Holiday Travels

With mandatory breaks from work, we took the opportunity and expanded our Australian travels to Lord Howe Island located off the coast of New South Wales. Known for bird and coral life, no mobile phone coverage and having more bicycles than cars, we were really excited to explore this World Heritage-listed place.

Our first stop was Sydney for a stopover before an early flight the next day. Having been to Sydney a few times we didn't have anything specific to see or do, so we relaxed around Circular Quay and the Botanic Gardens, ending up at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The current Monet exhibit was a great way to escape the heat and humidity and get a bit of culture at the same time. After the gallery it was time to head off to dinner and a movie at one of Sydney's popular tourist and local attractions, Govinda's. To make 'dinner and a movie' easy, Govinda's puts on a large vegetarian buffet, and then also show movies above the restaurant. The buffet was full of tasty Indian foods, the movie was unique (Burn After Reading), and the futons were comfy - overall a memorable experience.

The next morning brought our flight to Lord Howe, and after a bit of repacking to meet the 14kg/person limit on luggage we went to meet our little aircraft. No dramas on the flight and before long we'd landed on the island, met our host, and hopped into the van to take us to our apartment accommodation. We stayed at Leanda-Lei, which just happened to be associated with one of the boat tour operators on the island, allowing us to quickly plan out some activities for the week including a turtle cruise that afternoon. We spent the middle of the day exploring the area on foot, ending up at the lagoon to meet our boat to snorkel and search for turtles. The turtle cruise was a great success with many of the massive reptiles spotted (and of course photographed) proving that it is a big plus to have a local guide that knows where each turtle likes to hang out. Our first snorkel experience was also amazing with the amount of colorful corals around and also seeing both an eel and a nudibranch. The area was so full of marine life, it was definitely an indicator of how much more we would see throughout the week.

Our second day on the island brought the biggest challenge - a climb up Mount Gower, 855m of rock that defined almost half of Lord Howe Island. We booked in with Jack Shick, a 5th generation islander, to take us up and down the mountain on the 14km return hike. Jack was great both in terms of knowledge of the terrain and island history. He also turned out to be quite the photo-buff and gave Josh a few more tips to consider for his photography. The brochures and websites about the hike failed to mention exactly how challenging the 'moderate-hard' walk would be, but had we known that it involved sheer cliff faces and using ropes to pull yourself up steep and slippery inclines, we may have reconsidered having the walk on our itinerary. As it was, by the time we realised the difficulty we were too far in and had to continue to the top to get a rest. The view at the top was amazing and the clouds parted to show the full island beneath us with some spectacular colors in the lagoon waters. We enjoyed our sandwiches and pretzels, psyching up for the challenging descent. Taking our time and staying as safe as possible we picked our way back to the bottom - proud that we'd made it, but also pretty well tired and sore.

After a challenging day on dry land, we decided it was time to spend a day with the fishes and starting out feeding some of the semi-tame Kingfish found at Ned's Beach. These are not small fish, but they've learned over the years that if they hang out in the shallow water people will wade in and feed them bread. Not wanting to disappoint, we brought along a few slices and had a blast watching these massive fish go chasing after little bread morsels. Josh took the camera and got a couple shots underwater as well, though it is easier to see the size of the fish from Kristi's above-water photos. We had time for a quick snorkel around the reef at Ned's beach and then it was time to get ready for the afternoon's adventure - fishing! Leanda-Lei had organised a boat for some of their guests and we got to go along with a view towards catching our dinner. Having never fished in the ocean we didn't know what to expect except sun and water. With 5 fisherpeople aboard, the guides had decided that we would use hand-lines rather than poles for fishing. This allowed everyone to be fishing at the same time without getting into each others way and causing tangles. First stop was south of the island towards Ball's Pyramid where Josh got the first bite AND the first fish (not on the same spot). The first bite ended up being a small shark who proceeded to bite through the line once he got close to the boat, and the first fish was a good sized kingfish that proceeded to ruin Josh's shirt by bleeding everywhere. At least it was only the shirt being the biggest casualty of the day and nothing more serious. After moving to a different fishing spot the bites really started to be fast and furious with Kristi taking home the honors of both the biggest shark hooked (1.5m long Gallapagos Whaler Shark) and the biggest fish (another bigger kingfish) for the day. Our fishing buddies also had some good luck bringing in quite a few of their own Kingfish, a few Trevally, and a Bluefish. It was a great experience for our first ocean fishing trip, and fresh caught and grilled Kingfish is a treat that we enjoyed for two dinners and two lunches!

After all the excitement of the first two days, we spent the rest of the week either in the water scuba diving, snorkeling or kayaking, or on land traipsing around the island watching the various birds go about their lives. Josh was extremely happy to be back under the water and the diving was excellent with plenty to see including more turtles, sharks, eels and of course urchins. The dining on Lord Howe was actually very impressive and we enjoyed a few very nice meals out on various verandas with a pleasant breeze and the night sky. After a quiet New Years Eve we spent a glorious calm New Years Day with a morning scuba and an afternoon of reading books in the shade of pine trees overlooking the lagoon. We very much enjoyed our time on Lord Howe Island and by the time we got home we felt rested, relaxed and ready for a fun-filled 2009.

C is for Christmas and...

CRICKET!!! The day after Christmas in Australia is a public holiday - Boxing Day - and the highlight of Boxing Day in Melbourne is the Boxing Day Test Match. This year it was Australia vs. South Africa, #1 in the ranking vs. #2, which promised to be an exciting match (as exciting as cricket gets) since the second-ranking South African team just recently beat the first-ranking Australian team at their last meeting.

Those of you who follow cricket understand that it is a long game, and by long game I mean that a Test Match lasts up to five days, with each day of play lasting around 6 hours. We weren't up for a full day at the MCG, so we decided to head that way after the lunch break (yes, they have a lunch break, as well as morning and afternoon tea breaks!) With our GA tickets we ended up in the nose-bleed section on the 4th level, but it turned out to be a great bird's eye view of the game and helped us avoid all of the hoolligans in GA on the ground level. And we made it in time for the highlight of the day - Ricky Ponting scoring a Century. The play in which Ponting scored point 100 was great and Josh was quick enough to get it on film.

The rest of the game was a bit slow and the innebriated crowd was feeling it. The rowdy section started creating towers of empty beer cups and it caught on throughout the GA sections. The police did their best to break up the action, and there were a few folks taken out of the stadium against their will, but the plastic towers grew into snakes that spanned entire sections. We guessed those folks weren't actually there to watch the cricket! The day ended with Australia on 6 wickets (they get 10) for 280 points - we'll know sometime next week if they win.

Of course we had to hit the Boxing Day sales downtown before heading to the game. The equivalent of the day after Thanksgiving sales, the city was a madhouse and people were running everywhere trying to get the best deals. We fought the crowds and came out with some new board shorts and rash guards to take with us to Lord Howe Island. We head out early tomorrow a.m. and will be back next Saturday. As we will be out of contact until then, we hope you all have a Happy New Year!

C is for Christmas and...

CAROLS!!! On Christmas Eve we enjoyed a festive evening at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl singing along with Vision Australia's Carols by Candlelight. It was a fun family event, with many children and adults dressed up for the occassion. We brought along a picnic dinner and our concert chairs and had a lovely evening under the stars - eventually, it was after 9pm by the time the sky was dark since it's summertime! There were a few carols we didn't recognise, but for the most part we were able to sing along and enjoy the show. Of course we had bought the cheap tickets so we couldn't actually see the performers from our seats, but it gave us a good reason to try out our new (second-hand) lens. It's always a bit hard for us to get into the Christmas spirit here because of the weather, but this event sure helped! The evening ended with a few fireworks, a Christmas medley by the chiors, and a beautiful walk home.

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Merry Christmas!

In A Fish Bowl

This past week we went to the Arana Holiday Party at the Melbourne Aquarium. We spent the evening in a space called the 'Fish Bowl' eating beautiful food, sharing laughs with colleagues, and being mesmerized by the fish - massive sting rays, nurse sharks, seven-gill sharks, wrasse, tuna, red snapper. Everyone had a lovely evening, which was a great relief to Kristi as she had the privilege of doing all the planning and coordinating (and creating the centrepieces!)

C is for Christmas and....

COOKIES!!! Kristi decided that it was about time to share some good old fashioned family traditions, and what better start than with Christmas cookies. We got a set of recommendations from Carmen and away we went to pick up ingredients and get baking. A few minor challenges finding Crisco and the right marshmallows but we persevered and soon enough had everything assembled.

The menu for this season was two cookies, a toffee bar, and a homemade fudge. As usual with cookies we had to try a few to make sure that things were going alright, and our Quality Assurance process made a difference this time when we found the first batch of fudge to be just not quite right. Adjustments were made and round two turned out much improved. Even with a few early quality checks, we still ended up with lots and lots of cookies to share. Kristi took a very large plate to her colleagues and there was still enough for three normal sized plates to share with other friends. Everyone was very appreciative with some very impressed friends and colleagues. Big favorites were the fudge and Peanut-Butter Star cookies though not a single plate had leftovers at the end of the day. Kristi did a great job baking and it was a lot of fun to share some of our traditional treats from home with our Aussie friends.

C is for Christmas and....

COFFEE!! After two years in Melbourne we decided that it was time to get serious about the coffee culture and learn more about the history and making of our favorite bean-based drink. William Angliss provided the location, the beans, the machines and our knowledgeable leader Melissa. We began with Melissa showing us how to make a good latte, and then on to the learning with a discussion on the growing and harvesting of coffee beans. Our first hands-on activity was in taking 'greens' from various places around the world and roasting them ourselves. We now have another fabulous use for old air-popcorn poppers! Once we had the right roast, we got to experiment with the coarseness of the grind and its influence on the brewed coffee. It was really interesting that coffee is beginning to go down a similar sensory descriptive road to wine - lots of comments about the aroma and different tastes of the coffees. What was really amazing was that you could actually tell the difference between a 100% Papua New Guinea (PNG) coffee versus a 100% Ethiopian - both were good, but the PNG was much more suited to plunger coffee and the Ethiopian more for machine-made espresso. Finally, it was time to try our hands at the big machines. We both started on a 'domestic' machine which proved a bit difficult but given time and practice it would have produced a decent cup. Josh just has to remember that first you have to turn off the steam wand and THEN you pull it out of the milk that you are heating - glad it wasn't our kitchen to clean up afterwards! We moved on to a 'commercial' espresso machine, which sped up the entire process and was super-duper easy to get going but also more demanding of the preparation and control. The main difference between a lower-end machine (ie 'domestic') versus the high-end seems to be the way it heats and stores water/steam and that is really about it. Levers, knobs, guages and such don't seem to be that important but if you can brew your coffee at the same time that you're heating up the milk it is a really big plus and a big increase in the price tag. By the end of class we had both made a decent cup that we could drink ourselves and had learned a lot more about coffee which will help us appreciate more in years to come as well. We're thinking of going back to take the next class which is much more about working and maintaining the machines, perhaps in the new year sometime. In the meantime, we would highly recommend the Angliss 'Coffee@Home' course to anyone interested in learning how to make and identify a good coffee, whether it is at a cafe or in your own kitchen.

December Already!

It it hard to believe that it is already December - where has the time gone?! We've caught up a bit on pictures so have a look at Flickr for some HBA Great Australian Run shots and our most recent exploits of dinner out in Eaglemont with Briony and Leo. Kristi works with Briony at Arana, and we've come to know them as being very well versed in the areas of food and wine. The menu for the night was a Red Curry Duck, so we brought the Pinot (Noir) and they provided the duck-centric extremely tasty meal. We had a great time catching up with them and look forward to our next meeting at the Arana Holiday Party in less than two weeks!