Lux Life’s Spring/Autumn 2017.

I had no idea what season to use for this post. It’s been spring here in Australia, but back home in England it’s been autumn?! Anyway, it’s been about six months since I did any sort of life update, so I thought it was well overdue! Quite a lot has been happening, so here I am to tell you all about what I’ve been up to the past few months before I jet off on my big round-the-world adventure today!


September was full of travels for me, despite having a full time job (you can read more about how I travel a lot with a full time job here) I managed to do a few weekend and long weekend trips, so was only home in Sydney for two weekends out of five. The first weekend of September I flew up to Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef, and spent a day out on the reef, and then a day on Fitzroy Island. It was bliss to have some warmth and beach time after Sydney’s long – and surprisingly cold – winter.

Then it was off to Melbourne for a weekend with two of my Perth besties! We stayed at Sheraton Melbourne and despite a small hiccup with my flight from Sydney being cancelled due to high winds, I arrived a day later than planned and we made the most of the two days we had together. We saw the Dior exhibition, ate some amaze food at Chin Chin, drank some delish cocktails at rooftop bars, and ended the night in a grimy hip-hop bar and accidentally got in the middle of some dance-offs. Awks.

The end of September I flew to New Zealand (my 37th country) and spent a long weekend in Wellington, and Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula  visiting friends. It was a blissful few days, and I adored how relaxed and safe New Zealand felt. I’m hoping to go back again next May and see Queenstown and Milford Sound!

At the end of September I had the best work event I have EVER been to. YouTube’s Sydney Brandcast saw a few hundred of us media types from Sydney, all crowded around a stage with ELTON FREAKING JOHN PLAYING ON IT. Yep. Elton John played for about an hour, I was a couple of rows back from the front and had the most amazing view of him. He was incredible and I still can’t get over how close he was and how intimate the little concert was!

October was full of parties, with Laura’s 30th birthday bash the weekend after I got back from New Zealand. We had a gorgeous lunch at Paddo Inn in their private room, and then went to the Royal Hotel in Five Ways for drinks. Drinks at The Royal turned into drinks at the Woollahra Hotel, drinks at Big Poppa’s, and then a night out at Soda Factory! It was a very intense day and night of drinking and partying, and I spent the following day crashed on the sofa with Wilbur and a burger.

The following week Nikki and I went to the Night Noodle Markets on the Thursday and feasted on some incredible food, which you can read more about here. On Saturday it was my housemate Joe’s birthday, so we held a house party at ours.  We made jello shots and dressed Wilbur in a Hawaiian lei, and it was a bit of a crazy night and everyone eventually left our house at 6am. Yep. 6am.

For weeks a few colleagues and I had been planning a night out at Marquee inside the Star Casino in Sydney. It’s part of the group that owns Marquee, Avenue, and Tao in NYC, so I was intrigued to see how the Sydney club compared. It. Was. Interesting. Haha. We had a really fun night, starting at my fave bar, Barber Shop, then heading Baxter Inn, and finally to Marquee. The club itself was pretty cool and the music was epic, but the crowd was a weird mix of very young and very old.

Saturday we had a street party on our street (read more here), which was AMAZING. There were food trucks, live music, gift and craft stalls, and all the shops decorated the store-fronts. I had a reasonably early night Saturday as I was a liiiiittle bit tired from Friday night.

Sunday I woke up bright and early and took myself off to Bondi for breakfast at Bondi Icebergs. It was a bit cloudy and overcast, but after a delish brekky overlooking the pool and ocean, I strolled down to the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk path to see the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition. Some of the exhibits were really cool, but the crowds were so busy it really stressed me out as you could barely move.

The last weekend of October I had a boat party with a few friends for Katie’s birthday. We took the boat from Darling Harbour over to where the ferry to Taronga Zoo goes, and it was bliss chilling out on the front of the boat with the girls, and eating BBQ food and birthday cake! It was a bit cloudy, but the sun did come out for a bit.

After the boat party we all went back to Katie’s for drinks, before myself and Laura got a taxi over to Soda Factory for a dance. I’d been feeling really unwell over the past week or so, and the waves of nausea I’d been having suddenly culminated in me rushing to the bathroom in Soda Factory to vomit, and then the vomiting basically didn’t stop for another two weeks. 

After a month of travels and then a month of parties, my body pretty much collapsed on me, transforming me into a broken shell of a human. What started towards the end of October carried into November, and I spent the whole of November sick, with vomiting all hours of the day and night, and not being able to keep any food down.

I was feeling very weak and a bit rubbish, and then a cough and chest infection appeared that would not go away. Being this sick is partly why I quit the ketogenic diet, and started eating fruit and vegetables again. I still have the cough, but after ten days of antibiotics the chest infection is gone and I feel much better in myself.

One of the things that made me so miserable while I was sick was not being able to work out and go to the gym. It costs me $150 (about £80) a month so it was annoying losing this money, and I also lost a lot of the fitness I’d worked so hard to build up. I also had a lot of personal stuff going on at the same time, so November was a really difficult month and it’s one of the few times I’ve struggled being in a different country from all my loved ones.


With November being a write-off as I literally didn’t leave the house apart from to go to work, I’m so excited to go on my travels today! I had four days off work and then struggled through the other days that I had to go in to work, and got a bit of cabin fever from being stuck inside so much.

I did manage to muster up some energy to celebrate the Marriage Equality Yes Vote on 15th November, and danced down Oxford Street with my work friends and had a couple of glasses of bubbly before being in bed by 11pm. It was 100% worth the exhaustion during the days that followed to experience such a massive and historic part of Australia’s modern history.

One Saturday I thought it would be a great idea to go to the gym, but after 30mins of weight training I could barely move, so dragged myself to Haven Coffee for brunch with Nikki who told me I looked awful and needed to go straight home after we’d eaten (thanks Nikki, haha!). I got home and literally fell asleep and didn’t move the rest of the weekend!

Anyway, so that was my Spring (Autumn to you lot in the UK), I must go now as I need to get to the airport! EEEEK. Follow along on Instagram stories, there are 12 types of champagne on Singapore Airline’s First Class and I’m planning on trying every single one and Instagram story-ing the experience 😉 haha.

How was your Autumn/Spring?

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Catherine Lux
Catherine Lux

Catherine Lux is a veteran travel blogger by night and the Head of SEO at Havas Media Group by day. Originally from Surrey, she spent four years living in Australia (2007-2009, and 2016-2018), and now lives in London. An ex-party girl sometimes prone to relapses, she loves nothing more than sharing her fine dining and luxury travel experiences with her loyal readers.

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2 Comments

  1. Angie SilverSpoon
    December 13, 2017 / 9:48 am

    Your flight looked amazing!!!

  2. Eppie Shepherd
    December 19, 2017 / 12:20 pm

    Wow you have some great nights out girl! That YouTube event looks amazing!

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