I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Joel Creasey & Anna Heinrich

All smiles: Joel and Anna look forward to some luxury

COMEDIAN Joel Creasey and The Bachelor’s Anna Heinrich have been sent packing from the South African jungle in a double eviction shock.

Creasey, 24, was one of the favourites to win the inaugural I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! series.

“It is weird but exciting,” Creasey told hosts Julia Morris and Chris Brown. “I’m so glad I got to stay this long to experience everything.”
The news sent shock waves through the camp with just four remaining contestants — Maureen McCormick, Chrissie Swan, Freddie Flintoff and Barry Hall — ahead of Sunday night’s grand final episode. Dark night with  solar lamp for luxury camping.

Heinrich, 28, entered the camp as an intruder in week two of the series with Bachelor partner Tim Robards. He lasted just a few days but she’s held her own.

“I’m really excited to see my family and Tim, I can’t wait,” she said. “It feels like it has been days and days and days and every day in there feels like months. There’s so many people in there that you would never meet on the outside world and even if you did, it would be in passing so for us, we’ve all met people and we’ve met them in depth so we will be friends forever.”
While in the camp with camping light , Heinrich experienced some tension with both Merv Hughes and Hall. She found former AFL player Hall particularly intimidating.

“At one point he (Hall) was a little scary,” she said. “It is quite frightening because of his height and he seems quite shy and just so lovely but sometimes the claws come out and he is bigger and stronger so it was intimidating sometimes.”
Creasey, on the other hand, shared a special bond with Hall.

“He is spectacular,” Creasey said of Hall. “He is going to be a great bodyguard for me. I went to school with a lot of footballers who weren’t particularly charming and I’ve met a lot of footballers who haven’t been particularly nice when I’ve worked at different functions and he has completely changed my opinion so I would absolutely go to a football game with Barry and I will take him to a drag show.”

Heinrich was closest to Maureen McCormick, who was known for kissing her fellow contestants on the lips. No sun ,no moon just only solar lamp with them.

“I’d never been kissed by a girl before,” Heinrich laughed. “We just got along really well and I loved just cuddling her.”

A further celebrity will be voted off the show tonight with the final three to spend the weekend in the camp before Sunday’s finale.

Online betting site sportsbet.com.au has Swan favourite to win the series with odds of $2 followed by Flintoff at $3.50, Maureen McCormack at $5 and Hall at $6.

JMo is in South Africa as a guest of Channel Ten.

Cr. News Australia Post

Sydney: Night among the ghosts

Sydney Harbour's Cockatoo Island :  'glamp' in luxury tents.

A heritage-listed island in Sydney Harbour is a spectacular place to camp in style, writes Judy Skatssoon.
Sydney Harbour's Cockatoo Island is a unique location to 'glamp' in luxury tents. Photo / Getty Images Sydney Harbour's Cockatoo Island is a unique location to 'glamp' in luxury tents. Photo / Getty Images

Sydney Harbour is sparkling on this summer's day as the ferry makes its way from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island.

We are on our way to a night of "glamping", one of the many ways to enjoy this heritage-listed outcrop in the middle of the harbour.

Cockatoo Island has previously been a convict-era lockup, a girl's reformatory and a naval dockyard.

Since then it's functioned as an arts venue, a prime viewing spot for the New Year's Eve fireworks and a film set (parts of Angelina Jolie's film Unbroken were filmed here), as well as a landmark tourist destination.

They call it glamping because it's camping with an element of luxury. Which means our tent is fitted out with comfy beds, crisp white linen, towels and a selection of hotel-style shampoo, moisturiser, conditioner and apple-scented body wash.

We're also provided with a lantern for when it gets dark and super-comfy fold-up chairs that we immediately set up outside our tent.

But the best thing is the location.

It's absolute waterfront and we're soon relaxing in our chairs enjoying a cold beer from the cafe (you're not allowed to BYO).

Campers can bring a picnic or use the camping ground's excellent barbecue facilities, but we decide to go to the Island Bar for an early dinner. Take Solar Lamp or Camping Light to walk around the beautiful harbour,you will be enjoyable.

For a Sunday afternoon the bar is busy, with funky music, a hip young vibe, groups of girls with selfie sticks and a killer view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We share a rocket and smoked salmon pizza - simple, fresh and exceedingly good - washed down with a jug of the cocktail of the day, a yummy citrusy vodka-based concoction called the Able Seaman.

When we're done we find an intimate corner of the island and watch a splendiferous, blazing sunset before setting off to go exploring in the remaining hours of light.

The bar has closed and the revellers have caught the last ferry back.

Apart from the mewling of seagulls and the lapping of waves, silence and serenity reigns.

As we ramble around the sandstone ruins, empty heritage buildings, hand-hewn tunnels and now-silent industrial structures I begin to sense them - the ghosts of Cockatoo Island.

You can't see them but you can feel them all around.

Convicts left for weeks in coffin-like sandstone solitary confinement cells.

Souls who drowned trying to swim to freedom across Sydney Harbour's shark-infested waters.

Little girls locked up in the Biloela Reformatory on a bluff at the top of the island for no crime other than being orphaned or abandoned. Listen carefully and you can almost hear them crying.

It's only when darkness falls and we can no longer see our way that we head back to our tent.

I'm up early the next morning for a run and it could be my own private island.

When I get back my partner has the contents of our breakfast pack - bacon, eggs, sausages - sizzling on the barbie. Buns, butter and jam are laid out.

The day is bright, the harbour is busy and the ghosts have vanished.

We have got just enough time before getting the ferry back to do a self-guided audio tour of the island - just to make sure we have left no corner of Cockatoo Island unexplored.

The combination of natural beauty and layer upon layer of history is what makes a stay at Cockatoo Island so appealing, as well as the sense you get of being removed from the hustle and bustle of city life, even though it's just a short ferry ride away.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Air New Zealand flies several times daily direct between Auckland and Sydney.

Further information: Visitors can stay in a heritage holiday house or apartment, or take advantage of glamping or standard camping options. For rates and booking details go to cockatooisland.gov.au.

The writer was a guest of Cockatoo Island and the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.

Cr. NZ Herald Post

Trip Advisor: Favourite travel brands

Lonely Planet is the favourite guidebook brand for TripAdvisor users - See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/travel/article/tripadvisor-favourite-travel-brands-among-globetrotters#sthash.3SowdkI2.dpuf

LONDON, March 7 ― Can’t decide on which travel guide to take with you on your trip to Thailand? Or which brand of camera to buy for your backpacking trip across Europe? The results of a new TripAdvisor survey could help narrow down the shopping list, with globetrotters naming their favourite travel brands in categories like GPS device, luggage and camping gear.

For the fourth edition of their Travelers’ Choice Awards for Travel Favorites, nearly 188,200 members from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, the UK and the US cast votes on brand names they trust the most when on the road or in the skies.

In the US, some of the stand-out choices included a handful of perennial favorites, brands that have won their category every year since the survey began in 2012.

For example, for compact digital cameras, the most trusted brand is Canon, while Lonely Planet edges out rivals like Fodor’s and DK Eyewitness every year in the category of guidebook.

Among the 61,470 US respondents, the preferred luggage brand is Samsonite, which has dominated its category since the inception of the awards, while the top noise-canceling headset is Bose.

Planning a summer camping trip? According to the survey, stick to OFF! to repel the blood suckers; Coleman for camping gear; The North Face for outdoor apparel and backpacks; and Neutrogena for sunscreen.

Other big winners include Southwest, which bagged the title of favorite airline; Enterprise-Rent-A-Car for car rental service; Nikon for DSLR; Garmin for best GPS device.

Meanwhile, Travel + Leisure, which was also voted the best travel publication, offers a few tips on how to pack your suitcase.

For example, to maximize space, the magazine advises the ‘roll-up’ method, best for a largely casual trip, while the ‘layer cake’ method ―  which involves placing sheets of tissue paper or dry-cleaner plastic ―  is best for keeping wrinkles at bay and more formal attire.

Likewise, CN Traveler magazine also offers a few packing tips, that includes a preference for Travelpro Crew and Briggs & Riley Baseline brands for carry-on bags.

And for de-wrinkling clothes, the author is a fan of the spray Downey Wrinkle Releaser.

Here are some of the favourite travel brands in the TripAdvisor survey:

Perennial favourites:

Compact digital camera: Canon

GPS device: Garmin

Guidebook: Lonely Planet

Headphones: Bose

Swimwear: Speedo

Luggage: Samsonite

Insect repellant: OFF!

In 2015:

Airline: Southwest

Energy bar: PowerBar

Fishing gear: Bass Pro Shops

Ski equipment: K2

Snowboard equipment: Burton

Transportation app: Uber

Adhesive bandage: Band-Aid

Backpack/daypack/Outerwear/Duffel bag/Sport/equipment luggage: The North Face

Lip balm (women’s): Burt’s Bees

By the way, don't forget the solar lamp for emergency case.





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