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 - Bern & Zurich, Switzerland (Day 14)

7th Nov 2013, Thursday, Sunny

Cute Kittens

Today is just a shopping day for us, so we got up a bit late and got ourselves ready to start the day. We went down to the streets we went yesterday for shopping. I got to buy Nespresso capsules when i finally saw one Nespresso shop. We then stopped by at Läderach to get some chocolate, they sells their chocolate by grams, and the staffs had to break the chocolates accordingly to the size of what the customers want. There were a lot of different flavors to choose from, i just got some small teddy bear chocolates (they were so cute to resist...kekeke). We also kept a lookout for watches to buy..hahahhaa...i got myself a swatch watch, which costs $120 swiss franc and it was a design for this year's collection and a cute swiss knife (with picture on it). We then walked to the train station to shop, my friend got a new watch (swiss military hanowa brand) there. The staff gave us some bags with the train logo on it...hohoho..She wanted to give us more. After the shopping, we had to go back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head down to the train station. 

Rositi Fries

After the check-out, we headed back down to the train station. We got ourselves a hotdog bread at the station, it was so long but it was nice. It costs $1.50 swiss franc each and there were 3 sauces you can choose from (Tomato, Chilli & Mustard). After that, we headed to the train platform and waited for the train to come. It was a 1 hour plus ride, and i got sleepy on the train. I wanted to take a nap but the sun was shinning brightly onto me and my friend was like emoing that our trip was going to end soon...hohohoho....(I also don't feel like coming back so soon, was enjoying the scenery, food and i totally forgot about work..hahaha). Finally, we reached Zurich train station, and so we walked and dragged our luggage to try to find the hotel. We did managed to find the hotel with some help from Google map and checked in with our luggage. The hotel name was Bistrol Hotel.The room wasn't too small, it was quite ok for the three of us. After some resting time, then we headed out to walk the streets of Zurich. It was shopping again....hohohooo...There were so many shops to explore and there were so many things to see too. In the end, i got myself another 2 more watches... @_@...one watch was a Richelieu brand and another was Tissot brand. After all the shopping, we went to have McDonald's for dinner. There was self-service machine to place orders and pay using credit card. We tried to order from it but it wasn't successful. So we went to order from the counter. The Rositi Fries were yummy and there were different sauces to choose. After the dinner, we went back to our hotel.

Hotel Stayed:
Bistrol Hotel

Europe 2nd Trip - Bern, Switzerland (Day 13)

6th Nov 2013, Wednesday, Rainy

Rainy Day

Ahhh...raining today, cold cold. Today, we are going to Bern, another town along the Bernina Express route. And there was no hot water for shower too...so i showered slightly longer today (cannot shower with cold water...hahhaa). We all got up and packed our stuffs and went to have our breakfast. Took the chocolate powder home too... :P...and we saw the colored eggs too, my friends were curious on why the eggs were colored, so she asked the staff on why the eggs are being colored. The staff said it was to differentiate them between the normal eggs, the colored eggs were cooked hard-boiled eggs. They were colored so that people will know which were cooked and which were not. After the breakfast, we went back to our room to collect our luggage and went down to do the check out. It was still raining when we left the hotel, but we still walked to the train station.

Rainbow outside the hotel

Not able to take photos during the train ride, cos not able to open the windows and raining too. So we just sat around in the train, there were a lot of people on the train too. Once we reached Bern station, we went up to get a cab to go down to the hotel. It was a short distance from the train station, the hotel name is called Innere Enge. We were given to Room No 1, the room was quite big and there were photos, music scores and music awards hang on the wall. The toilet was also big and it had a big bathtub on the other side of the toilet. Once settled down, we ate up the instant creme brulee and rested for a while. Then, we headed out and explore the city of Bern. Just outside the hotel, i saw a rainbow opposite as the rain had stopped and the sun had came out. So nice to see a rainbow.... :).... Then we took the bus back down to the train station to start our self-guided walk (from Rick Steve's book). From the starting point, there was the Church of Holy Ghosts. Then across the street, was the shopping streets and there were a lot of shops. Some shops were located underground, there was a staircase for people to walk down to the shops. And there were also display galleries showcasing the shop's stuffs to attract customers to go their shops. And in the middle of the road, there were cars and trams passing and there were fountains too.The first one we saw was the Bagpiper fountain, these fountains are Bern's trademark from the 16th century and these were built to brighten the city and to show off the town's wealth...kekee....

View from behind of Parliament Building

After walking for some distance along the streets, we saw the Prison Tower, There was a clock on the tower too, with the hand on the clock is really a hand-shape. Then we walked to the left side, where we saw the Dutch Tower. It was a tower used by Swiss soldiers during war times, to hide inside and smoke secretly (as smoking was forbidden in Bern at that time). Then we walked further down the road, we saw the super mossy fountain standing. It doesn't look good-looking...hohoho...but it was made in 1983 and it symbolizes growth and life. And opposite the fountain, it is the Police Station building. As we were walking away from the mossy fountain, we saw some people playing chess. The board was on the ground and the chips were large size. 2 elderly people were playing on it. And suddenly there was a group of 3 young girls, who just ran towards us and tried to take photos with my 2 friends (so weird..hohohoho...). We then walked to the other side of the streets to see the Parliament and Swiss National Bank buildings. Both the buildings were very large and there was a empty square (which was having half the Swiss gold buried under it) in front of them....hohohoho....After taking photos here, we walked to the back of the Parliament building and we were greeted with a nice view over Aare River. The view was super cool, and from far, the peaks of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau can been seen. Luckily for us, the sky was very clear and blue, clouds floating and the sun was out too. We managed to get some nice shots here. After the nice view, we continued our walk down, hahaa...we walked towards the wrong way. We had crossed over a bridge and actually, it was nice to cross over the bridge too. The wind was blowing strong and you got another different view to see the city...kekeke.....Anyway, we walked back again once we realized we had walked the wrong direction. Then there was Bern's Casino building (which wasn't a real Casino, it was the home of Bern's Symphony Orchestra), and then we reached Bern's famous clock tower - Zytgogge-Turm. It was so nice to look at, there were people just standing there, watching and taking photos of it. And we waited for some time, for the clock to ring. Then we continued our walk along the streets, more shops were there, on the lower and the ground level, until to a bus stop at Nydegg Bridge.

Brown Bear

We took a bus to Bern's bear park, which was 1 stop away...hohoho.....Once we alighted, we went to see the bears. There were 2 bears, 1 dark brown colored. and the other light brown colored. The dark brown colored bear was walking around, looking for food and the light brown colored bear just sat at the corner, under a tree. It doesn't really move much, don't know is it too hungry to move around. So we just spent some time around the place, see the bear walking to and fro, taking photos of the bears and the view. Then we went in to the souvenir shop but it was closed, there was a restaurant there too. After watching the bear, we sat down and see where we were going to have our dinner. So we decided to go a restaurant which was up on a hill, which was having a nice view over Bern. The restaurant name was Rosengarten. It was really up a hill, we had to walk up a super steep road to get the restaurant and there wasn't much street light around. By the time we reached the top, we were like panting...hahahaa....and we saw the night view over Bern city from there. The food list on the menu was really limited, my friends ordered spaghetti and i ordered a Thai Chicken Curry with rice. I like the thai chicken curry, it was nice (but it was expensive... >_<). After the dinner, we walked back down the steep road and went for some shopping in the shops along the way. There were some interesting shops, like one, there was cute cute white rats as display in the shop. And we also passed by a cinema, chocolate shop (Läderach). After all the walking, we took a bus back to our hotel to rest for the day.

Hotel Stayed:
Innere Enge

Places Saw:
Church of Holy Ghosts
Prison Tower
Dutch Tower
Mossy Fountain
Police Station
Parliament
Swiss National Bank
Casino
Zytgogge-Turm
Bear Park