Tuesday 5 July 2011

Places we have stayed




he he he!

Daylesford - Queen's Birthday

So the Queen was another year older and we didn't get her a present, however she was kind enough not to hold a grudge and gave everyone the Monday off.

Both Andy and I were tired from work and a long weekend away was looking very attractive. Daylesford was highly recommended, especially as it was fairly close (1 hour 30 mins in the car) and was a spa town (so set up for relaxation).

I completed all my marking from a week of exams, Andy finished up his meetings for Friday and we headed off over the West Gate Bridge... and then we stopped in traffic! 30 mins later and we were over the bridge and on our way.

It was dark and cold when we arrived, however the B&B was welcoming and well heated (electric blankets - heaven). Our room was lovely but we didn't stay long as it was getting late and we were hungry. The Farmer's Arms was our dinner spot, cider, beer, and a pub cooked meal was most welcome after a long drive.













The next morning after breakfast (one full English and one blueberry pancakes - nom nom) we were ready to explore Daylesford by foot, starting off with the town (and shops), then the mill (antique/jumble sale) and then the lake. Then it was time for cake.













Dinner was at Beer and Breakfast (which is an odd sentence to write) however after getting up the staircase (spiral and rickety) the food and drink was delicious (but it was cold that night and the fire was downstairs).

Sunday (breakfast - one smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, one blueberry pancakes) was a car day. After a slow start we drove to the chocolate mill (real chocolate, even Andy enjoyed this), then through beautiful countryside to the lavender gardens.

The lavender gardens were a bit out of season, so not much lavender, however it was very pretty and we played boules. Andy may have won but I was awarded player of the match!













After visiting the blow hole we spent the afternoon watching quite possibly the worst movie ever (in Andy's eyes) - Battlefield Earth. John Travolta;what were you thinking?

Lunch and Dinner were both in Hepburn Springs, Rubens for a pizza lunch (yum yum) and Cosy Corner for an excellent dinner (the cod was amazing).












Monday (blueberry pancakes and full English) was a gentle drive back to reality and home, stopping for sourdough bread.



p.s The new replacement frisbee was taken all around Daylesford but no Stacey safe frisbee zones were located (especially as there was a lake).

Great Ocean Road - Sunny Days

We did have some sunny days...



























Look... sunglasses (and the apostles).

Sunday 29 May 2011

The view from up here...

... was not always shared by me. Andy was sent up several tall structures on this trip.













He climbed the steps of the lighhouse.









I am that blob down at the base of the lighthouse (getting chilly).













We climbed the treetop adventure. I went up some of the way.













But Andy went alone up the spiral staircase, whilst I held firmly onto the handrail and concentrated on the map and planned the shortest route back down.

Still on the road

On the great ocean road:









There were Lighthouse cottages, where ghost stories were told and messages are given in morse code.













The lighthouse itself, was also there.









We saw our 2nd native Australian wildlife - Koalas, the best way to sopt them is to look for parked cars and tourists with cameras pointing into trees.









The road was quite twisty by this point!

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Great Ocean Road - Lorne

More piccies:








When arriving in Lorne, I took the rainbow to be a good sign, not a sign that it was raining! (and it was good, as I needed a book and the new Jasper Fforde book was out and the local bookshop had it).








First visit was to the Falls, largest in the local area, don'tcha know!












And here it is, very nice and quite damp (all around not just the waterfall) as we were in rainforest territory.











There were also some people climbing rocks etc... to get a better photo, I did not as I had seen the warning symbols, which scared the pants off me.

Great Ocean Road - Torquay

Here are some pictures:A picnic in Torquay, the sun came out and so did the surfers...
Some surfers were better than others, but as they say practise make perfect and so does falling in the water
This surfer seems unsure as to whether he really wants to go over the rocks into the cold water.From a distance I kept mistaking the surfers for seals.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Never was there a tale of more woe, than Stacey and her frisbee-"O"

I'm sure Stacey will in the fullness of time give a detailed account of our trip down the great ocean road over Easter. The summary in case you can't wait is "fantastic". But I thought I'd recount a tale of great sadness, a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions if you will, that befell us on the trip. Just so you don't think that everything is sweetness and light down under.

Our tale begins with a birthday. A young lady who wanted for much, but got little. And whilst some of the birthday presents were tasty (chocolate), some were functional (a toothbrush to clean away the chocolate) just one present would be considered fun. A brightly coloured frisbee in the shape of a disc. You can just make out the excitable girl with her new toy in this picture. Given how few presents she received the Frisbee was a very important present.



The young lady was so excited about her present. But she knew she had to find the right place to use her new toy.  So imagine the joy when a young gentleman she knew found a wide expanse of flat, sandy beach, under a glorious blue sky and warm sun to test out her frisbee for the very first time. The picture shows an artists (very) accurate rendition of what the beach could have looked like.



At first, all went well. The frisbee was thrown. It wasn't caught, but that was because it flew so well. It whistled through the air and the young girl beamed from ear to ear. She truly loved that Frisbee.

Then  DISASTER STRIKES!

The third throw started like the first two. Arm back, frisbee gripped in sweaty fingers, arm jerked forward and release! We'll never know what really caused it, perhaps a freak gust of wind, perhaps a twinge in the back that caused the arm to twist slightly as the frisbee was let go, or perhaps a butterfly flapped its wings in China causing some sort of quantum fluctuation. All we do know is the frisbee's trajectory deviated from the straight and true and curved right towards the water. Higher and higher it went, out of the reach of the young gentleman acquaintance, who ran and ran and ran and ran but it was no use. The frisbee sailed off the edge of the beach and into a small inlet from the sea.

If your eyes are good enough you might spot it in the picture above.

Now the girl was most upset - her wonderful present only 5 throws old was floating out to sea, and she had no bathing costume to hand to rescue it and on closer inspection the small inlet was a deep channel of the sea that precluded wading out to get it. The good news however, was that the frisbee was light, and so it floated. And the tide was coming in so the young lady waited on the shore for the sea to deliver her most precious present back to her.

But would you believe it,   DISASTER STRUCK AGAIN!

Once again, defying the laws of physics and explanation the frisbee started moving out to sea, against both the waves and the tide. One can only assume that there was a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies (NB - that is one of four appropriate collectives for the butterfly, along with 'flight', 'rabble' and 'swarm) flapping their wings all over Asia to create such an unexpected event. 


The frisbee continued to move out to sea, somehow navigating it's way out of the channel, around a set of rocks and into the Bass Strait (which separates mainland Australia from Tasmania). 


Again - the frisbee is there if you look hard enough (like a very niche version of Where's Wally really). 














To this day, we don't know what happened to that frisbee. Perhaps a school of fish passed by it and now use it to perform Sea World type tricks for the amusement of fisherman (NB - only a school of fish if it applies to a butterfly fish or cod, for example it is a troop of dogfish, or a flotilla of swordfish). Perhaps some child on a beach in Tasmania has a wet, and slightly fishy smelling frisbee now?  
All we do know is that it is a cautionary tale for all of us. Donations are welcome to the frisbee replacement fund. Cash/cheques/gold bullion only please.

NB - if you have been interested by the clever use of collectives in this blog you can find out more about them here.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Planes, Germans and Automobiles - a day at the Grand Prix

Some of us clearly have more to do than teachers (see previous entry). Hence why it's taken nearly a month for me to blog about this. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Don't tell Stacey I said that though. It'll be our little secret.

Anyway - the Grand Prix. My first one, although I've been an avid fan for 15 years much to Stacey's disappointment.  She hates it, and so this was my 'treat'.

For the princely sum of $99 (about £65 in Northern Hemisphere money) you get general admission. Which means you can sit/stand anywhere that a) isn't in a grandstand and b) doesn't have such a good view of the track as a grandstand. However, you can get up good and close to the track and you've got the freedom to walk around the circuit as much as you want. I'd been recommended a good hill at turn 2 where you could see a big screen and get close to the track so that's where I based myself for most of the day. Fans of maps get a load of this:
















I arrived after a brisk 30 minute walk from our house at about 11.30am. Albert Park is a park (obviously) with a road running round it that is closed and turned into the race track for the weekend.

Turn 2 is a good spot for those of us too cheap to pay the $299 for a proper seat and so it gets busy early - the race started at 5pm. It only seemed fair that if you want to sit at a popular spot then you should get there early and sit it out whilst waiting for the race. A couple of Germans who turned up early afternoon took the alternative "sun lounger" approach by spreading out their towel on the ground and then leaving. They were most upset when they came back 4 hours later to find their towel had been neatly folded to about A4 size by all the other people who arrived after!

The day starts with support races - we had the Porsche Supercup first with the only really exciting action of the day at my turn as this guy managed to spin and only just managed to avoid collecting the rest of the field as they streamed by. Made me grateful early on for the concrete bollards and steel fences that stopped debris coming our way.



Next up are the V8 supercars - one of my favourites as they tend to race pretty closely with one another as they're all evenly matched.









The drivers parade provided another Kodak moment. Apparently the guy waving in this photo didn't actually know Lewis Hamilton - he was coincidentally waving at his mate on the other side of the track.I'd met a few people from work who shared my blanket and bought me beers during the day so I had no need to wave.



Then we had a fly over from a 747 (Qantas sponsor the event). From the number of people taking photos in this shot you'd think Australians had never seen a real airplane before. Although it was an incredibly slow fly over - not sure how it didn't just fall out of the air! You'll also notice that the grey start to the day cleared and it got pretty hot sitting in the sun all afternoon.




This is a shot from the start of the race, that I decided to share with everyone else in my section. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport so it's not a surprise that the cars are fast - far too fast for me to be able to get a decent photo as they zoomed by at 140mph. However, I hadn't really appreciated how loud they were going to be. Stacey could hear the racing in the flat some 3 miles away from the circuit, and even wearing a set of noise cancelling headphones 1 1/2 hours of Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeomph was still a lot for the ears to take. Although I was better prepared than two Brazilian guys who were standing next to me who made do with putting their fingers in their ears every time a car passed.


To get a feel for the noise and speed I've uploaded a short video of some cars passing - to get the full effect please turn the volume on your speakers to maximum and even then it's likely to be much quieter than the real thing.

Overall a fantastic day and well worth the entry money. The race itself wasn't the most exciting, but as long as you can see a screen and listen to the commentary you can get some sort of idea what is going on. But mostly, because the beer was very reasonably priced as well....

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Waiting...

I know, I know, it's been a while. But I have been waiting for Andy to add his one and only blog - it is supposed to be about his visit to the Grand Prix, and I was waiting so that the happenings would stay in order, however a girl can only wait so long before the blogging withdrawal symptoms start showing (forgetting what you did and when you did it).
This blog is going to be a short catch up blog in preparation for the Easter weekend blogging. Andy will just have to fit around us!

So there has been some eating, drinking and laughing on the weekends and during the week.

Little creatures dining hall, found in Fitzroy, they have a brewery and sell their many beers (and some cider) at this venue along with food. Burgers were a little bland, I had a lovely feta and cherry tomato tart with chips (the largest bowl ever).
They also serve many delicious looking pizzas but we had only just made our own the night before!

Beer. A taste for this was developed (not by me) and it was decided we would search out a brewery on another weekend.

We headed out towards the wineries down in the Mornington Peninsula, where we stumbled across the Redhill Brewery, Andy tried out their beer tasting platter and I was lucky enough to have a lovely apple juice (seriously, it was made from local Redhill apples).
Lunch was also on the menu (I have a problem taking pictures of food, I only ever think of it after I have eaten) and involved a tapas style mix of pub lunch bits, including welsh rarebit!














We have also enjoyed several of the opportunities offered by the Melbourne Comedy Festival, including the Opening Night Gala, Mark Butler, Mark Watson and Rich Hall.

Monday 14 March 2011

Naughty... 2 weekends have passed

and no new blog.

Andy's chosen title for this blog is: Wine by the bottle, by the case and by the strawberry!

He was over-ruled, as is my prerogative and I am the one typing. However it would help to explain what happened last weekend nicely, so I will leave it there as a sub-heading.
So since last week I have joined the world of the employed again, this may mean blogs start slowing down, or it may mean that blogs become more often as it becomes my displacement activity, we shall see.

So last weekend was the start of the Food and Wine Festival in Melbourne where many restaurants, food providers, drink providers and chefs show their wares and talents (at a reasonable price).

We decided to check out one of the many events taking place that weekend - Farm gate to Cellar door. This event was held along the Yarra River next to the Exhibition centre. There were many little white stalls set up and for $35 you were given a wristband and a plastic wine glass (with a black line marked on it) and set free amongst the stands.

There were over 60 wineries at the event and each stand had several wines to try (as this was not a challenge to taste them all, we selectively chose our wines, I stuck to the whites).

One winery made all their wines from strawberries - Mmmmmmmmmmm, they also dabbled in ciders too, so a purchase was made. The day was warm and sunny and if they had provided sun loungers I would have been fast asleep, as this wasn't an option we kept on tasting the wines until it closed.



The weekend continued nicely with a barbecue on Sunday, to expand our bbqing repetoire we took a wander to South Melbourne market, we finally ended up with the traditional burgers, sausages and corn on the cob, but also prawns, salmon, mushrooms and several marinades to experiment with.




What is wrong with this picture?









Is it just me (because Andy didn't see any problem with this) or aren't the prawns supposed to lay flat?

The weekend we have just had, has been a looooong weekend (not due to boredom or the fact that I now have work to do) we had a public holiday on monday. To fill the weekend, there has been shopping of both clothes and food, tidying (of the flat) and work :(
However, there has also been a little time for fun (mostly eating and drinking in the sun fun). Saturday lunch was DUMPLINGS, we went to a lovely restaurant in chinatown and the dumplings were delicious (according to Andy), they restaurant is famous for them and even has instructions on the table on how to eat them for maximum enjoyment (Andy strictly followed these guidelines). The meal continued with various bits and pieces including some spicy prawns (heads and all!) which were covered in chillies (HOT, HOT).

The remainder of the day was spent in a variety of places including:
A rooftop bar









A bar with pool tables









and beside the river









I will include one other activity that has kept Andy very busy - PS3 Gran turismo 5 (I won't mention the pile of ironing which is sat next to the table as yet untouched).









There is also my crochet (the brown thing is a Sackboy from PS3 little big planet, the things on the left are meant to be cupcakes, I think you can guess the rest).