We successfully moved out of our house in Sydney
and have begun our whirl wind tour of Australia. First stop was Melbourne to catch up with
Neal and Laura and see where they’ve made a temporary home.
Melbourne
is a beautiful, eclectic city with amazing food and great sights. Our
first night out was to an evening market where we enjoyed some meatball sliders,
drinks and hippy drum dancing.
The second day Laura took us on tour of some of the laneways
and street art. For the evening they had booked a night out starting with dinner
on a Tram Car that toured the city and included an open bar. We abused the open
bar and had an amazing meal. Afterwards we headed to Lui Bar on the 55th
floor of a building overlooking the city. We continued our mini bender and
finished off with some hot dogs and Hungry Jacks (Burger King).
Feeling a little rough on the third day we rented a car and
headed to Portsea to snorkel and soak up some sun. It was nice to actually be
in a car and see some of the landscape beyond the city.
Neal and Laura have been amazing hosts and we are looking forward to catching up with them again in a couple weeks.
Tomorrow we head to Perth for some more snorkelling and a bike tour on RottnestIsland.
Depending on the odds you give me, you can say that I am
going through a third or half life crisis by selling most of my possessions and
travelling the world. My 29th birthday was wild with Jess getting me
a tattoo so we wanted to go all out for my 30th- which provided mixed results.
We finished work last week and decided to start the travel
part of our vacation with a bang and go to a five day Surf Camp. Monday morning
we jumped on a bus and travelled about 2hrs South West to 7 Mile Beach. The
camp was a quick walk away from a pristine beach that was made for beginner
surfers like us.
We split into groups and hit the water in our standard
issue, make-you-look-like-a-fat-white-chubbo, wetsuits and started our lessons.
The first couple days were spent finding new muscles to ache and ways to bail
off a surf board in the least graceful way. Jess, of course, made it look easy
and was getting private lessons from an instructor that thought he could
replace me. I was making steady progress and consistently getting up.
We were greeted to Dolphins swimming offshore for a couple
of the days and one of Jess’s other boyfriends, (who she named Sawyer – Lost
reference), was fit enough to paddle out and get some great video of them on a GoPro. The
night life consisted of stuffing our faces and falling asleep early feeling
like the waves were still floating you on the bed.
At the very end of the third day I caught a wave, crashed
and rolled up on shore like the whale that I am and realized that it felt like
a donkey had kicked me in the ribs and I was having trouble breathing. I
figured I got hit by the board and the sting would lessen as the night wore on.
Boy was I wrong! I woke up on my 30th Birthday with a mystery bulge
in my rib cage and was having trouble with simple tasks like sitting, standing
or lying. I figured the water would help me stretch things out and make me feel
better. Wrong again. It was official… I am old. I missed out on one and a half
lessons but took the opportunity to take an extra couple of thousand photos of
Jess not being old.
All in all it was an amazing trip and another good birthday story. We will continue to surf when we can, and think that the camp was and awesome place to meet some great people and have fun even when you are reminded of your own mortality.
The Surf Camp crew.
Each day the instructors took video of us using GoPro cameras. Here is the final week summary video. If you look close you can see us a few times.
We have finished working and are now ready to take on Australia! We
will be gone for 73 days and enter 5 states – the 6th state is Tasmania and we will not
be going here unless we have some leftover money. Our plans are
outlined below and we are more than thrilled to get started.
Phase One:
February 18 to 22
Seven MileBeachNational Park
(NSW)
Surf Camp
February 28 to March 3
Melbourne
(VIC)
First visit to see Neal
& Laura on their new home turf.
March 3 to 6
Perth
(WA)
Snorkel on RottnestIsland
March 6 to 13
Darwin & the Red Centre
(NT)
Tour from Darwin
to Alice Springs. Some highlights should be
sleeping under the stars in the outback, seeing Ayers Rock & riding a
camel.
March 13 to 22
Adelaide & back to Melbourne
(SA)
After a couple of days in Adelaide, we will rent a car and drive the Great Ocean Road
back to Melbourne.
Visit #2 with Neal &
Laura.
Phase Two:
March 22 to 25
Brisbane
(QLD)
Visit the Australian Zoo
(AKA: Steve Irwin’s zoo)
March 25 to 29
Noosa
(QLD)
Relax and soak up some
rays. We were here for a weekend in November and are looking forward to going
back.
March 29 to April 5
RainbowBeach
(QLD)
Fraser Island Drive Safari – camping and 4 wheel driving on a beach
April 5 to 12
HerveyBay
AirlieBeach
(QLD)
Whitsunday Catamaran Tour –
snorkel
April 13 to 17
Townsville
(QLD)
MagneticIsland Escape – scooter or Barbie Car rental
April 18 to 26
Cairns
(QLD)
Great
Barrier Reef snorkel and
helicopter tour (super excited for this one).
CapeTribulation Safari.
Kayak Tour.
April 27 to May 2
Melbourne
(VIC)
Final visit with Neal &
Laura
May 2
Return to Canada!
As you can see there has been a lot of planning going on...
In other news, Jeff is very proud of his beard at this point. I am sure you all look forward to seeing it progress on this trip.
Me in my "Totes Amaze" vest... It's totally amazing.
Some other Aussie slang for you:
Ranga - short for Orangutan (what they call gingers - and my personal favorite)
Relo - short for Relative
Fluoro - short for fluorescent
Credo - short for credentials
Unco - short for Uncoordinated
Abo - short for Aboriginal (derogatory)
It has been pretty rainy here in Sydney the last few weekends. It was the
Australia Day long weekend last week and we got lucky with 1 day of sun so we
took advantage of the day and went for a walk followed by a BBQ.
We saw these baby octopuses at the grocery store and decided
it would be something different to grill. I didn’t like the final texture but
Jeff loved them, and says he would make them again.
While we waited for them to grill we had some Crabbies
Ginger Beer, a new favorite of ours. Jeff also made some flat bread pizza that we’ve
been eating multiple times a week. Very yummy.
Only 10 days of work left and then we continue on our way to
see Australia
– North, South, East and West.
This weekend was pretty overcast. We were still out and
about and thought we would show you what we got up to.
After work on Friday we went to Darling Harbour
for drinks. This giant duck has been floating here for a few weeks now, and is
five storeys high and five storeys wide. The artist who created it claims to
“astonish audiences and give them a new perspective on public spaces”. Mission accomplished.
This particular duck has been popping up in various cities
around the world since 2007.
On Saturday we went on a wander around downtown. We walked
by this alley way where an artist has created a tranquil memorial for bird
species that once sang in central Sydney.
While you stand there you hear recordings of these birds and it is pretty
serene considering we were only a few meters from the main street.
Today we decided to head over to the basketball court. It’s
been a while since we have played and I think we surprised ourselves with our
mad skills… a picture is worth a thousand words.
A few weeks back we went to Taronga Zoo. It’s safe to say that neither of us had seen so many
lively and beautiful animals. We must have passed through after meal time
because they were running around like wild animals.
We went to this zoo by ferry and it kind of felt as though
we were going to Jurassic
Park. It was a beautiful
zoo and gave a great view of downtown Sydney
from many locations along the way.
This little guy was easily the cutest animal of the day…that
was until he drank the pee of another relative straight from the tap! Then this same relative ate its own excrement (see below).
Did you know Koala’s can jump from tree to tree? I did not,
and when this happened was pretty amused. If they didn't move you would swear they were just stuffed animals.
Pizza is pretty much at the top of my list of things I could
happily eat every day until I died. We usually have a selection of ingredients
in the refrigerator for toppings but do not have an easy pizza dough recipe to
fall back on. This dough recipe is literally the easiest recipe you could ever
make and it pays huge dividends. It is fast and only has a few ingredients. We
have a tiny oven and I made Calzones so that I could fit more in at a time. The
ingredients shown will make one large calzone or one standard pizza.
Dough Ingredients:
-1 ½ cup Self Raising Flour
-¾ cup Greek
Yogurt
Optional:
-2 tbsp Olive Oil
-2 tbsp tepid Water
-2 tbsp White Wine
-Chopped Fresh Herbs
Directions:
Dump the Flour on a clean counter. Dump the Yogurt on the
Flour. Mix around with your fingers. If it is too dry add Water, Wine, or Oil…
I did some combination of all three with fresh Rosemary and Oregano. As you
work the ingredients together it will start forming a sticky ball. Keep working
it and it will turn into smooth stretchy dough. As you can probably tell this
is a recipe that anyone can follow and it makes the perfect texture, taste,
crunch and color of crust. The only hard part is deciding what to fill it with.
Filling:
The combination of filling I used is a perfect “adult”
calzone that we shared as part of a Tapas night we had with our Roommates.
Instead of Red Sauce I used a Basil Pesto topped with sliced Feta stuffed Green
Olives, chopped Spinach, diced Spicy Salami, shredded Provolone and shredded
Mozzarella. It was amazing!
The best thing after a big night out is a giant breakfast to
cure your hangover. Neal and Laura visiting guaranteed that we would be having
a giant breakfast.
This is my favorite pancake recipe because it makes fluffy
but not dry pancakes that are almost a crepe in consistency. The burst of
citrus makes every mouthful worth it.
They are a little time consuming to make depending on how
many you plan on cooking at a time. I wake up early so I amused myself by
making one medium/large pancake at a time and warming them in the oven until
everyone dragged themselves out of bed. I made a double recipe and it makes 15
– 20 that fed 6 people.
Ingredients:
-1 ½ cup Full Cream Milk
-4 tsp Lemon Juice (fresh squeezed)
-2 tbsp Sugar
-1 ½ cup Self-Raising Flour
-¼ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
-1 Egg
-1 ½ tbsp Melted Butter
Directions:
Despite the Full Cream these pancakes end up being light.
Mix the Cream, Lemon Juice and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Set the mixture to
the side for 5 minutes while the Lemon Juice starts to curdle the Cream… this
sounds gross but you are basically in the infant stages of making cheese. I
guess these could be called Lemony Ricotta Pancakes.
Combine the Egg and Melted Butter with the Cream mixture.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry Flour and Bicarb, mix and let stand for
another couple of minutes. Cook in a lightly greased skillet until bubbles show
through, flip and repeat.
For New Years this year the only agenda was to see the
famous Sydney Fireworks. In order to do this you need a good view of the HarbourBridge, and this unfortunately means you
need to camp out all day to reserve your spot. Armed with 24 sandwich rolls and
litres of booze, we camped out under the shade of a tree for 12 hours. I cannot
emphasize how worth it this waiting was. From our vantage point we were able to
see 4 locations of fireworks set off at the 9:00pm and midnight showings.
AMAZING!
After waiting only 4 hours we went slightly crazy and made our blanket into a magic carpet...
We had a quiet Christmas this year in preparation for a
visit from our close friends Neal and Laura. For those of you who don't know, Jeff and Neal were best men in
each others weddings and Laura and Jess were each others bridesmaids, so there
is a long history of debauchery.
Neal and Laura have also
made the move to Australia
and now reside in Melbourne.
Between Christmas and New Years they decided to visit Sydney and we prepared for a couple of nights
of SHAN-anigans…
They arrived in the early afternoon and were able to show
them around our hood before enjoying the Rocks
nightlife in downtown Sydney.
On day two we went to Bondi
Beach and had a backyard
BBQ in the evening.
Jeff and I plan on seeing Neal and Laura in Melbourne again
once we leave Sydney and begin our travels of Australia.
