For my birthday, Tom and I took a three-day trip to Carrickalinga, South Australia.

The view from the end of the driveway of the Airbnb in Carrickalinga

We stayed at John & Julie's Airbnb and it was absolutely perfect. The location was fantastic, just a two-minute walk to the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. We had the whole bottom floor to ourselves so plenty of privacy, but our host was also very friendly and helpful. As a bonus, our host had very friendly dogs that we were allowed to play with.

The weather forecast for my birthday originally predicted it would be cloudy and too cool to enjoy the beach. Luckily it was wrong and it ended up being perfect beach weather.

We really took advantage of having the beach on our doorstep. Tom got me a bodyboard for my birthday, so we spent most of our time in the water bodyboarding. The first day the waves were fantastic, but the second day the water was more still (and stunningly clear!). It's definitely more of a swimming beach.

For food, we hopped to the next town over Normanville. On my birthday we had lunch at the Southbound Diner. The food was so good that we got takeaway from there for lunch the following day. For dinner that night, we got pizza from Mare Bello Pizza Bar. I have a weird pizza order (cheese pizza with no cheese), so it can be painful ordering from a new place, but they were accommodating and didn't seem too weirded out by the odd request.

Dolphins swimming at sunset in Carrickalinga

On our last night there we went on a walk and watched the sun set over the beautiful ocean. After sunset, just as we were turning to head back, we spotted a pod of dolphins. It was simply magical.

I can't recommend the location (or that Airbnb) enough. The whole trip was just perfect. Happy birthday to me~