in 40°C+ temperatures, wrapper and all? Does the counter butter start sizzling?
Everything’s a bit browner
Once you get a bit inland I found this be be really noticeable; greens weren’t the punchy, rich, forest greens I see in Canada. They were a bit paler, more muted—browner. The earth isn’t a deep, rich, black—it’s more of a pale ruddy red. The grass typically isn’t a rich green; it’s more of a pale green-brown.
It’s pretty dang expensive
Many typical purchases seemed to be a minimum of 30% more than I’d expect to pay in Canada. A six-pack of beer that might be $12–16 here would be $20–22 in Australia! Yoghurt that’d be $5 here was $8 there (though it was so much better that I don’t really mind). Mangoes were often $5, even grown-in-Australia ones! They’re rarely that much in Canada (though also rarely as delicious). Gas/petrol seemed to start around $1.20/L, and that’s considered quite high for Calgary. Books are rather scary—a cookbook that might be $25 here can be upwards of 3x that in Australia.
Exceptions included sunscreen (you could still pay $20 but you’d get 4x as much), Weetbix, and Australian wines.
It’s wonderful
I’ve got a keen eye out for seat sales because I’m definitely going back! Hopefully this time it doesn’t take another eight years.
Sorry I missed your meet up here in Hobart. Glad you liked it though. Looking forward to perhaps meeting you next time.
No worries! I definitely hope to be back someday 🙂
Thanks you so much for sharing this with us. Your photos are gorgeous!!
Thanks so much, Kelly!
Oooo Ooo. I have a tip you’re going to love for your “sand everywhere” problem. It’s Baby Powder. I learned this when my little ones were babies. Taking them to the beach seemed like an awesome idea, till you realize that sand in baby fat crevices, is really hard to get out, and irritates almost instantly. So….. Baby powder Everywhere. It sucks the moisture out of the sand instantly, allowing it to be brushed cleanly away. Perfect for your feet. Even more fun, is you can get it in tiny little containers, perfect for diaper bags/carry-on-luggage.
Oooh awesome! Now I just have to try to remember this the next time I’m anywhere near a beach LOL… which will probably be 3–5 years from now haha.
Thank you for sharing your trip with us and your photos. Looks like you had a blast. Yes, baby powder works great for getting sand of your skin.
Thanks so much, Marie!
Hi Marie, thanks for sharing this with us, it made me want to go to Australia like, tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to visit, specially ’cause one of my good friends (whom I met in NYC) live there and told me I can come visit and stay with her any time. It’s not as easy now that I have two little ones but this is a trip that’s high up on my bucket list. I’m glad u had a great time and keep the pics coming, they are absolutely gorgeous! Much love, Thais!
PS: do u have any plans to come to the States or Brazil?
Thanks! Definitely do keep it on the bucket list, it’s wonderful 🙂 I will likely be in the USA soonish, no plans for Brazil at this point 🙂
I am so happy you enjoyed Australia. I’m in sunny Qld. A fair bit hotter and humid than where you were. We joke up her that southerners don’t know what humidity is! My husband has a theory that a car is new until you take it near a beach with kids cos you will NEVER get the sand out !!!
Perhaps next time, you will make it north and we can meet up!
I remember loving QLD when I was there in 2010! Part of the reason I went south on this trip is because I visited QLD a couple times when I lived in Aus in 2010. I had so much fun diving off Port Douglas, exploring the Daintree, and falling in love with Fraser Island. Swoon! What a stunning part of the world you live in.
glad you enjoyed our country 🙂
I can’t wait to go back! 😀
I would like to have caught up with you in Melbourne Marie, but I don’t do facebook, so I missed out! I laughed about the butter! A lot of OS recipes call for softened butter and as you rightly say, we can’t leave butter out of the fridge. Now I buy spreadable butter in a tub and I keep that in the fridge and all is well. Books are seen as non-essential in Australia and attract GST – that’s why a lot of us buy online from OS! We think petrol is expensive too! Glad you enjoyed yourself. Cheers, Jane
Oh bummer! I did mention the meetups a lot in my emails leading up to the trip as well, but all the details were on Facebook. I don’t think you need an account to just look, but there’s really no better way to organize events at this point in time—especially when I’m trying to take suggestions from people on locations and things. Sorry to miss you!
At least if you’re baking something that requires softened butter you don’t need much lead time! It’s always a bummer to want to make cookies and realize you’re quite a ways off from having softened butter on hand 😛 Sometimes during the holiday baking season I’ll just leave a block of butter on the counter so it’s ready whenever the urge strikes, LOL!
HI, Marie: welcome back! I got warmed up just looking at all of your sun-drenched photos!
An FYI to you and everyone: Madagascar, which produces the world’s vanilla bean pods, had a poor harvest. I am buying what I can as the prices for pure vanilla beans, extracts, and essential oils are going to be very expensive.
Thanks, Collee! Sadly vanilla has already skyrocketed in price here—what used to be an $11 bottle of extract is now $40. Yikes!
Looking foreward to seeing more jaw dropping pics of your trip.
Quite sure you dont remember but I met you at Windy Point and you were telling me about the Snaap Ap you use. I must have the spelling wrong as I havent been able to find it.
would you mind sharing the App name again….
Thanks so much! And I do remember you—and my being rather giddy about the app, haha. It’s called Snupps 🙂
Hey Marie! So glad you had such a lovely time, but also.glad to have you back. I was wondering if you would share your hydralauronic acid serum recipe?? Or something similar. Thanks so much!
Thanks! I definitely will share it once it’s worthy of being shared 🙂
I just hiked a 36km circuit around Wilson’s Prom with my school from Melbourne in 3 days! Hard work but worth it. I love living in this beautiful country.
Oh my goodness, that sounds beyond amazing! I really must do more backpacking… and perhaps source a clone, ha!
Some of my friends from my class were a bit sore as you can imagine carrying 20kg on your back for that long but the views were incredible. Next visit to Australia, you should do that hike! 🙂
I can definitely imagine—I think my pack for the West Coast Trail was close to 30kg when I started!
So sad I ddn’t realise you were coming to Australia as I just found your amazing site. Been loving trying out all these wonderful recipes and have bought your book. I am a happy lotion maker now! Next time you come (and it has better not be eight years) make sure you come to Queensland. A quick question – can you add hyaluronic acid to your basic lotion recipe? Something I would love to try.
Aww bummer! I prioritized more southern destinations on this trip as I’ve been to Queensland a few times (back when I lived in NSW in 2010), but I definitely hope to be back some time! We’ve been getting some pretty kick-butt seat sales to that part of the world recently, so fingers crossed those keep happening 🙂
You can definitely add some 1% HA stock to the lotion recipe—removing 20% water and replacing it with 20% of the stock should do the trick!