Hipsta water bottle holder

The first one suits all travellers. Called Hipsta, it’s a nifty little clip that holds a water bottle. It can be attached to a belt, waistband, bag or backpack.  It’s stylish and really lightweight, which is important for travelling, and the squeeze release system means you can get the bottle in and out quickly.

I love  that it is Australian designed.  I bought a grey one, but it comes in a range of fun bright colours.

Aussie drink mate

The next gadget is more for the great outdoors – picnics, camping or outside the caravan – anywhere you need to put down a drink, but there’s no table. (Like at our yacht club tradition of ‘five-a-rockies’ – gathering on the nearest beach at 5pm for drinks and nibbles.)  There’s nothing worse that putting your drink down on the sand and having it knocked over.

Called Aussie Drink Mate it is a metal stake that pushes into the ground and has room for four drinks – wine glasses, bottles, cans or mugs - and a bowl for food. Additional bowls can be bought separately.

I haven’t tried mine yet, but it looks easy to put together. It needs a carry case, but company owner Mark Noble tells me one will be available soon.

You can buy these items online but both companies are offering show discounts, so if you can, head to the NSW Caravan, Camping, RV and Holiday Supershow before 28 April.

Absolute Sanctuary detox and yoga retreat in Koh Samui, Thailand

But a recent bout of prolonged fatigue (and let’s admit it, age) has had me longing for the benefits of a dedicated health resort, now called ‘wellness retreats’. A room of my own with undisturbed sleep, being able to slumber for as long as I need – including an afternoon nap if desired, a choice of exercise and meditation options and healthy food lovingly prepared. Oh, and rewarding massages and spa treatments. What’s not to like?  (Well, despite the price tag.)

Things have changed enormously in the past 30 years. Retreats now attract a younger clientele and include wellness consultations and nutrition sessions, where after confessing to your culinary sins and lack of an exercise regime you are given a health overhaul and nurtured towards a new you.

Australia’s Golden Door Health Retreat celebrates 20 years of business next month, Gaia Retreat & Spa has been around since 2005 and Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat since 2006, testimony to the health of health retreats.

Food from the ‘Love Kitchen’ at Absolute Sanctuary

I haven’t stayed at the Golden Door, but The Sunday Telegraph’s Escape travel editor Brian Crisp recently did and you can read his great yarn here.

I have experienced the rejuvenating benefits of Absolute Sanctuary though, a Wellness Retreat in Koh Samui, Thailand. It was my first health resort and I arrived a bit sceptical. But after only three days I left feeling slimmer, fitter and healthier. You can read my story in Escape Sanctuary for body and soul.

Healthy juices at Absolute Sanctuary

So, while I sit down with a glass of wine and dream of my next retreat, what is your favourite wellness resort?

Hand made truffles at Schoc Chocolates in Greytown

Got chocolate on your mind this Easter? Then I’ve got a hilarious game for you to try around the dinner table or campfire, thanks to Murray Langham of Schoc Chocolates, an artisan chocolate company in New Zealand. Langham established the business in 2002 in the now trendy rural township of Greytown, about 80km north of Wellington. (You can read my story on the township here Gourmet Greytown.)

Despite it’s name, Greytown is a colourful, thriving township that continues to serve the rural community while attracting city slickers with its gourmet food and eclectic shopping. Tractors still sometimes trundle down the main street past the potted geraniums and restored heritage buildings.

Schoc Chocolates is in Greytown, 80km north of Wellington, New Zealand

Established in the town’s original confectioner’s cottage, Schoc Chocolates offers an enormous range of chocolates, truffles and tablets, with interesting and unusual flavours alongside traditional favourites. Think lavender, lemongrass, strawberry and black pepper, apricot and rosemary, and the latest, which I’m dying to try, fennel. Take the blind tasting in store and you’ll really challenge your taste buds.

The philosophy behind Schoc Chocolates is “to combine the joy and health benefits of consuming quality chocolate with a deeper understanding of one’s inner self”. They got me at ‘health benefits‘!

But understanding oneself through chocolate is where the game comes in. You’ll need Langham’s book Chocolate Therapy: Dare to discover your inner centre!, which you can buy here for just NZ$10, and a box of chocolates, preferably wrapped. Let everyone choose their favourite chocolate, but before they eat it they must note its shape, type of chocolate (milk, dark etc) and centre (texture and flavour). 

Chocolate Therapy: Dare to discover your inner centre!

Then, as everyone eats their chocolates, read out the text about the shapes, centres and type of chocolate to reveal the associated personality traits, habits and behaviour. (Pass the book around, so everyone gets a turn to read, and you get to eat your chocolate.)

The results can be hilarious, but the most revealing part is what people do with their wrappers – as that is linked to people’s attitudes to sex. (You might want a few drinks under your belt for this one.)

So what do you do with your wrapper? Are you a sculptor or a scruncher, a folder or a tearer, a roller, smoother or twister?

Happy Easter!

If you can’t get to Greytown soon, you can order the full range of Schoc Chocolates online.

Here I am wearing a dirndl

At a Sydney lunch hosted by Austrian Tourism I was persuaded to don a dirndl – the Austrian national women’s dress (think buxom fräulein waitressing at beer festivals).

While the dirndl, and lederhosen for men, might have come from humble origins – they originated as farm workers’ clothes in the 1850s – they became fashionable in the 1880s when Emperor Franz Joseph paraded around Vienna in lederhosen after a holiday in the Salzburg Lake District. The dirndl has since become ingrained in Austrian culture, and most women have at least one in their wardrobe.

The dirndl consists of a puffed sleeve blouse worn underneath a full-skirted dress with a very tight bodice buttoned at the front to accentuate the bust. Over this goes an apron and often there are petticoats underneath. The traditional dirndl has a green bodice and the original farm workers’ skirts were hemmed with black fabric so as not to show the dirt.

On the left is a modern take on the dirndl while the one on the right is a dressier version of the traditional dirndl

Where you tie the apron bow hints at how playful you’re feeling – something I didn’t learn until after I had tied mine. If you’re married you tie the bow on the right; if you’re available, or feeling flirty, you tie it on the left. I’d tied mine exactly in the middle!

The dirndl is having a renaissance thanks to trendy young designers like Lena Hoschek and is the theme of the Sydney ‘Dirndl Temptation – Dare to flirt back’ campaign being run by the Austrian National Tourist Office.  (Check this out quickly for a chance to flirt with the dirndl ambassadors and win a trip to Austria.)

Wearing a dirndl in Sydney opened a window into Austrian culture, but wearing one in Austria can be an empowering experience, as my equally skeptical friend and colleague, Kay O’Sullivan, discovered in the Austrian village of Hallstatt. You can read her delightful story on The Hoopla.

Some Austrian good cheer in Sydney

I can’t say I felt as sexy as Kay in my dirndl, because mine was a bit loose. The bodice wasn’t as breath-restrictingly tight as it should be, so I didn’t get the breast ‘uplift’ I so desperately need. But it was certainly fun to flounce around in a long skirt – and check out my mates in their lederhosen.

As Kay says, national costumes don’t always export well, but in their country of origin they can offer unexpected cultural insight. So when in Austria, strip off those inhibitions and squeeze into a dirndl.

See Dirndl to Go if you’d like to don a dirndl in Hallstatt.

The team from the Austrian National Tourism Office looking chic in their national costume

Sandis Kondis’ Gollum was immediately recognisable

The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Narcissus, Gollum, Icarus and other fabled creatures have come to life under the shady jacarandas, oaks and pepper trees on the banks of the Hawkesbury River at Windsor, in Sydney’s northwest, for the 2^nd Hawkesbury International Sand Sculpting Championship.

Fourteen professional sculptors from Portugal, Latvia, Belgium, USA, England, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Australia have each shovelled, chiselled, carved and scraped 20 tonnes of sand into intricate sculptures depicting characters from this year’s theme of fairytales and fables.

Jakub Zimacek works from drawings for his wolf.

Sculptors had from January 10-13 to complete their works, which remain on display until January 28. My son and I visited on the second day of competition to see the artists at work and watch the sculptures take shape. (An added bonus of visiting during the competition is free return entry to see the finished sculptures.)

Some sculptures were well underway and immediately recognisable, while others were still a long way from finished. But it’s amazing how quickly some of the artists work. Tickets allow multiple same day visits and when we returned after lunch in town we noticed several sculptures had evolved considerably.

Queen of the Sea by Joris Kivits

Some artists worked from sketches or photos, others from images in their minds. Most chose well-known stories form Greek legends or Aesop’s Fables, while others, like Joris Kivits from the Netherlands, made up their own fairytales. His half-woman, half-octopus ‘queen of the sea’ was brought to life to save the world from Ariel, who grew to be a problem child. Even before it was finished this machinegun-wielding octo-girl was my son’s favourite sculpture.

Kids can learn several styles of sand art.

While the competition sculptures are now completed, two sculptors will remain on site until January 28 working on a display piece, so you can still see how a sculpture is created. Once you’ve ogled the professional works kids channel their inner artist and join a sand sculpture workshop, make a sand painting or bottle coloured sand.  There’s a giant sandpit for little kids too and tables and chairs under shady trees for an ice cream or picnic.

Maquarie Arms Hotel

There are plenty of eating options just a short walk away in George Street, especially near Thompson’s Square, where you’ll find the historic Macquarie Arms Hotel. While you’re in town visit the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery and the Hawkesbury Regional Museum. The latter houses an exhibit of Windsor’s own fabled flabbit, but that’s another story.

The 2^nd Hawkesbury International Sand Sculpting Championship, Howe Park, Windsor, runs from 10-28 January 2013 and is open from 10am to 7pm daily.

For more things to do in the area visit Hills Hawkesbury & Riverlands Tourism.

Now in its 14th year, iD Dunedin Fashion Week showcases cutting edge kiwi designers and emerging talent from around the world in one fun-filled, champagne-fueled, design-focused week of fashion indulgence. And it’s all open to the general public, not just the fashion elite, and catwalk outfits are available for sale in local boutiques and showrooms.

The whole city embraces the theme with fashion related events from library tours to museum exhibitions, author talks to designer lectures, collection launches to starlight shopping. I was lucky enough to attend iD Fashion week in 2009, as a guest of Tourism Dunedin, and I had a ball. (You can read my article about the event here.)

I was swept up by the excitement that gripped the fashion community and was blown away by the culminating shows, held on the platform of the city’s historic Flemish-Renaissance railway station. Festooned with fairy lights and flowing fabric, the railway platform became a giant fashion saloon with guests sitting in open-sided railway carriages overlooking the 110m catwalk, touted as one of the longest in the world.

Designers like Nom*D, Tamsin Cooper, Mild-Red, Carlson and Charmaine Reveley are regulars at iD and will be in the lineup of 15 designers showing their winter collections at iD 2013, along with capsule collections from recent fashion graduates and the winners from the Emerging Designer Awards.

The Emerging Designer Awards attract entrants from around the world, but this year it was young Australian designers who scooped the prize pool.

While international guest designers for 2013 have not yet been announced, past guests have included Zandra Rhodes and Akira Isogawa.

So why does Dunedin, known locally as ‘Dunners’, with its conservative Scottish heritage, host such a contemporary fashion event? Dunedin is a university town, attracting students from around New Zealand, who make up about one fifth of the population. It is also home to Otago Polytechnic’s School of Fashion and has bred some of New Zealand’s top designers including Nom*D and Zambesi. There’s a subculture that incubates and nurtures design of all descriptions, from fashion to furniture. You can visit artists and designers at work in their studios and workshops and pick up unique items you won’t find anywhere else.

But you don’t have to be a design diva to enjoy Dunedin. Attractions include art, architecture, gardens, wildlife, ice cream and beer. See my article on Dunedin and surrounds for a few holiday ideas and if you’re heading over for iD 2013 you can take in Dunedin’s Fringe Festival too. So gather your girlfriends (or boyfriends – there are men’s collections too) and head to Dunedin for a week of fashion-focused fun. Booking details are on the iD website.

Mintaro Maze

I got lost… in a maze. Which is the whole point of mazes I guess.

I was at Mintaro Maze, near Clare in South Australia. Mintaro, population about 90, was once famous for its slate, which was used around the world for billiard table surfaces. Now the tiny town is a state heritage area. Morten Bay figs and gum tress line the main street (more like a country lane) with its bluestone buildings and vine-draped storefronts.

A cheeky gnome

One of the key attractions in town is Mintaro Maze, designed and planted by Michael Morris in 1995. Now the towering Castlewelland Gold conifers make impenetrable walls, herding and drafting visitors through the labyrinth. Cheeky gnomes peek out from under the hedge and fairytale characters ease the frustration of getting lost. And get lost you will. I entered the maze just before closing time, determined to walk it as quickly as possible, but within minutes I was lost - hopelessly, pathetically lost. You can read all about here.

Martindale Hall

Another fascinating place to visit in Mintaro is Martindale Hall, the Georgian-style mansion featured in Peter Weir’s movie Picnic at Hanging Rock. The home, grandly furnished much as past owners left it, is now a museum and heritage accommodation. It’s worth a visit just to see the enormous dining table, but my favourite spot is the smoking room.

The smoking room at Martindale Hall

The smoking room is a veritable museum in itself. It is crammed with artefacts collected from around the world. It’s a tribute to the state govenment, to whom the home was transferred after being willed to the University of Adelaide, that it is available as accommodation. It’s makes the perfect spot for a slumber party or a murder mystery.

Kids love getting up close and personal to animals and they can do just that at Mowbray Park Farmstay in Picton, just a 90-minute drive from Sydney. But this family owned farmstay in the lush Wollondilly Shire offers much more than the usual meet and greet animals.  

Kids love making damper

Sure, there are cuddly rabbits, cheeky goats and inquisitive alpacas, along with donkeys, sheep and ducks to feed and fondle, and littlies will love the tractor and pony rides. But older kids, and mum and dad, can learn about natural horsemanship on a trail ride through paddocks, woodlands and wetlands.

Try your hand at archery, canoeing or whip cracking, enjoy a family game of tennis, then gather around the camp fire by the stream and make damper rolls to fill with finger-licking golden syrup.

History buffs will enjoy hearing about the property’s past as a repatriation hospital and Barnardos Home, while those with an environmental bent can learn about the revegetation and aquaponics projects.

Best of all, there are no shearers quarters here. Accommodation is in ensuite rooms in heritage buildings, from a small chapel to the large homestead. Lodges, with communal lounges, are great for extended families or groups of friends. You can self-cater or dine in the coach house on delicious home-cooked meals.

There is an early children’s dinner followed by Kids Club, so adults can dine by themselves if they wish. Sometimes there’s an after dinner sing-along or movie.

When you’ve exhausted all the farm activities, which could take a few days, then check out Trainworks museum in nearby Thirlmere, where the kids can meet Thomas the Tank and friends.

Mowbray Park

Mowbray Park Farm, 745 Barkers Lodge Road, Picton, NSW 2571. Phone 02 4680 9243

In fact the culprits, looking suspiciously like cheeky nannas, are being actively encouraged! They are yarn bombing and wool tagging all over the joint – and having serious fun while they’re at it.

Trainworks Museum in Thirlmere, about 90km southwest of Sydney, turns one on April 1^st 2012 and as part of the celebrations the local Picton Knitting & Crochet group have been let loose to brighten up exhibits with scarves for funnels, ‘eyes’ for buffers and spider webs for carriages. That a museum encourages such community involvement and interaction with its exhibits, speaks volumes about its philosophy of engaging the public and indulging in a bit of fun.

Trainworks underwent a $30 million dollar refurbishment in 2011 and the money has been well spent, breathing new life into dusty old trains. The museum is truly engaging for all ages – from Thomas the Tank Engine for little children to Australia’s largest collection of rolling stock for serious train buffs.

Exhibits include the massive 260 tonne 6040 Garrat, one of the world’s most powerful engines, and the elegant timber Governor-General’s carriages. A prison van comes to life with inmates’ stories and the rail pay bus looks like it comes straight from a cartoon.   

Birthday celebrations on April 1^st include vintage steam train rides, Circus Monoxide performers, Dixieland bands and a jumping castle. There’ll be a three tiered birthday cake, to be cut by a mystery guest, with slices for everybody.

Don’t forget to check out the work of the graffiti grannies, which is on display until April 25^th.

10 Barbour Road, Thirlmere NSW Trainworks is open 7 days a week. 10am-4pm Mon to Fri, 9am-5pm Saturday and Sunday. Ph 02 4681 8001 www.trainworks.com.au

I’ve always loved corrugated iron, the relatively inexpensive building material used, and reused, for farm sheds and shanty towns. From shiny, shimmering virgin silver to rust-ridden russet tones, its undulating surface catches light and shadow for dramatic effect.

It’s had a renaissance of sorts recently as a trendy building material, holding up bars, lining restaurants and bathrooms, and as an art surface for painters and photographers.

But in Tirau, it’s been given a new lease of life, sculptured into quirky shop signs, unusual statues and animal-shaped buildings.

It all started in 1998 with a wool shop built from corrugated iron in the shape of a sheep. When the town needed a new building for a visitor information centre, the community decided to build it in the shape of a sheepdog, adjacent to the sheep, and the rest, they say, is history.

Local shopkeepers and business have joined in the fun with cute colourful signs. Even the local church has a corrugated iron Good Sheppard out the front.

Tirau means ‘the place of many cabbage trees’ and the town logo looks gorgeous rendered in corrugated iron.

This has meant plenty of work for local corrugated artist, Stephen Clothier, of Corrugated Creations, which is located just outside Tirau. The ‘mechanic-turned-handyman’ was initially reluctant to take on the sheepdog project, but once finished he was inundated with orders for signs, garden features and letter boxes.

Each artwork is individually designed for the location and handmade, including the frame. 

With galleries, art and craft stores, coffee shops and more, Tirau makes a great place for picking up some unique NZ gifts or souvenirs. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to check them all out, or buy my own corrugated souvenir. But I’ll be sure to stop off next time I’m in New Zealand.