Kooroomba Lavender Farm & Winery

Hubby knows that I'd like to visit a lavender field one day and he knows I like wine-tasting. So what more appropriate when he found out about a place where they have a lavender farm and a winery! Hubby did some research and publicised it to some friends to see if anyone would be keen to join us. And so last Saturday, family, friends and friends of friends join us, driving 1 hour and 15 minutes to Kooroomba Lavender Farm and Winery.

(From top left, clockwise) Wine-tasting, lavender products, lavender flowers and lavender tea (blend of China black tea, lavender and fennel)

Although it fell a bit short of my expectation of seeing fields of purple everywhere, I also realised that it is not the best time of the year to see lavender in bloom. The reason why Kooroomba has some in bloom is because of the various species that it plants. I really love it there... standing in the midst of the flowers, looking at the vineyard (which was bare now because it is winter) and the mountains nearby... and with the silence of creation around you (except for the sound of some birds chipping)... the feeling was really amazing as I admire God's creation of nature. It immediately makes you feel very relaxed and everything that you worry about seemed so much less important. I love the moment where I could just breathe in the fresh air and just enjoy the few seconds where I am just simply absorbed by nature.

Lavender in the foreground, bare vineyard in the middle/right and the mountains in the back

Free wine-tasting is also available. It was really nice to enjoy their good selections of wine. I particularly like their Alba and Port. The wine also kept me warm and so I was not very cold when I was out in the open fields.

My lunch - Havens croft free range chicken with Kooroomba Alba wine, streaky bacon,
creamed spinach and a mushroom chive galette

And of course all of us also gave our cameras a good workout :)

The bees love the lavender too

Me and my niece

Now I have another place to bring overseas visitors to when they visit Brisbane :) And I may go back there in Spring to drink more wine and see more lavender and also to buy more lavender flowers so that I could put them in my wardrobe, bake them in my cakes and cookies and give away to some close friends in Singapore.

The Greens Outside My Doors

Thanking God that I have a small little backyard at the back of my place. I am a city girl and gardening is complete stranger to me. But well, with a backyard and some inspiration and encouragement from MIL and SIL (mother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively), I thought that I shall adventure a bit... and also thinking that I can save a bit of grocery shopping money by planting some of my own supply of veggies and herbs.

Come have a look at my backyard as I show you photos of them:

My patio with pots of plants and seedlings

The side of my place (where it leads to the bins). I have a palm tree, chives, 2 basil plants, sweet potato leaves, a parsley seedling and some orchid plants.

Down the lawn, there is a patch of soil. That strip was just cleared of various plants and trees over the weekend. FIL helped to clear the area so that I can plant more veggies, etc.

The remnants of the plants and weeds pulled out and left there until our bin can fit them to throw away. There is an aloe vera plant on the side near the fence.

A colourful bird can be sighted on the trees just outside my fence

Chilli plant. SIL gave me this chilli that repels gravity and grows pointing up to the skies.


Thai basil. This is one of the latest addition, given to us by our friends. I have to go figure how to use it in my cooking

On the left: chives. In the middle: 2 sweet basil plants. I just made half a bottle of fresh basil pesto from these leaves last week.

Sweet potato leaves. I planted an entire sweet potato into the soil and out comes the leaves. I am gonna cut up these leaves and stir-try them soon...

The chilli plant left behind by the previous occupants. There are at least 20 green chillis on it now and I am waiting for them to turn red. To prevent bugs from feasting on them, I have wrapped around some of them as an experiment to see if it helps at all.

Roma tomato. It has bore one tomato at the moment. However bugs have helped themselves to it. So I cut it off, removed the seeds and re-planted them nearby. Hopefully they will grow and bear another new tomato plant.


? This plant is starting to flower. You can see the little white flower on the top. I wonder what this is. My FIL says it looked like some useful plant (not a weed). Shall keep it for a while and observe.


Last but not least, this is my favourite photo - a caterpillar. This was hanging on a plant just outside my window in the front. I saw this through the window from inside the house and decided to go close to take a photo of it. I am afraid of creepy crawlies and so it happens that his little one was on the other side of the window and I am not scared to go near it.

I have a couple more succulents, some orchid plants (not flowering yet. It will take years!) and a frangipani tree seedling growing in my backyard. I am a bit lazy to the photos up. I really hope and pray that my plants will grow. Any gardening tips from anyone?

Park in the City

The postcard-like photo

This is NOT the Botanic Gardens in Singapore. This is the Hyde Park in Sydney (not in London). I have been to Sydney 4 times and on my 3rd trip there in 2003, I visited Hyde Park for the first time. These photos were compliments from J's camera then... mine didn't turn out so good...

During my last trip there in last August, I heard that the authorities are going to cut down the trees in the park. I can't remember what was the reason they are doing it. But surely the park will look pretty different without the original trees... they have been there for years! 1 or 2 paths in the park look pretty much 'romantic' with the lights, trees and benches along the sides. But no, I did not pak tor (hokkien for dating) there :p

Fountain at Hyde Park (this was at sunset time)

A Retro Attempt

Was just sorting through my collection of photos and then I came across the above 2 photos. These were taken in August 2003 when I was at Chinatown. I remembered I was standing across the road waiting for my dad to pick me up. Looking at the stall, I couldn't resist whipping out my 2-month-old Casio Exilim. (This tells you that my camera is already 3.5 years old now...)

Don't they look like they were taken 2 decades ago? Accept that I think the $2 pomelo gave it away. I think pomelos don't cost $2 in those days....

Beautiful Sunsets

One of my favourite photos: Taken in Langkawi 2003

Between sunrise and sunset, which do you prefer? I think I prefer the sunset... probably because I'm not a morning person and do not wake up early enough to catch the sunrise. Hmm to catch a sunrise, I either have to wake up really early (which is not easy) or stay up the whole night just to catch the sunrise. I did it by the beach of Bintan - stayed up whole night to catch the sunrise... but by 3-4am, I was so sleepy... by the time traces of the sun appears, I wish it will come out faster so that I can go to bed... *yawn*

Hmm... perhaps I really do prefer to watch the sunset. Because I need not make too much effort to make it in time to catch it. I guess it also makes me relax as it is moving into the night... as I watch the sun rays hitting onto my office building, I could not help to fish out my camera to take a photo. I think it was not really sunset yet but the sight is therapeutic for me as I look out of the windows of my office pantry... then I realised that I have taken quite a number of photos of sunset in the past. All the photos were taken using my now-2-year-8-months-old Casio Exilim EX-Z3 (phased out now). Here are some to share: (click on the photos if you want to see a larger image.)

In local Singapore land:

Fullerton Hotel and Shenton Way (Singapore River).

National Day Parade Rehearsal (happen to take it when I was in the vicinity) and Sentosa Siloso Beach.

East Coast Park (whilst doing personal reflection) and Pasir Ris Park (after an afternoon of inter-DG games)


A shot from the plane on way back to Singapore and sunset from view of Neptune Restaurant.

Holidays in Malaysia:


More Langkawi shots: From the pier and looking out of the Langkawi Lagoon Resort.


Penang's Batu Ferringhi Beach: Parasailing... and C walking along the coastline, happen to be caught in the photo with the little girl (I thought that this was a very nice accidental shot :P)

Dining at Johor Bahru

Holiday in Bintan:

Shots from Bintan ferry terminal before we take the ferry ride for home.

Last but not least, this was taken in Sydney when I was last there in 2003.

Jervis Bay (south of Sydney)

Red is the Colour

Chinese New Year is approaching in 3 weeks' time. Decided to pop by Chinatown this afternoon. Went to my daddy's workplace to buy sets of traditional coffee shop type of coffee cups and saucers for a friend.

There was the Chinese New Year light-up programme this evening, and so Chinatown was extremely crowded and busy! If Orchard is the place to go to see Christmas lights, then Chinatown is the place to see CNY lights! Some roads were blocked since 3pm in preparation for the evening's event.

Entrance to the blocked off area. Police were seen directing traffic and probably standing by for crowd control.



There are people who would actually be there by 3pm to wait and see the process of setting up and having a 'front seat' to the stage of the the evening's lightup. See how comfortable some made themselves to be!


Street stalls selling food stuff, decorative stuff can be sighted everywhere. There is the famous place selling barbequed pork - LCG. Every year at this time, there will be a long snake queue of people queueing to buy their bbq pork. In comparison, you can hardly see any queues for other stalls selling bbq pork nearby. I wanted to join in the queue since it was rather short today. But decided to pull out last minute.


I passed by Chinatown in the evening again... so managed to take a shot of it in the night.. after the lightup!!