Post Comment Love 12th-14th September 2025. Goodbye Australia - Hello Dubai.

Welcome back to #PoCoLo with Stephanie from Bosworth.Life and I.

Post Comment Love #PoCoLo is a friendly weekly linky where you can link up any blog post you've written this week. If you're new or a regular visitor we're sure you'll find something of interest.

We'd also appreciate your help spreading the #PoCoLo word on Twitter, tag us and we'll RT. You can find us on twitter here: Stephanie - @BosworthLife and Suzanne - @ChickenRuby 

I'll be catching up with reading your posts, sharing and commenting over the next few days. 

We've had an amazing 3 weeks in Australia visiting our son and his girlfriend. We left on Thursday for a 14 hour flight to Dubai where we are visiting our old neighbourhood and seeing a couple of friends if time permits.

We're hoping to acclimatise to the time difference over the 5 days we're here as previously when we've stopped over in Kuala Lumpur or flown straight home, it's taken nearly 2 weeks to adjust to the 9 hours lost. There's only a 6 hour difference with Dubai, so it should help.

We've gone from 16c and rain to 40c and humidity. Australia has just come out of winter, but had almost 3 months of solid rain. We've walked around in full waterproofs, we've climbed a mountain in the snow and on Monday the temperature was 28c and I was swimming in the sea.

Apart from our visit to Tasmania for a few a days, all our time has been spent locally, exploring previous places we've enjoyed, discovering new walks and my highlight as always (apart from seeing child 3) are the koala's.

Want to find out more about Post Comment Love #PoCoLo? 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wildlife in Australia

The wildlife in Australia is stunning. Having lived in South Africa we are used to be able to drive a couple of miles to a nature reserve to see Rhino, Hippos, Zebras and Giraffes, but we rarely saw any wildlife outside of the nature reserves. We did have some interesting Rain spiders and Park Town Prawns and Geckos were common. Dual was similar but with Oryx and Camels in the desert and the odd Gecko in the house. Back now in the UK, it's been Spiders, Ants, Woodlice, Bees, Butterflies and Moths and fields of sheep and cows.

Many people have told us they wouldn't visit Australia because of the Spiders and Snakes and we've always been under the impression that to see them you needed to live in the outback, however we came across this beauty in the tree above the footpath walking in Manly just 35 minutes outside Sydney at a busy seaside resort.

A Diamond Python.

We also saw this one in Airlie up near the Great Barrier Reef, also on a coastal path in a busy seaside resort.

A Collared Whip Snake (mildly venomous)

Peter was starting to think that Kangaroos were a figment of our imagination and finally on his second trip to Australia he saw one and then several hundred more.

We saw a lot of Wallabies also which were really friendly.

The birds are stunning, such pretty colours and so friendly.

Rainbow Lorikeet.

The Pelicans are huge.

The cockatoos in volume are similar in numbers to the amount of pigeons we have in the UK.

Kookaburra visit.

There are random Turkeys walking on the beaches.

Herons just wandering around.

Galahs.

And Bin Chickens in the streets. Or the Australian Ibis.

The sea is crystal clear and we were fortunate enough to visit The Great Barrier Reef to go scuba diving and snorkelling.

We also saw an abundance of Whales and Dolphins from boat trips and out on coastal walks.

My favourites are the Koalas and Penguins that we visited in Philip Island near Melbourne.

Unfortunately it is rare to see Koalas outside of sanctuaries which aren't netted so the Koala can move around. Like the Penguins, the conservation fee you pay to visit them and The Great Barrier Reef also, helps to protect their habitat.

A week in and around Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road 2023

We're spending the UK summer in Australia during their winter. We've travelled light each with 15kg of checked luggage and 7kg of hand luggage. We've packed for both winter and for summer.

I visited Melbourne with child 3 in 2019, I wanted to show Peter some of the things I'd enjoyed 4 years earlier, but also wanted to have new experiences to share together. We packed a lot in, in the week and hardly stopped.

We started our trip in Melbourne where we had the first 3 days in the city to adjust to the 9 hour time difference, eating and sleeping when we felt like it. We explored Melbourne and walked around 25 miles over two days, visiting Fitzroy Gardens, the MCG and The Botanical Gardens for the light show on our last evening.

The Yarra at night

Why they brought James Cooks parents cottage over from Yorkshire, brick by brick, I'll never know. he never lived in it.

Fairy Tree

The docklands at 6am

We explored the street art graffiti in AC/DC lane and surrounding area, visited the Opal museum and enjoyed a variety of meals with plenty of coffee shops.

We hired a car and drove to Philip Island to visit the Koala Conservation and watch the Penguin Parade as the Fairy Penguins come into shore from a days fishing at sunset. We stayed in Cowes for the night.

We then drove to Colac for the night stopping in St Kilda for lunch. We stayed in a motel that looked like there would be a chalk line of a body, but turned out to be the cleanest hotel room we'd stayed in for a long time. it was spotless.

We then hit The Great Ocean Road and visited The Twelve Apostles and stopped at Cape Otway to discover the lighthouse's lenses were made in the 1850's by a company that are located just down the road from our house in the UK. 

Sadly the Great Ocean Road was down to one lane in many areas, due to subsidence

The Twelve Apostles

Cape Otway Lighthouse

Regardless of the weather, we're Brits, we'll go on the beach

We spent a night in Lorne at a caravan park and the last day was spent stopping where we fancied for coffee and lunch.

Car hire returned and airport hotel checked into before our early morning departure to The Whitsunday Islands for a week.

Peter still hasn't seen a Kangaroo and this is his second trip to Australia. He did see a Wallaby though. Peter is convinced Kangaroos are imaginary animals, like unicorns. 

Week 34 - One Daily Positive and Project 365

Our mortgage came to an end this month. We'd lowered the payments a few years ago to keep a credit history in the UK while we lived abroad, then sort of forgot about it until we got a letter just before we went away to say there were only 2 payments lefts. 

We've had a packed last week in Australia, but plenty of down time and a lot of sleep.

231 Saturday We drove down early to Byron Bay for the day, the surf was hectic and made swimming impossible but I still went in the sea. We had lunch on a roof top bar then drove up to the lighthouse and were lucky enough to see a whale breaching, however we couldn't stop due to lack of parking. Evening spent in the accommodation and I enjoyed time in the spa and heated pool.

232 Sunday A leisurely morning stroll with coffee through the park then caught up with all my blog reading, sharing and commenting. it does annoy me that I leave more comments than I ever receive especially for the linky I co host each week. We packed once child 3 woke and after packing the car drove up into the Hinterlands to explore before flying back to Sydney at 8pm.

2 days later a whale was caught in the shark nets.

233 Monday A long day, we caught the bus to Coogee Beach and walked the coast to Bondi Beach before catching a bus and train back. The walk was 90 minutes but we stopped for coffee, lunch and to look in every rock pool and it took us 4 hours.

Bondi LifeGuard hut being refurbished.

234 Tuesday Train into Sydney for the day to walk around the city. A glorious morning until 2pm then temperatures dropped and the rain came down, we even had some sleet.

It's not just the wildlife that can harm you.

235 Wednesday We explored Darling Harbour, reaching it by bus and spent a couple of hours in the SeaLife Centre.

View from the train.

236 Thursday Back to Darling to visit the Wildlife park and see the koalas.

237 Friday A day at a local mall and dinner out in the evening in Darling Harbour.

On the blog this week:

Did I tell you about the time I worked at a funeral directors?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A week in Melbourne

My last week in Australia was spent in Melbourne, there's so much to do here, but we just touched on the main tourist attractions, as well as getting some rest after spending 2 weeks on the road.

We stayed in an apartment overlooking the docklands which was in the free tram zone area making it easy to get around. It also wasn't far to walk, but it was winter and exceptionally cold during my visit, windy and a lot of rain.

Street entertainment

China Town

Tram stop

One of many shopping arcades

Lots of restaurants to chose from but make sure you book

Vietnamese 

Day 2
Just over an hours drive south of Melbourne and a visit to the Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park to pet Victor the 3 year old Koala and feed the wallabies and kangaroos.

Day 3 St Kilda Beach

View of Melbourne

We found a penguin hidden under the rocks.

Day 4 I've watched Neighbours since it started in 1985 so I drove out to Pin Oak Court for a visit. The street is much shorter and narrower than it looks on the TV. They only film on location once a week, the rest is done in studios. It was a 20 min drive from the City.

In the afternoon we explored melbourne's street art

Finishing with a visit to the Winter Night Market.

Day 5 A day on my own as Jamie (child 3) had been out and about in the evenings with friends of his. I took the tram to the far end of the city and took a 20 min walk out to the Botanical Gardens, then back along the river to the sea life centre. We finished the trip with a meal out in the evening.

A long weekend in Sydney

Our trip from Sydney to Phillips Island

Phillips Island

Phillips Island to Port Fairy

Port Fairy to Melbourne via the Grampians

A week in Melbourne

Flora and Fauna in Australia

Accommodation in Australia

Going Green in Australia

Australia 2019