Australia Souvenir Art Journal

I was lucky enough to spend two weeks in Sydney Australia this past fall. I knew it was going to be an amazing trip so I gave a lot of thought about what I was going to use as my souvenir journal to document the adventure. 

I decided to go with a camel Midori Traveler’s Notebook and making my own inserts using a mix of papers including pages from various Traveler’s Notebook Inserts, new, and old papers I had laying about. Since I was going to be there two weeks, I made two inserts. I didn’t staple them so I could swap papers around as I needed. I also kept in mind some things I knew we’d do, for instance attend an opera, for which I made a page from old sheet music. I used index tabs to mark Week One and Week Two.

Between the long flight and the time change, we lost a day. So I represented that by adding a blank calendar page for that day (shown below).

I took a screenshot of myself on Google map showing me in Sydney! While I was there I did journal when I could, creating placeholders for the photos (and screenshots) I knew I’d want to add once I got home and was able to print them. For this journal, I had all photos printed at mpix.com.

My traveling companion was there for work for the first week, so I was on my own durning the first few days to explore. I have always loved Sibella Court’s books and products so her shop Society Inc. was one of my first stops.

I also explored some of the beach areas on my own. My favorite was the Wormhole, which was a man-made path carved through the cliffs at Queenscliff Beach (past Manly beach) below the heart (there is a photo of my waking out on my home page). The story is that fisherman carved it in the 1800’s. Something about wanting to fish and keep safe from the sea monsters. 

Another day I went to explore the royal botanical gardens. I discovered 99’s in Hyde Park London earlier in the year (I will share that travel journal at some point as well) and was so excited to find a place selling them at the end of the long walk though the gardens. Along the way I made a wish at the wishing tree and found a dried palm leaf to put in my journal.

As you probably have figured out, I love going to observatories and was able to get tickets for us to tour the Sydney Observatory at night and look through their telescopes, one of which is the oldest working telescopes in Australia. It was very cool seeing the stars while in a different hemisphere! I saved the sky map the gave us and made it a page in my journal. 

The first Saturday there we opted to go whale watching! The boat took us out past the harbor into the open sea, which was amazing. We saw a mom whale with her baby!

I had a new insert for Week Two, as shown below.

No work this week! We hit the ground running doing so much together. We started at Taronga Zoo where we did the Wild Rope and Climb above the zoo before walking through on foot. We didn’t get too close to seeing koala bears but I did get this selfie. My favorite animal to see was the platypus.

We explored so many amazing places! We took over 2,000 photos!

We tried some beer. I loved how this one place used the coasters for you to track the beers you sampled.

Going to an opera has been on my wish list for years, and what better place to finally check it off my list then the iconic Sydney Opera House!

I used a lot out of bits from the program to create this page in my journal.

I loved the Wormhole so much I wanted to share it so we headed back one day together. 

On Halloween I dressed up as a surfer! After the Bronte to Bondi beach Walk to see all the Sculpture by the Sea exhibits we surfed (I took lessons).

We tried some local sparkling wines. I loved the presentation that came with the sampler. It was a glassine placemat with a description of each wine, so, of course it made it into the journal as it’s own page!

Our last night there came to quick. I had gotten used to our room that looked out over the harbor with the Opera house as the back drop. And used to it being spring while it was fall at home. But we packed up and began our long journey home. I will go back someday, I loved it too much to not visit again.

In the meantime I have this journal as a memento of the amazing trip. I only shared about 1/2 the spreads since it is so big and stuffed with ephemera and memories!

To learn more about my travel souvenir journals, chicken out this post. And thanks for letting me share this journey with you!

P.S. Here are my two favorite photos from the wormhole!

Please note that I do use amazon affiliate links in this post.