It’s day 2 in Penang, despite the sheer variety of food available to us here our trip isn’t all about the food (shockingly), we’ve got a packed day ahead of us with temples, more temples, durian, snacking, food courts and the occasional naps we manage to squeeze in between.

I’ve been looking forward to Penang, knowing that it’s closer to the ocean I’ve foolishly assumed that the weather will be cooler. I’ve never been more wrong in my life. The humidity is almost punishingly heavy and I’m sweating within seconds of leaving the car, my hand-held fan my only salvation.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been traveling for barely been a week on our Food Blogger Trip and we’ve somehow managed to hit Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and the Cameron Highlands on the way to Ipoh. We’re off in search of breakfast again and Billy taken us to Ipoh Old Town in search of a famous coffee house.

Once again we’re tackling the winding roads from the Cameron Highlands down towards Ipoh, it’s a place close to Billy’s heart, he’s lived here for most of his life and a lot of his family is still in the area.

It’s a somewhat quiet morning, we’re starting on the first major part of our road trip, heading up to Cameron Highlands. Stomachs are obviously still suffering from the abuse the previous day and our breakfast plates are noticeably smaller.

Anyone who has been to Malaysia will know that while Kuala Lumpur is shiny, apart from shopping and eating there’s not a hell of a lot to do there. We decided early on in our planning to hire a van to drive us around Malaysia, road trip style!

Welcome to the first of my Malaysia Mondays posts! Rather than subject everyone to a barrage of Malaysian posts I’ve decided to space them out a little and post weekly updates. Be warned the posts are heavy with text, an inappropriate amount of rambling and yes, a truly ridiculous amount of food.

In going to Thredbo from Sydney, you’ll inevitably pass through quite a few small towns. Though for me, only a few names really stick in my head, one of which is Bredbo (I admit it, it’s because it really sounds like Thredbo and I always giggle when I see it). Whenever we pass through this country town, a pizzeria always catches our eye with masses of cars parked in front (during business hours of course) and each time we tell each other that we should try it out – Mark even banned F and I from going there without him.

The second and final part of my two-part series of our eats in New Zealand’s beautiful South Island is a burger battle! In the ring we have the newly found (i.e. we just found it) Red Star Luxury Burgers challenging the old favourite Fergburger for the title of EST’s Burger Champion of New Zealand.

I’m not sure what it is about this winter, but nearly every weekend for the past three months has been gorgeous and blue. With the sun shining down it was the perfect opportunity for a day trip to the Hunter Valley to visit a few of my favourite wineries and check out the annual Chocolate Festival, held at the Hunter Valley Gardens.

With the snow season upon us, I’ve been popping down to the slopes every odd weekend. A couple of the trips have been those “red-eye” runs (or as I usually call them: “one-dayers”) where we leave Sydney at 2am, snowboard, and then drive home on the same day.

Despite the seemingly crazy tactic to alleviate my need to snowboard, I do get to be deliciously fuelled for the day at Serges Cafe and snack on freshly made doughnuts after.

On our way down to Kiama for the long weekend, we stopped by Thirroul to check out the ‘Princess’ Pashley bike at one of the few stores in Sydney that stocks that brand. It also happened to be lunch time and afterwards we hungrily prowled the streets for a place to eat.