Aussielicious

So, it’s already the morning of Christmas Eve here in Sydney and I’m getting myself organised to go and pick up my Great Aunt from the station and drive down to Wollongong to spend Christmas with my family.

Our Christmases are fairly low-key these days, with just 8 of us. My only surviving grandparent, mum’s dad, is not doing very well at 95 in a home with a brain tumour that is slowly killing him. He’s barely aware of anything, but seems to be holding on, whether that’s good or bad, I can’t be sure.

Our Christmas will be good fun with my niece and nephew hopefully enjoying all their presents. We’ll all enjoy my mum’s over catering as usual before napping in the afternoon.

On Boxing Day I will be heading off on a road trip up north to some friends that live just outside Byron Bay for a few days. We’ll be sitting in their pool, nude, drinking beers, heading to the beach and also doing a couple of photo shoots for my exhibition.

I’ll be back in Sydney for New Year’s Eve and will post again then.

I wish you all a very happy holiday season, which ever religion or style of celebration that means to you and your loved ones. Big Aussielicious hugs to you all.

For many years, I’ve loved the idea of getting a small group of friends together, hiring a sail boat and sailing around the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, exploring hidden coves, deserted islands, skinny dipping, sunbathing with a cold beer in hand and having a fire on a deserted beach.

It’s one of those holidays that would have to be with the right group of friends. Locking yourself on a boat for a week or more with people takes some picking and choosing, but could be one of those amazing holidays you never forget.

A while back, googling away and reminiscing about my holiday in Kakadu National Park two years ago, I stumbled across the website of Lorella Springs in the Northern Territory. The camping area and waterhole are clothing optional, but Lorella Springs is more than just a campground. It is a huge working cattle station over a million acres.

I’m just curious if any of my intrepid readers have been up to Lorella Springs and what they might have to say about it?

Sailing around the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland or the Greek Islands or the coast of Croatia is a holiday I’ve always wanted to do. Get the right people, that you can stand being on a boat with for an extended time, hopping from island to island, having bonfires on deserted beaches, skinny dipping and sunbathing naked for a week or two or three, sounds like absolute bliss to me. These photos look like a lot of fun. The girls obviously weren’t up for stripping off but the boys seem to have taken any opportunity.

The adult son of one of my readers has a job on the luxury boat of an immensely wealthy family sailing around the world. Whenever they aren’t in port the family and all the staff wear the same uniform, absolutely nothing. That’s right the lucky staff get to go to work on an enormous luxury boat and get to work nude sailing to glamorous locations around the world. Just how DO you get that job?

The way I feel about my job right now I could easily take off and drop out and work like that for a while.

Things have been getting to me lately. More than they should. The horrendous “dates”, confusing “non-dates”, work is really fucking me off and I’ve been feeling generally run down. I’ve realised it’s all coming down to a desperate need of some time off work. My manager and I fairly regularly don’t see eye to eye and he has an amazing knack for not being able to comprehend that people have a differing viewpoint to him and a delicate way with words that feels like a sledge hammer between the eyes at times. Today I had to hold myself back from unleashing a torrent of abuse.

I had a brief conversation with the director of the company (a small company of 7 of us) and floated the idea of a holiday. I have 3 weeks worth of holidays accrued but sadly there’s no convenient time to take them, nor do I have any money to go anywhere. It’s all feeling a touch overwhelming at the moment and I really do need a break. It’s looking like I might have to grab a 4 day weekend, but where to go?

Ideally, if it weren’t winter I’d pack up and go to River Island and camp nude and lie around for 4 days doing sweet bugger all, but that’s not really an option in this temperature. Any dirt cheap suggestions will be welcomed.

A friend pointed me towards this place today. He and his partner are nudie mates of mine and they are heading to New Zealand early in the new year so they were thinking of heading to Autumn Farm Naked Week but they won’t be able to get there sadly.

Autumn farm is “Home to a community of gaymen with deep roots in the artistic and environmental movements, we are open every day of the year and are ready to welcome you.” They have a few nude men only events through the year and it looks like a stunning place to go and relax, all in the buff.

Looks like my list of beautiful nude places to visit is growing! Check out their website here.

My weekend in Adelaide with the boys was a great one and unexpectedly longer than planned. One of the boys picked me up shortly before midday on Saturday, the other one was still working. We went and got some lunch and then went for a couple of beers where lovely guy #2 came to meet us.

Over the weekend there was much laughing, lots of good eating, many drinks and even more laughs. You know when you meet some people who are just meant to come into your life? These two are those people. They are clearly meant to be together as well. They bounce off each other, motivate each other, nurture each other and make each other laugh, constantly.

On Sunday night I was introduced to the Mars Bar. Not the confectionery, but the bar. It was there I had a reader of this blog introduce himself. Hi mate, can you send me an email please? I also apologise for my (drunken) friends hollering out the cab window at you.

I ended up missing my flight on Monday afternoon because I was approximately 7 minutes too late for the ridiculous cut off point for check-in. If I’d paid attention to anyone or the TV show Airline, I would have known Tiger Airlines are a PR campaign for bad customer service, but alas I hadn’t. So I was booked onto the following morning’s flight, which I was notified by a phone call at 3am, was cancelled, so I eventually made it home 24 hours later than scheduled.

The silver lining on that cloud? Sure, it’s made my working week a bit busier, but I got an extra day with my lovely mates, and a day less work this week!

There will be a few days of nothing happening here on Aussielicious I’m afraid. It’s our family’s traditional Easter escape with family friends. It’s Thursday morning here and I’m heading off straight from work today and won’t be back til Monday night. I hope you can all cope with the silence. Browse the links on the right hand side to entertain yourselves.

My father had an angiogram on Tuesday and it was all looking ok. He has one blocked artery but the rest seem to be fine. They didn’t put a stent in and there was no mention of surgery. Unfortunately that has changed a little. He failed a stress test yesterday so they may still need to put a stent in or do bypass surgery which is scaring me. So it’s not looking like Dad will be at Easter with us at this stage and maybe not mum either. Thanks to everyone who sent really nice messages of support for my Dad. I really appreciate it.

It’s that time of year once again and I’m not far from packing my things and heading over to my sister’s house for Christmas. It’s the first time we haven’t had Christmas at my parent’s place since I was about six and only the second time ever. My nephew is nearly 7 and my niece is a bit over 4 so they are a great age to be sharing Christmas with.

Sadly my grandfather was taken to hospital last night but we think my mother will be able to pick him up tomorrow (Christmas Day here). He’s 93 and looks after himself, living with my (loser) uncle. He’s getting to the stage where he’s bored with living and my mother is actually convinced he’s trying to die. Fingers crossed he won’t accomplish that on Christmas or anytime soon.

I wish all of you my very best for the Holiday Season. I hope you all spend Christmas with loved ones, family or friends, and remind everyone just how much you appreciate them.

In my search for somewhere to go for a naked week of total relaxation, I came across Revelwood Retreat in Byron Bay. Readers of the blog will know that I went to Byron for the first time earlier in the year and loved it. Revelwood is set on a large property with a creek running through it which in January, they are letting people camp there as a recovery deal after Tropical Fruits for NYE.

To me it looks like the perfect place to go to unwind, take my camera, hardly any clothes and just laze by the pool, explore the countryside and swim in the creek, all clothing optional of course.

Recently I heard of a resort in Bali called Bali Au Naturel. A gay clothing optional resort that sounds really reasonably priced! I floated the idea of some time off to my manager today in January and it wasn’t a resounding no but I’ll have to see what happens. The resort runs partnership with another gay clothing optional resort and spa so from what I understand you can split your time over the two resorts.

I have to admit that Bali hasn’t held a lot of appeal for me, especially since the bombings and targeting of Aussies but some of the more militant religious groups, but the idea of a nude holiday does sound very nice! Does anyone know what the weather is like in Bali in January? If any readers have much experience of Bali, please comment!

The end of October is upon us and with it comes Halloween, a holiday not really celebrated here in Australia, certainly not to the extent it is in the U.S. I’m off to a Halloween party this evening but I’m not dressing up and I won’t be staying long as I have to be up and ready for the photoshoot tomorrow.

I’m sure there are lots of readers getting dressed up, or down, in sexy Halloween costumes. Feel free to send your photos in!

Welcome to a new regular feature on Aussielicious, Travelicious. I’m hoping to bring you all kinds of travel destinations and experiences. Some gay specific, some gay friendly and others that just appeal to me. Sadly, I won’t be road testing all of the destinations, unless of course there are those in the business who want to have a first hand review! My first Travelicious destination just had to be an Australian business, so I found Sangoma.

Travel a little over an hour out of Sydney towards the famous Blue Mountains and soak up the modern luxury of Sangoma Retreat. North West of Sydney, Sangoma has three luxury suites available all finished in a style which could be described as modern, luxury country. While the retreat was unearthed in a google search for “gay hotel” there is nothing specifically mentioned on their site about being marketed directly at we gays. Having said that, any luxury accommodation that lists in it’s selling points, a two person Philipe Starck bathtub has to be at the very least, welcoming to the stylish, cashed up gay market.

The retreat has three suites all attached to, or near the main house which houses the common facilities such as dining room, entertainment room and lounge room. The grounds are very much nestled beautifully into the rugged Australian bush with a spectacular pool with a stunning view over the region.

Sangoma looks like a perfect way to escape the rush of the city, and judging by the online booking form that has most weekends booked for several weeks, it’s popular.

Talking about holidays with friends and the kind of places we each like to travel it became clear that each of us have some very different ideas about holidays. Some people like adventure, some relaxation, some rugged, some adrenaline. I know for me, it varies depending on how much I’ve been working, how stressed I am or how long it’s been since I’ve been out of the city.

My recent Kakadu trip was dusty, dirty, sweaty and rugged (although we had showers and toilets every night) and exactly what I wanted at the time. Right now, I’d opt for a resort where I could sit and do bugger all for days in the sunshine. I had a holiday like that at Turtle Cove a few years ago and spent a lot of time naked on the beach. Bliss. So, in an effort to further get to know my readers… where do you holiday?

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After two days back at work, and particularly today’s 12 hour effort with a painful client, I really want to go back on holiday and refresh my memory of what it’s like. Yesterday around lunch time I started to feel a head cold coming on and immediately started to curse the highschool brat sitting next to me doing big snotty sniffs and coughing his lungs up for the four hour flight.

I think I need to plan another trip, even just a weekend away camping or something, to give myself something to look forward to.