New Year’s Eve is a night to reflect on the past year, our achievements and begin plans for 2019. Reflecting, reminiscing and reassessing our priorities is how we usually spend this night rather than party.

January

January had some newsworthy events, Australia saw its first legal same sex marriage take place and Sydney, Australia had its hottest day for 80 years when Penrith reached 47.3 degrees. The world’s oldest message in a bottle washed up on the coast of Western Australia at Wedge Island after being thrown from a ship in 1886. January also bought us the super moon and the Winter Olympics in South Korea. A Hole in my Shoe had no travel planned, but was busy writing 15 of the best places to see in Bali, how street art is bringing colour and personality to the streets with Paint the town red… green, blue and yellow, and an article on how to spend a day in Bruges. We also wrote a bio for an article on Top Female Travel Bloggers over 40 to watch in 2018.

February

February and A Hole in my Shoe were off on a lovely little road trip ‘down south’. It was a perfect summer day, beautiful blue skies, moderate temperatures and a light breeze, an idea time to put our new vehicle to the test.  We had a lovely day in this beautiful pocket of Western Australia, the area is lush, green and a little magical. The area revealed spectacular view of the Indian Ocean, undulating tree lined hills where little streams meandered through and pristine bush land. The combination of lush green pastures, Mediterranean climate and loamy soils are ideal for prize winning cattle to graze and vineyards creating award winning Geographe wine.

But our destination for the day was the quirky and magical location of Gnomesville. Filled with the world’s largest collection of gnomes and wit we enjoyed the gnomish puns, strolling along the cleared paths, reading the many signs adding to the sense of whimsy. This not so little village is gnome sweet gnome for Gnomeo and Juliet and gnome amongst the gum trees for the 3000 gnomes hanging from trees and perched along logs. We visited for a couple of hours, watching this little community playing their musical instruments, bird watching with their binoculars, playing soccer, playing with their pets and even spotted a cheeky streaker.

We collaborated on Travel bloggers share their secrets, The best places to see flowers in Spring and Most romantic destinations around the globe.

March

March was a big month. The World Happiness Report named Finland as the world’s happiest country and Perth became a little less isolated with Qantas launching the first scheduled non-stop flight between Australia and the UK. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner left Perth and arrived in London’s Heathrow airport in only 17 hours.

March is also when the famous Cottesloe Beach hosts the Sculptures by the Sea and we whiled away a few hours of morning sunshine exploring 2018’s exhibition.

But our excitement for March was heading back to a familiar and favourite home away from home, Bali. It may have been familiar but we knew nothing of Nyepi Day, or day of silence.

Our friend, a local Balinese man we met on our first trip, together with his family, invited us to his village, Tabannan, to see the Nyepi celebrations in person. It is definitely a New Year’s celebration like no other. The preceding day is a once in a lifetime experience.

In the weeks leading up to Nyepi the local Banjar or hall is used to create a large papier-mâché effigies called ogoh-ogoh. These mythical figures tied to bamboo frames are the centre of colourful processions where many local villages participate.

The following day is the day the Bali’s people celebrate the Saka New year with silence, fasting and meditation. The airport is closed and nobody is allowed on the streets, no cars, no noise, no lights, no pollution. There is no cooking, no restaurants open, the only people permitted on the streets are the local Pecalang, the street police.

But the biggest news for us was a long awaited addition to our family. Yes that’s right, we got a puppy! Meet Matilda, known as Tilly, a pure Kelpie with a cheeky spirit and an adorable nature. You can follow her adventures on her very own Instagram page.

April

April presented Steve with some alarming symptoms and within a few days of a Doctor’s visit saw him in hospital. For the duration of the first half of the year Steve was plagued with the same relating health issues. Scary stuff that was quite serious and a very stressful time for us both. There was lots of talk of clots, catheters and cancer, Bladder cancer. We learned despite this being one of the top ten cancers in men they were confident it was easily treated. Tilly had certainly joined us at the right time. She was keeping us both busy with the daily routines of nurturing, training and occupying a growing and active puppy, and providing us a distraction from dwelling too much on what was going on and keeping us in the here and now.

April wasn’t all doom and gloom. We were pleased to have some time away from the house that didn’t include the Urology department at the hospital and to cheer us up and keep our mind off things we met up with Ron and Michele from Legging It for Dim Sum. Later in the month we met Amanda from I’m not a Ballerina and Dave and Jo from Lifestyle Fifty for a jaunt around Yagan Square. It was a fun day, arranged by ATB and we learnt about Perth’s newest precinct that connects the CBD to Northbridge. Situated between the railway station, Horseshoe Bridge and the Busport Yagan Square provides a place to meet, discover and celebrate Western Australia’s produce, culture and heritage. Internationally the big news was the arrival of Prince Louis of Cambridge, baby brother to George and Charlotte. We also collaborated on an article about Famous fountains around the world.

May

The Royals were in the news again in May with the wedding of the year. American actress Meghan Markle married Prince Harry at a ceremony in Windsor Castle. So I set up a little spread with a Pimm’s to toast the couple and Tilly and I watched the Royal wedding along with a global audience of 1.9 billion. Just goes to prove we all love a good wedding.

Still unclear of a conclusive diagnosis for Steve, the big news in May was on the internet. Back in 2015 it was ‘that dress’, was it gold and white or black and blue? Well in May 2018 the internet was divided over whether they heard Yanny or Laurel’s name on a viral clip that made its way into everyone’s home.

It wasn’t hard to have some fun with a visit to Perth from Paula and Gordon from Contented Traveller. We love being host in our beautiful city so arranged a day taking them sightseeing around Perth and the Swan Valley on a beautiful sunny winter’s day ending in a night time trip to Kings’ Park to take in the city lights.

We participated in two collaborations, Australian Hippie towns and Best Australian Wine tours giving me the opportunity to write about two of my favourite WA areas, Margaret River and Swan Valley.

June

Fortunately after freaking us out for a few months and putting Steve through some gruelling treatment and too many hospital stays, he was finally given the all clear and back home with us in June.

We got some more great news in June. We had been offered a 12 month partnership with Jetstar to join their JQ Culture Crew. Being passionate travellers it was a very exciting prospect to be working with Jetstar sharing our experiences.

Despite being winter it was hard to believe how warm it was and went off to the city on a June night for the Brookfield Winter Lights Festival. These kind of festivals are great to revitalize the city, bringing swarms of families to play after hours.

June saw us collaborating on Ultimate List of Roadside Attractions, and Beautiful Ceilings in the World.

July

As pleased as we were with the news Steve now had a clean bill of health, it meant he had eaten into all his annual leave, having exhausted all his sick leave being in and out of hospital and having tests, etc leaving nothing accrued to take a trip for quite a while. So in July to celebrate his new clean bill of health we headed to Sydney for a long weekend to have some laughs with ATB group to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. We had an amazing time in Newtown checking out the street art before heading home.

July included parts four and five, the final collaborations in the massive series we hosted Amazing train stations from around the world.

August

August saw us on another roadtrip, this time to one of Australia’s most unique and fascinating natural landscapes, the Pinnacles. They are simply breathtaking and if you haven’t seen these ancient limestone formations we suggest you add it to the top of your WA bucket list. The limestone pillars, many as high as 5 metres, protrude from the otherwise flat and barren plains of the Nambung National Park are scattered as far as the eye can see and look like shards of honeycomb. The eerie landscape is unusual, almost alien, and truly astounding. Driving around these ancient guardians of the desert, known the Rock Stars of the Outback, is easy with a clearly marked 4km track.

We wrote for two collaborations, Best places to visit in Prague and Best craft beer in the world.

September

September and our first little campaign promoting the Jetstar Spring Sale.  Along with this came plans for where to travel and it was a no brainer for us, Japan. So we spent time in September planning our whirlwind trip, despite a typhoon hitting the island early that month.

Late September we had a 10 day trip. We carefully plan this to maximise our travel time and minimise the leave taken from work, travelling across two weekends, one of them a long weekend. We had briefly visited Japan in 2017, when we went to Osaka, Kyoto and Yokohama. This time we totally immersed ourselves in Tokyo, Japan’s bustling capital and quickly understood why over 10 million foreign tourists visit each year. There were so many things to do, and a huge contrast of modern and traditional, crazy busy and peaceful and serene, where hi-tech skyscrapers sit comfortably alongside century old Shinto temples. There was also delicious must try Japanese food to experience.

September was a busy month for contributing in collaborations, we wrote Best Food Halls and Markets, How bloggers do work and travel, Where to stay in Milan, Italy, 31 of the Best places to visit in Australia, Street art from around the world and The best things to eat in Europe. We also hosted a collaboration on Most beautiful gardens in the world and in September we posted parts one and two.

October

Perth had received some good rainfalls during winter which bought a bumper wildflower season so in October we headed to Kings’ Park to explore the wildflowers. Right in the heart of the city, Kings’ Park is one of the largest city parks in the world, bigger than Central Park in New York. Every year 1700 species of the very best of Western Australia’s wildflowers burst into bloom in the parks’ Botanic Garden.  The Kings’ Park Festival is a month long event that displays the state’s floral gems and many of the blooms last until late October.

We decided to explore more of the 12,000 species of wildflowers this vast, beautiful state has to offer and took another road trip, this time with Steve’s Mum & Dad to the popular Coral Coast.  More than 60 percent of the wildflowers in WA are found nowhere else in the world and provide a dazzling carpet of blooms. Following a similar route on our Pinnacles roadtrip we stopped frequently along the roadside to photograph many of the flowers along the way. Our first detour was Lancelin, a small fishing town with pure white sand dunes that attract sandboarding enthusiasts.  North of Lancelin is Grey, a small settlement of shacks with unspoiled views of the coast. We enjoyed an overnight stay in Cervantes and lunch and tour the following day at the Lobster Shack. Western Rock Lobsters (crayfish). In the morning after breakfast in Jurien we drove to Lake Indoon, Eneabba, Morawa, Moora and Colseam Conservation Park located between Mingenew and Mullewa stopping to photograph roadside flowers on the way back to Perth.

We posted more in the Most beautiful gardens in the world, October were parts three and four. We also posted the first of our articles from our Jetstar trip to Japan, Top things to do in Tokyo and Must try Japanese food.

November

We were enjoying these daytrips out of Perth and in November we decided to head out to Toodyay on the Avon River in the Wheatbelt region.  Entering the town on the main road, Stirling Terrace, we saw St John The Baptist Catholic Church, built in 1863 and is now a private residence. Along the street we see the old Post Office, Freemasons and Victoria Hotels, Connor’s Mill and St Stephen’s Church of England. Our first stop was the local bakery for a coffee and bite to eat. I mean what country doesn’t have a great bakery? This bakery is no exception, yummy cakes, slices and mouthwatering pies. We took a stroll along the main street, a butcher shop called the Meat Hook has been a butcher shop here since the building was built. Nearby is Christmas 360, the best Christmas shop we have ever seen.  It was easy to lose track of time admiring the many beautiful Christmas decorations. We took a tour inside Connor’s Mill and also went inside St Stephen’s Church before we made our way back out of town, the same direction we came in. We stopped to check out Coorinja Winery, established in the 1870’s and is today one of Western Australia’s oldest wineries. After sampling some wines we selecting a few bottle of port and muscat to take home and drive down to the Avon River for a quick look around before making our way to our final stop. We are big fans of street art and had heard about the silo art trail and always wanted to see it. Northam is only a short distance from Toodyay and is where the first silo was transformed into a giant outdoor canvas in 2015. One the way home we stopped at what has to be one of the best pie shops ever, Bakers Hill Pie Shop.

For our final article from our Jetstar trip we posted First time in Tokyo.

December

Finally our favourite month, December. A time for guilty pleasures like daily chocolate from the advent calendar, watching reruns of Love Actually, Christmas shopping and switching the lights on for the huge Christmas tree Steve creates each year. It is also a time to reminisce about our favourite European Christmas markets. We also had the pleasure of a catchup in the city for brunch with my 82 year old Mum and a surprise catch brunch with my son who lives some 1650km’s away. Christmas eve we headed into the city to check out the Christmas lights and they were dazzling as always.  I was lucky to have some time off work and spent it between spending time with my son who was in Perth for 2 weeks and revamping my home office space. New carpet, new furniture and a fresh new creative space.

Finally the #2018bestnine from Instagram summarised our year in nine photos.

In summing it up, despite 2018 being a year of highs and not so highs we are grateful. Grateful for another year of amazing travel that bought us lots of love, laughter and memorable moments. And grateful for a clean bill of health for Steve. Finally, we are especially grateful for each of you for stopping to read our blogs, for all your likes, comments and shares. Hit us up in the comments or on our social media on what you want to read in 2019 and suggestions on where you’d like us to travel. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to your support again in 2019.

What were your highlights for 2018 and what are your plans for 2019?