Our Australian Adventure

Three Cities, A Thousand Memories and Koala Cuddles

Guest blog by one of our customers, Ian Wicks

In December 2025, I ticked something off my bucket list… a long-dreamt-of trip to Australia to watch cricket, and then an extended trip with my wife Samantha. What a trip! Thirty-one nights. Three cities. Close to 1,600 photographs. An amount of coffee that I suspect has permanently altered my personality. And somewhere along the way, the best holiday of my life.

James at Tailormade Escapes put the whole thing together, which was the smartest move I made across the entire trip. The flights, the hotels, the tours, the hire car in Brisbane – all of it landed perfectly. My only job was to show up at the airport with the right documents and spend four weeks trying not to annoy Sam too much. I managed one of those things consistently.

Here's how it went. Buckle in.

Stop One, Melbourne, Christmas

First Leg: Me, the Cricket and a City I Wasn't Expecting to Love

Arriving 23 December - Tour Leg Before Sam Arrived

I flew out first, ahead of Sam, because the first leg of the trip was a 45-year bucket list moment of being at the Boxing Day Ashes Test Match, Australia v England. After which I continued the holiday properly, with Sam joining me in Sydney for New Year. Very civilised in theory. In practice, it meant spending Christmas Day in Australia with the Barmy Army, which is simultaneously wonderful and slightly surreal when you’ve spent five decades associating December 25th with grey skies and an argument about the television schedule.

Melbourne is simply brilliant, and as a lone traveller for this leg, I found the whole place so safe and inclusive, with the locals being super friendly. Marvel Stadium, the MCG, wine tasting, the Eureka Skydeck. I did the lot. But the thing nobody tells you about Melbourne before you go is the coffee situation, and I feel I need to address this properly.

"It takes longer to queue for a coffee than it does for a beer. Coffee is not just a drink in Melbourne. It's an identity."

These people are proper coffee snobs, and they're completely unapologetic about it. 'Grabbing a quick coffee' is not a concept that exists here. Back home, you pop into a Costa, and you're out in four minutes. In Melbourne, getting a coffee is more like going out for dinner. It is an occasion. It requires commitment.

The other thing is that the best places are hidden. There are independent coffee houses tucked down graffiti-covered alleys that, in any other city in the world, you would absolutely not walk down. In Melbourne, those alleys are where the magic happens. There's the odd Starbucks on the high street if you need a safety net, but once you've found your alley, you won't go back.

The weather, meanwhile, was playing games with me. Boxing Day morning felt like zero degrees. By the afternoon, it was mid-twenties. I had sunglasses, factor 50, and a jumper in my rucksack at the same time, which felt absurd until I realised everyone else was doing exactly the same thing.



The trams are free during the festive period, a stroke of genius by the city. Love this place. Love it.

Stop Two, Sydney, 8 Nights

The Barmy Army, the Harbour and Mrs Wicks Arrives

Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour, Superior King, Darling Harbour View, Bed and Breakfast

Sydney is a city on steroids. It runs at full speed, twenty-four hours a day, and it doesn't apologise for it. Sam and I both arrived on 30th December, about 60 mins apart (me via a slick Virgin Australia internal flight, and Sam from Heathrow via Singapore) and checked into the Sofitel at Darling Harbour, which gave us a king room overlooking the water. That view alone could justify the entire trip. (James, you were already delivering on what you promised!)

Then came New Year's Eve.

We welcomed 2026 on a boat in Sydney Harbour. The fireworks behind the Opera House. The whole city in full voice. I'm not a man given to gushing, but that was magical. Genuinely magical. And then, somewhere in those first days of January, Sam told me the news that made this trip unforgettable for a completely different reason.

We're going to be Nana and Pops in the summer.

I'll leave that one there.

Sydney also happened to have the Barmy Army in town for the fifth Ashes Test at the SCG, which suited me perfectly. There's something special about watching cricket in Australia with a few thousand fellow England fans who've flown twelve thousand miles to watch us lose. The atmosphere is magnificent. The result was not discussed.

Sam and I did the rotating dinner at Sydney Tower, which is 1,004 feet up and offers a view of the city that briefly makes you feel like you're in a film. The Opera House tour was booked for 2nd January – a proper guided tour, inside the theatres, the backstage areas, the lot. There are about 300 stairs, and I wore the wrong shoes entirely, but I'd do it again immediately.

The Coogee-to-Bondi clifftop walk deserves its own paragraph. It's one of the great walks, and I'd recommend it to anyone. The coastal scenery is extraordinary, the path is well worn, and if you time it right, you arrive at Bondi just in time for lunch and a swim. My step count during those eight days was frankly insulting.

"One moment on that Bondi visit really stayed with us. We stopped quietly to pay our respects following the tragic events there. A sobering reminder of how precious life is and how important it is to hold the people you love a little closer."

Stop Three, Brisbane, 7 Nights Plus Self Drive

The Gold Coast, a Very Famous Zoo and 21 Years Well Spent

Crystalbrook Vincent, South Bank, River Room, Bed and Breakfast

Brisbane stopped us both in our tracks, and the hotel had a lot to do with it. The Crystalbrook Vincent on Boundary Street is seriously cool. The decor is something else entirely; the location puts you right on the South Bank with the river on one side and the city on the other, and the view from the room is one of those that makes you stop talking mid-sentence and just stare at it quietly for a while. We had dinner overlooking the river two nights in a row because, honestly, why wouldn't you?

The other thing you notice immediately about Brisbane is that everyone seems extremely fit. Gym gear everywhere. Early mornings, early nights. Active, outdoorsy, healthy. Very healthy. As a finely tuned athletic specimen, I blended right in, obviously.

"Sam and I have also officially adopted what I'm calling the Ant and Dec rule. Every photo, same sides. This is entirely because I take the selfie with my right hand and it has absolutely nothing to do with the height difference. Nothing at all."

Tailormade Escapes had arranged a two-day hire car through Avis. A Toyota C-HR, collected from Albert Street. We pointed it at the Gold Coast and drove.

The 'jungle hotel' dinner was spectacular. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm referring to the Imperial Hotel (formerly The Palazzio Versace) on the Gold Coast, which is exactly as over-the-top as that sounds and every bit as good. But the real highlight of the Brisbane leg was Australia Zoo on the 13th, which happened to fall on my birthday and our 21st wedding anniversary. Two milestones, one extraordinary day.

We fed kangaroos, stroked koalas and saw Robert Irwin do his thing with Crocodiles. Australia Zoo is enormous, brilliantly run, and absolutely lives up to everything you've heard about it. I am reasonably confident we did not contract anything from the koala encounter, but I'll report back if that changes.

Brisbane. What a city. What a base. What a few days.

Stop Four, Melbourne, 5 Nights

Round Two: This Time with Sam and a Date with Some Penguins

Peppers Docklands, Peppers King with Balcony, Bed and Breakfast

Back to Melbourne, this time with Sam in tow and James at Tailormade Escapes having sorted us a brilliant set of plans.

Sam had never been there before, which made everything feel fresh again through her eyes. There's something genuinely lovely about showing someone a city you've already fallen for and watching them fall for it too.

We were at Peppers Docklands this time, with a king room and a private balcony over the waterfront. Morning coffee on that balcony became non-negotiable from day one. Melbourne is the kind of city that rewards you for slowing down, so that's what we did. MCG Tour (we both loved this) and wine tasting. At the Australian Open Tennis, we saw why it’s known as the ‘Happy Slam’. The city's famous laneways and the coffee culture I'd already become hopelessly dependent on.

But none of that was the main event.

The Penguins

On 17th January, we were picked up from the hotel for the Phillip Island Day Tour. I want to be upfront that I was not the one lobbying hardest for the penguin experience. I am a fifty-something man. I told myself this was primarily Sam's thing, and I was simply supportive.

We started at Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park, where we met kangaroos, wallabies, koalas and more birds than I could name. I enjoyed this thoroughly while maintaining an air of mild detachment. Then we drove down to Phillip Island, which is beautiful in a very particular way. The light on that coastline in the early evening is something I genuinely couldn't describe properly.

We had the Penguin Plus upgrade, so we were on an elevated viewing platform away from the main crowds. As dusk came in, hundreds of little Penguins started appearing at the water's edge and making their way up the beach to their burrows. Hundreds of them. Tiny, determined, completely unbothered by the two hundred humans watching in absolute silence.

"Sam cried a little. I told her she was being silly, while quietly having entirely the same feelings. The drive back to Melbourne was very quiet. Sometimes you don't need to say anything."

We were dropped back at the hotel at 11:30pm. It was the last real outing of the trip, and it was the right one to end on.

Heading Home

Singapore Airlines, and Back to Reality

We left Melbourne on 20th January on Singapore Airlines, connecting through Changi in the early hours of the 21st and landing back at Heathrow at 7:40 am. If you must travel through any airport in the world for a long overnight connection, make it Changi. It softens the blow considerably.

Thirty-one days. 1549 photos. Three cities (Melbourne twice), each completely different from the last. The Ashes. The Opera House. New Year in the harbour. A birthday at Australia Zoo. A wedding anniversary on the Gold Coast. A penguin parade and the best news of our lives slipped into the middle of it all.

Tailormade Escapes had every detail sorted, every connection seamless, every hotel exactly right for the city it was in. My only genuine contribution was occasionally suggesting where to eat dinner. I'll take that.

Australia. We're coming back. That's not a question.