Narooma

The Narooma area is one of the most popular holiday destination in the New South Wales. It is the scenic gem of the South Coast. Its pristine, golden beaches, the spectacular blue lakes, inlets and rivers and the magnificent scenery simply take your breath away.

There is the historic National Trust villages of Central Tilba and Tilba Tilba built from the early 1900’s and the deserted beaches, rocky headland at Mystery Bay.

Narooma’s history dates back to the early 1800’s where it used to be known as Noorooma, the Aboriginal name for clear, blue water. Cheese factories was later established at Bodalla, Tilba and Narooma. We visited the ABC Cheese Factory (Bate Street Central Tilba, Tasting and Sales 9am to 5pm, Phone : (02) 473 7387)which has been established since 1891, where we tasted the flavours of the award-winning Tilba Club Cheeses. Wagonga was also used as a port for the nearby gold mining town of Nerrigundah. Gold was also discovered on the slopes of Gulaga or Mt Dromedary. But it is timber that soon became the most important product in the area along with fishing, oyster farming, dairy and tourism.

This is one of the machineries which they used in gold mining.

We also visited the Tilba Valley Wines (http://www.tilbavalleywines.com) where 5000 bottles are produced annually for the local market. Saturday morning was a day at the Moruya Country Markets (8am to 12 noon) where you can find a bargain. Toast with Ham and Cheese was exceptionally yummy. Dinner was woodfired pizza at Fromage(Lynch’s Arcade, Narooma, 5pm, Wed to Sun). The hot chick and BBQ Chicken is not to be missed.

Lunch was picnic from Woolworths with our two friends, Adeline and Yuen Phern, and Tea was at the Quarterdeck where they served yumnmy cheesecakes and warm hot chocolates with marshmallows and you can overlook the sea within the restaurant and yummy fish and chips

Piper Lookout - On our way home

Valentine Day in Sydney

Sunrise on our way to Sydney (aproximately 368 km from Canberra, 3.5hours)






















By the time we reached Sydney, it is 1030 and we are hungry. So we started hunting from food... Chinese Food since we are near Chinatown. Supposed to have dim sum only to realise that they only do wholesale or retail but not catering. So we settled for dumpling noodle and curry rice at the nearest food court we could find. The dumpling is huge and quite yummy. Starved when I started eating but the portion is huge and I could not finish it.




















We found Ding Tai Feng only after we had finished our food... So next time?








The Market City is a ‘must’ visit as recommended by Lonely Planet, so we took a look too. The shopping bazaar is huge and in fact there are so many stalls that you would go missing. This is also the place where we could not resist getting some Chinese vegetable.. water cress and also Tasmania organic cherries, chilli padis, strawberries etc. In fact we bought a box of 5 kg. It was fun shopping for grocery here but unexpected venture of the trip.


Capitol Theatre and an old bank building which I cannot recall the name.. Would revisit on my next trip and update.

































Mardi Gras flower display outside Queen Victoria Building. It is a posh shopping mall with the international names of Coach, Ferragamo, etc and local names CUE, etc.



Sydney Harbour Bridge opens in 1932 and the structure is immediately loved by Sydneysiders for both aesthetic and practical reasons built with $20 million, a bargain in today’s money, and took until 1988 to pay off. Giving it a new coat of paint takes 4 years and 80,000 litres. Nicknamed the ‘Coat Hanger’ it crosses the harbour at one of the narrowest point linking the northern and southern shores. It is the heaviest and largest steel arch in the world. It also has the function of uniting the city. It’s a windy day in Sydney. Previously temperature was extreme high till 41oC and today it became 20oC.


We had our memorable shot of the opera house as would many tourists. It is a glamorous heart of performance in Australia with a Concert hall and Opera hall holding about 2600 and 1500 people respectively. The weekend market at the Rocks which is mainly a tourist attraction.








Chinatown in Sydney
Buslting Chinatown has been centred on Dixon St Haymarket since 1920s and now covers much of the city’s southern fringe. It no longer covers just the Chinese but also the other Asians. There are plenty of Koreans, Vietnamese, Malaysians and Thai, not forgetting the Singaporeans.






Chumama Taiwanese Food – Yummy and authentic Taiwanese food highly recommended by one of his classmates. I had Taiwanese hot and sour noodle and his was pork chop rice. We were amazed that the dou jiang is served hot in a bowl without sugar.





Yummy cakes for Valentine ...





The traffic jam on our way back to Canberra and we reached home at 2304.