Kangaroo Valley, Australia Trip (Day 5)

20th Feb 2019, Wednesday

Goat outside the cottage

I was woken up by my sister and dad this morning, also found my dad was sleeping on the sofa last night. So we took turns to shower and got ready for our day. It was raining drizzling this morning and we went out to meet the goats after light breakfast. My dad got excited when he saw some wild kangaroos boxing some distance away from the cottage (in the greens). We also went out to feed the goats with wild grasses...hohohoo...

Once we were all ready, we drove out to Kangaroo Valley town but we stopped by Berry Kitchen (some distance before the town). But the restaurant was not opened, it was opened for coffee and there were a couple of people waiting for their coffee. So my dad bought two cups of coffee to try out. We saw the cottage owner there too, she told us the coffee was nice and we should try it. After the coffee, we drove down to the town. It was a small town with a few shops around and 2 of their popular restaurants were closed on Wednesday and Thursday.

Coffee from Berry Kitchen

Southern Pie

Hampden Bridge

So we went to try out the southern pies (it was having good reviews online). It was a small cafe with no customers inside....@_@...But we still bought the pies to eat...it was quite tasty, i just find it too salty for us. After that, mi and my sister went to the post office, which was a couple of shops away. We walled around the town and took photos around Hampden Bridge (which was one of their attractions). Then we went on to see kangaroo valley pioneer museum (entrance fee AUD$10 per adult).

Milk cart

Horse workshop

Old sherd

Dinning room

The stuffs kept in the museum were from the 70/80s and during the war times. The stuffs were collected a lot of dust and were on low maintenance. The museum was actually founded by a lady named Doris Good and there were a lot of stuffs for you to explore. We took some time to explore the different houses which had different items inside. My dad and step mum were sitting near the entrance and was chatting with the old grandpa who sold us the tickets. My dad later told me that the grandpa told them there was a camp site nearby where we could see wild kangaroos and wombats.

After the visit, we were thinking where to have lunch as the restaurants in the town seems to be closed today. So we drove to the visitors information car park and had a look on the information on the nearby towns. We decided to drive up to mountain ridge winery to try our luck. However, we stopped at a town named Berry town along the way as it was already past 2 plus. The town had more shops compared to Kangaroo Valley town. I decided to head to Berry Sourdough Cafe around the corner but it was also closed on Wednesday (Bad luck...). So we settled in The Emporium Food Co. for lunch. They were selling meats and sandwiches.

We bought sandwiches, which was quite nice and not salty. After lunch, we went to the supermarket to get some food for our dinner and tomorrow's breakfast. There was also a sausages shop which we bought some back for dinner. My dad and step mum wanted to go back but i still want to explore the town. So mi and my sister stayed in the town for another hour while my dad and step mum went back. There were more shops to explore here but the price was higher than Kangaroo Valley town. But i did not have enough time to explore more in the town, there was actually a chocolate factory there (the chocolate bought in this town was nice too).

Lunch Place

Bacon Sandwich

Sandwich

 

Sausages Shop

Berry Museum

Afternoon cakes

We left the town around 4pm as my dad wanted to go to the camp site and see the wild wombats. But he wasn't sure on the location and we were not able to find the campsite near our cottage. So we headed back to the cottage as it was starting to rain lightly. It was boring with no interesting TV programs. So I walked around the cottage and up the road to pass time while they napped. When my dad saw mi getting bored, he asked if want to go see the wild wombats. But we did not know the location, so we tried to find on the map and we managed to find the name of the campsite (Bendeela Recreation Area). But my step mum commented it was getting late and to go tomorrow instead.

Don't know what my sis bought (Not nice..haha)

My dad's master piece

So my step mum prepared dinner with leftover food (from yesterday's dinner) and some of the food we bought today. My dad even cooked scrambled eggs and bacon (anyhow mixed together) for us..hahaha....After dinner, we just took turns to shower and rested after a long day.

Places visited:
Kangaroo Valley town
Berry town

Hotel Stayed:
The Heavens Mountains Escape (Elysium Cottage)

Europe 2nd Trip - Zurich, Switzerland (Day 15)

8th Nov 2013, Friday, Sunny

Swiss Army Knives

Today is our last day in Zurich and we are going back to Singapore tonight...sadz sadz....So we got up a bit late and then we got ourselves prepared. I had to go down to a Swatch shop and get my new watch to change cos the winder was spolit and it would come off if apply with some strength. So after breakfast, we went down the shops near the train station to check out but the shop was not the official shop. So we had to walk to the branch in the main station, luckily i was able to change a new one in the branch in the train station. We went to a souvenir shop called EdelWeiss Shop and had some shopping. After that, we went and took a bus down to the place for our cruise along Zurich Lake. Once we found the boarding place for the cruise, it was crowded with people. Then the boat (for a shorter route) came and we boarded. There was no seats outside, we managed to get a place to sit in the boat inside. OMG, it was so hot with my jacket on (it's 4 layers of clothes) and the boat was super slow.....I really sat until i was going to fall asleep on the boat ride, even the dog sitting under the table opposite us also hid and was making itself comfortable to sleep.

Fish & Chips (Nordsee)

Finally, there was some free seats at the outside, so we went out to have some wind blow. After the cruise, we saw swans and black birds around and went and take some photos on them. There were people sitting around having sandwiches too. After that, it was time for us to go back to our hotel and head out to the airport. We went to the bus stop and hopped on our bus to go back to the main train station.  We had our lunch at a restaurant, named Nordsee. It mainly sells seafood and i ordered a Fish & Chips. It costs $7.90 swiss franc and it tasted nice...i like it...kekeke...Once we were back in the hotel room, we took our stuffs that needed to go through tax refund. Then we got the hotel staff to help us weigh our luggage, so that we can roughly know how heavy. Amazingly, mine was the heaviest, which i was shocked...But anyway, we went down to Zurich main train station to catch the train to Zurich Airport, which was like 10 mins or so journey. We just stood near the train door until we reached our stop. Then we dragged ourselves to the airline counter and printed our boarding pass. After that, we went and find a place to lighted our luggage and keep our jackets too. After all this, we went down to check whether we can check in our luggage. Fortunately, the counters were open and we checked in our luggage and then we went walking around the airport, at the same time, trying to find the tax refund office to do our refund.

Passport Stamps

When we reached the tax refund office, there was a Singaporean couple who also came and wanted to do their tax refund. But they had checked in all the stuffs they bought with their luggage, and the husband was making a fuss that the shops staffs didn't inform them that they were required to show the stuffs to the officer when doing tax refund. The officer still insisted that they show the stuffs and the wife (think she doesn't want any trouble) tried to calm her husband and then they left the office. Then we went and showed our stuffs to the officer and done with the tax refund. After everything was done, we went and look for the airport lounge. It was so weird, we actually need to get our passport stamp to get to the lounge we wanted to go (it means we had exited Swiss...kekeke..). Me and another friend went to take food to eat while another one went to take a shower. It wasn't much choice but at least the food wasn't that bad to eat. We stayed in the lounge until it was time for it to close. Then we took our time to walk to our boarding gate, which we had to pass through the customs (which we got another stamp again). And then, i thought the custom officer had stamped the date as 9/11/2013 on my passport..hohoho...scared me when it turned out it was stamped with the correct date correctly. Then we had our passports stamped again, indication that we left Swiss, so in total we had 4 stamps for the whole trip. We had to take a tram to our gate and we also had some last-minute shopping before we reached our gate.

It was finally time to board the plane, i think i just fell asleep when the plane had started to fly. Super tired....this was the first time i actually slept the most on the plane. Luckily, this time, the guy who sat beside me was an Indian-looking guy and wasn't so big and i had my backpack placed on top. So i was having much space for my legs.....didn't get cramped this time...hahaha....We landed in Singapore on 9th Nov 2013. And so it marked the end of my Europe Trip (my only trip this year)......