Corroboree West
I did manage to find the time to visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary before the workshops started. This sanctuary has been in operation since the 1940s and is now one of the Gold Coast’s most popular visitor attractions. I was pleased to see that we weren’t doing the high rope adventure course (featuring 65 challenges including a Tarzan swing) and would be visiting the Wildlife Hospital at the end of our morning instead. The hospital has grown to be one of the busiest wildlife hospitals in the world, admitting over 10,500 animals a year and nearly 500 koalas alone were admitted 2018.
One of the iconic things that Australia is known for is its surfing lifestyle, so after a light lunch, we were taken to Kirra Point to join Go Ride A Wave for a surfing or bodyboarding session. I’m quite happy in a wetsuit paddling around on a surf board and no more instruction changed that, but we all had great fun as Sam and the guys were very patient. Corroboree is all about meeting the people who look after our clients when they’re away and we had three days of scheduled meetings with suppliers from all over Australia. It’s great to put a face to a name and be able to keep in touch when we get back.
Before we all go our separate ways we disperse around the country to explore another area before returning home and my fist stop was Canberra. Although Australia is such a huge country, her capital city has only got just over 400,000 inhabitants. When you compare that to almost 9 million people living in London it's got to be worth a look and it's a very nice place to visit for a couple of days. It has an excellent food and café culture. We were there in Spring and took a walk around Commonwealth Park with the head Gardener at Floriade. In 1988 this was designed to be a grand, one off floral tribute to mark Australia’s Bicentenary and Canberra’s 75th anniversary. It was so successful that it’s been running for a month in Spring ever since and now features more than a million bulbs and plants across 8,000 square metres of parkland with an ever expanding program of music, cultural celebrations, food and wine, artistic displays, entertainment and recreational activities.
After lunch we made our way to Lake Burley Griffin to take a tour with SegGlideRide who offer segway and bike rentals. You can rent a bike to do your own thing or be guided on a segway tour which is a great way to get around and see lots with minimum effort!
Next morning – up at 4.30 for our sunrise ballooning adventure. We found ourselves on the lawns of Parliament House again, this time with the balloon trucks. This is one of the only cities in the world where you can fly over in a balloon. The baskets are huge and take around 20 people plus the pilot. We had just five balloons flying in formation over the lake and Parliament House for over an hour and it was magical. We were also asked if we’d like to help pack up so there we were at 7.30 in the morning standing inside our balloon envelope gathering in the fabric and then sitting on it to make it small enough to fit back into the truck - that was another first!
Next we went walkabout at the Old Bus Depot Markets and the Canberra Glassworks. Such a friendly place where you can get immersed in the unique handicrafts and home produce. All that walking gave us an appetite and our next stop was Pialligo Estate. This is a Paddock-to-Plate experience where we were shown around by their horticulturist. It sits on approx 85 acres and has an olive grove, orchard, market garden and award-winning smokehouse which is famous for producing Australia’s Best Artisan Bacon. We had a wonderful lunch admiring the view and didn’t want to leave.
Next stop – Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. To stop us all from having a crafty kip in the sun, we were off to spot koalas and kangaroos in their natural habitat and see if we could find an elusive platypus or two. Well we walked and drove for a couple of hours around this huge reserve which is approx 55 square kilometres of protected area, on the fringe of Namadgi National Park and saw lots of kangaroos, potoroos, wallaroos, possums, wallabies and more but sadly the platypus wasn’t up for company.
As part of good foodie culture nowadays you need to have decent craft beer on offer. So, working through the evening, we were off to the Capital Brewing Company to take a tour behind the scenes and see how it’s done ‘down under’. The MD Laurence took us round and his passion for the business shines through everything he does. They have a partnership with Brodburger and have now got a huge following at festivals and even offer non alcoholic ‘dog-beer’ so every member of the family can join in. Great tour experience, wonderful beers and tasty food. They do great work with the community from their Fyshwick base and since we were there have won ‘best brewery experience in Australia’ – absolutely well deserved guys and I’m sure there will be more awards to come.
Our last day and more walking. This time just around the locality of our QT hotel and finishing off at The Cupping Room. We were greeted by queues at the door as this is the home of the world champion barista Sasa Sestic. The aroma of coffee and baking hits you as we were whisked into our reserved seating for our coffee initiation talk. This truly is Canberra’s place of coffee worship with ‘hitman’ and ‘black betty’ on the menu you daren’t order ‘white coffee’ as that would be an insult!
We made our final stop at the National Museum of Australia. Sitting on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, we’d segway’s past it, ballooned over it and never realised what it was! It has stunning architecture and we could easily have spent the rest of the day there as they had some wonderful exhibits including the ‘Tracking the Seven Sisters Songlines’ but we couldn't stay as we had another journey to make….. and you can read all about that part of the trip on Corroboree West South Coast NSW.