All sorts of critters...

G’Day, All!

We are coming to realize that one of the necessities for subtropical rainforests is – yep, you guessed it! – RAIN! And boy has it been coming down! Fortunately, being from Tucson, it is an unexpected pleasure – just a bit damp-making.

So, started out our Wednesday with another nice drive. As Marg & Norm hadn’t been to Dorrigo or its National Park recently and wanted to go to the Rainforest Center, we headed out about 8:30 a.m. LOTS of rain coming down; seemed to come in waves! Did another turn around the visitor center, and watched the video about Coffs Harbour and surrounding area – so tell me, why do these videos ALL take place on sunny days?? Hmmm…

We decided to take the Wonga Walk, which went from the visitor center into the rainforest, 5.8 km…Only problem with the walk (other than a bit slippery underfoot; the canopy of trees was so thick in places, that it didn’t matter if it was raining at all, as it didn’t really reach the floor) were leeches. UGH! And they were EVERYWHERE! We had sprayed our shoes and pant legs prior to starting, but we still picked up some “friends” as we went along! (Oh! Also a stinging kind of tree, but that was much easier to avoid, as most of the leaves and branches were WAY over our heads! As Bill Bryson says, all sorts of things down under can get you!) At any rate, to say I am NOT a leech person is quite an understatement, let me tell you!!! So, as we hiked through this absolutely beautiful forest – incredible trees, lots of ferns, vines and tree roots hanging everywhere (made me feel like Tarzan and Jane there for a while!) we were also constantly watching for leeches; stomping our shoes and trying not to pick things up or to shake off what had grabbed on. One tried to crawl through a seam in my shoe; another got between R’s shoe and sock. YEK!!!!! Marg asked how or if I would include this information in our blog, and when assured that I would, she came up with the slogan --
Come to OZ – we like your tourist dollars and your blood!! How about that for a new nationwide campaign? The walk was a long one, and unfortunately led straight down to the forest floor – meaning quite a climb to get back up. We passed two incredibly beautiful waterfalls along the way, one of which the path actually passed behind! Finally made it back to the Visitor Center, and had a good hard check of pants, shoes, socks and feet to make sure that no little critters came back with us! Whew…..much prefer my animals of the hoppy sort, I must say!

Ate lunch at the visitor center’s café, and had my first OZ pie! It was minced beef, and excellent! R had another steak sandwich – this time without the beet root! This one came with “wedges” which are new to us. They’re sort of like French fries, and are cooked the same way, but rather than in slices, like fries, the potatoes are cut into wedges instead. Really good! I finished off lunch with a Magnum Classic ice cream bar, and R had a scone with strawberry jam … each to their own!

We stopped for another amble through the Old Butter Factory … got to see the table again; also a wonderful blanket chest, which would probably cost as much to ship home as it costs to buy … oh well; it was lovely! And it definitely wouldn’t go as carry-on!

Then back to the condo for a nice afternoon nap (always welcome!) We went out for dinner, to an Indian restaurant in Coffs Harbour. Quite good, and a nice break from cooking! Had an assortment of things, including a lentil dish and a curried beef – I do like Indian restaurants that serve beef, as many of them don’t! Tonight, our last night here in the condo, we are invited to some friends of Marg & Norm’s for dinner; how nice!

Today we’re going to stay a little closer to home. Thought we’d walk around Coffs Harbour, and there is a walk from the botanic garden past the zoo which we thought we’d try (weather permitting!). Also have some laundry to do (last load before heading to Brisbane, and not sure of a washer for 5 or 6 days!!) and some packing up. It’s about 400 km to Brisbane tomorrow, so want to get an early start. Hoping that it gets a bit warmer as we go further north, as it has been a bit chilly with all the rain; rather dank, and, while there is a/c in these units, there isn’t any HEAT! Imagine!

So, that’s the story as we know it! Take care all, and more tomorrow!

Love,

m

Along Waterfall Way!

Good Morning!

Way too tired last night to blog, so am up bright and early and my fingers are flying! So…to recap…took a nice walk down the road. MUCH cooler today, and becoming very blustery. Norm and Marg had some business to transact, so we took off on our own, heading to Dorrigo National Park, about half hour down the road, and then up into the mountains (Great Dividing Range – isn’t that a GREAT name?) The day was mostly overcast, and as we headed up, became very misty! Fortunately, the name of our highway was “Waterfall Way” so lots of water was to be expected!

Our first stop was at Bellingen, along the Bellinger River. Bellingen is very much an artist-type community, so we stopped at The Old Yellow Butter Factory, which now accommodates shops. Lovely things – glass, textiles, leather and wood, all made by local artisans. In fact, you could watch the leather-worker as he made things – everything just lovely! We found some wonderful wooden spoons made out of red ironbark, and an amazingly cute votive candle holder in glass. (LOVED an amazingly beautiful dining room table and set of six chairs, but wasn’t sure we would be able to fit them in our luggage safely; would probably be overweight…) Their café also had goodies, so we split a piece of carrot cake – YUM! – before heading out again.

Bellingen, like many of the smaller towns we’ve seen, was lovely. Lots of very fancy wrought iron around upstairs balconies, which seems to be very common here; many houses built UP on stilts. (As we were walking around the Butter Factory, there was a line on one of the doors indicating the height of the 1991 flood – three feet up the door! Scary!) Many of the towns remind us of small U.S. towns in the midwest from the 1950’s and 1960’s! Neat, tidy self-contained little places; no chains or strip malls; everything distinctive and part of the town for years! It’s like deja-vue all over again!

Then, on to Dorrigo and the National Park! Found the visitor center and walked out on their Sky Walk – a wooden path set up HIGH in the trees and projecting out over the forest. By now it was beginning to mist, but the view was still lovely (see pictures with LOTS of trees and a red one in the middle!) Saw two beautiful Crimson Rosellas -- brilliant birds, parrot-family, glowing bright red bodies, with purple wings! (Unfortunately they moved, so didn't get a picture!) Also drove out to Never Never Picnic Area, about 10 km down a gravel road, but as it was starting to rain in earnest, decided against a walk … considering that we left our umbrellas in Tucson and our jackets in Coffs Harbour…obviously we’re not Boy Scouts! Then headed into the town of Dorrigo, where we decided to have lunch. Ate at the Dorrigo Hotel. R ordered a steak sandwich and chips; I ordered a hamburger with bacon and chips…then wondered, would I be getting a fried egg on my burger??? Well, I didn’t – but we both got two healthy slices of red beets on our sandwiches – and, while we both like beets, I wasn’t exactly interested in including them as part of my burger…R said they were good, although he wasn’t sure how much they actually added to his sandwich! (He’s SO much more adventurous than me!) My burger came with bacon – NOT at all like we get at home; rather more like a small ham steak on top! Excellent, albeit unexpected. Great chips! (Translation: French Fries.) From there we headed to Dangar Falls – just on the other side of Dorrigo, but absolutely BEAUTIFUL waterfall! (See picture.)

Decided at this point to start heading back, with a detour to Griffith’s Lookout, which we missed on the way up (Note sign post…had problems determining what was what, as a bit overloaded to car passengers zipping past…) Lovely viewpoint when we finally arrived, but would be MUCH better on a slightly clearer day.

Made it back to the condo just on 3 p.m., just in time for the Melbourne Cup – apparently the biggest horse-racing day in the OZ calendar. Knowing absolutely nothing about Australian horse-racing, couldn’t even figure out the odds on the TV set, but a lovely grey horse called Efficient came up on the stretch from the outside to win – it’s a LONG race; two miles – and they even managed to interview the jockey while he was still riding his horse! That was one happy man!

A little later, we all went over to the rec center for a wine tasting put on by Two Tails Winery, which is based not too far up the coast. Marg and Norm had already stopped there earlier last week, and had brought some of their wine to the condo, but not we had the full range to taste – everything from a sparkling white to various ports! Quite a variety! Really liked both the sparkling white and their Semillon; bought several bottles out of the “kitty” we’d set up for groceries; wine to be delivered this morning.

Back to the condo, then for the picnic we had originally planned on having for lunch. Lots of good things from the Woolworth’s deli – excellent cheddar and smoked gouda; fabulous dried tomatoes; roasted eggplant; roasted capsicum (translation: red peppers); marinated mushrooms; two kinds of bread; a spicy Spanish salami, ham and I forget what else – a great opportunity to clean out the fridge! And, we watched The Dish that Norm and Marg had rented specially for us. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, we recommend it HIGHLY. It’s the story (based on a true story; no idea what may have been changed along the way) of the Parkes, NSW (New South Wales) radio telescope, and the part it played in relaying TV coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing around the world. Truly a funny movie, and very warm and gentle as well. We loved it! Some of the lines are so funny that I was chuckling all evening!

As it was getting late then, there was only time for Norm, Marg & R to play one game of UPWARDS; Norm won, but R is getting better at it! I prefer to watch! Quite a rainstorm did kick up, and it was wonderful to go to bed to the sound of the rain outside! As R pointed out, all this tropical loveliness didn’t get this way using sprinklers!

So, that’s it for today; more later!

Love,

m

Of Whales and Bobbing Boats!

Hello, hello!! (Used as an alternative to g’day at the moment!)

Today dawned much clearer than the past several days, so we thought we’d high-tail it out early for our morning walk. Long-ish walk to the beach (which shows in some of the first pictures) but just lovely…helped, to be sure, by the massive amount of insect repellant we are now putting on – and DON’T forget the tops and backs of both ears!! Much dryer today, which is nice, with a lovely breeze. So, down to the beach and a clamber over the rocks, then back to the condo for breakfast.

It was so lovely that we decided that today would be a good day for the whale watching cruise out of Coffs Harbour. Had to move quickly to shower and change, but were out on the road by 8:45 a.m., stopping first at the local mall to pick up Kwells (the Australian equivalent of Dramamine or Bonine), then on to the jetty.

Lovely boat, two decks, very friendly crew; probably about 25 people in all heading out. And boy, was it ROUGH! As we were bobbing around on the waves, the captain explained that it often is too rough to go far, but that we’d see how today went. And there was a whale! BIG, very playful guy; lots of fluke slaps and waves for quite a long time! Then, as we got closer, he disappeared! Figure maybe he was shy…a bit later, we were intercepted by 6 or 8 common dolphins; really beautiful creatures! I think this is the first time I’ve seen dolphins that weren’t all grey! These were lovely tan and brown, and they were having a great time playing in the bow wave at the front of the boat; lots of jumping and weaving back and forth! Really NEAT! Finally headed in to shore about noon, just in time for lunch. (To be honest, there were some folks who hadn’t prepared properly … no Kwells! – who were very ill, because as I say, it was really rough, and we were bobbing up and down continually. Fortunately, we were all OK … better living through chemistry, I always say!)

Once on land, we headed back to the mall to pick up groceries for dinner tonight, and to have some lunch. We found a small coffee-type shop that did great sandwiches and salads. I had philo dough pastry around chicken and sun-dried tomato pesto; it was great! And R had chicken salad, which also looked really good. We’ve decided that if weather permits, we’re going to have a picnic at the beach tomorrow, so bought picnic supplies; Woolworth’s does have a lovely deli section; we’ll see how the cheeses turn out!

Then back to the condo, as everyone wanted naps – either the wind on the ocean, or the results of the Kwells, or a combination of the two…had a nice nap and up for the 5:30 p.m. “social hour” with other visitors here at the resort. By this time, the weather was definitely changing! And getting colder! For the first time since we arrived in Oz, R and I both changed into our sweatpants and sweaters. Went over to the rec room (very nice; big-screen TV, pool table and other amenities) for wine and munchies. Met several of the folks staying this week; all very nice people, and the wine was good! Back here about 6:30 p.m. and dinner, compliments of Marg, was about 7; curried pork with roasted potatoes and carrots and broccoli. Excellent! And boy, does that curry make the condo smell good! R has now retired (only for a power nap, but I’m thinking he might even sleep all the way through!) and I am blogging, and listening to the wind really whip around the resort. It has already blown the front door closed twice, and our bedroom door once. Will be interesting to see what kind of day tomorrow is!

But, regardless of anything else, tomorrow is Melbourne Cup day. If the importance of this isn’t readily apparent to you, don’t worry – we’re here and we didn’t get it! Seems like this is a very, very important horse race held every November on a Tuesday. I think it must be comparable to the Kentucky Derby! At any rate, a group of guests will be gathering tomorrow afternoon at the rec center; BYO-drink and a munchie to share, and rumor has it that there may even be some betting going on! This will certainly be an occasion; I will keep you all informed!

So, on that note, I’m heading off to bed. Even with a nice nap, that air was bracing (and of course we didn’t bring jackets…) and I think I can manage to go to sleep with no problems!

More later! Much love,

m

Beautiful Coff's Harbour!

G’day, Folks!!

Well, another lovely day here in wonderful OZ! To be honest, we’ve been really fortunate when it comes to weather! (Knock wood…) A front was moving in to Sydney on our second day there, but we missed any bad weather – and then when we got to Coff’s Harbour on Friday night, we had a deluge – but we were safely inside, and staying inside. Since then it has continued overcast but very warm and humid – but not rainy! But we heard on the news tonight that there have been really torrential storms in the south, especially around the Great Ocean Road near Lorne, with flooding and evacuations going on! Amazing! Folks down that way are pretty happy, as they have been enduring drought conditions for the past several years, but in some places they have experienced first wild fires, and now heavy rains and the resultant washouts that occur. Some of the reservoirs are starting to take in water again, which is great for everyone! We won’t be down that way for several more weeks … certainly hope that things have stabilized by then!

Today we had a nice leisurely day, including our first grocery shopping trip in OZ. We’ve pooled funds for groceries, and I had volunteered to make dinner tonight, which meant a major trip to the grocery store! We went to the closest store, which happened to be a Woolworths. (Note: Marg & Norm have told us that in some parts of the country it’s called Woolworths, and in others, Safeway; so same chain!) It is located inside a very nice shopping mall, which includes a HUGE Target and lots of other stores. First stop was at a houseware/cooking store, similar to William Sonoma, as we had forgotten to bring along our measuring cup (had the spoons, just forgot the cup!). Lovely store, and we were able to get the Oxo cup that we needed. Then across the aisle to the chemist, where we picked up some insect repellant – which believe me, is needed…I know I said I’d talk about flies later, so I will … suffice to say now that there are billions of them, and they’re incredibly annoying!

I don’t know about other Woolworth’s (yet!), but this one was simply superb! Lovely wide aisles, lots of selection, excellent meat and seafood. It was really fun poking around and seeing what was available. To tell the truth, I’d love to go back to that deli counter, because I could put together a SUPER picnic, given half the chance! Got back to the condo and put things away. Had left-over tacos (much better than it sounds!) for lunch, then R took a nap and I ironed – had done our first load of wash, but the dryer was super hot, so everything was wrinkled when we took things out – note for next time: Use delicate cycle on the dryer.

When R woke up, we went for a drive through Coff’s Harbour, and down to the jetty to look around. Thank heaven for the insect spray! Sprayed ourselves, but amazingly enough, the flies still managed to attack those few untreated square inches; ugh!! We walked along the jetty and out to Muttonbird Island. It’s a rookery (nesting place) for the Muttonbirds (also known as wedge-tailed shearwaters). Walked to the top of the island, and all around. Didn’t see any birds, as the information indicated that they wouldn’t be in until nightfall … and that was a bit too long to wait! Lots of burrows, though; seems they nest like puffins. Did find the whale-watching place, which we may do tomorrow, depending on weather.

Back to the condo and started dinner; beef tips over rice with salad and green beans. Working with strange ingredients (is corn flour really the corn starch that I needed?), had a nice evening putting things together. The kitchen isn’t too badly equipped, but working in an electric fry pan when you’re not used to it … hmmmm… Managed to get everything all ready at the same time, and served. I did cleanup, as Marg, Norm and Robert want to play Upwords, a game that is something like Scrabble – lots of letters…and boy, did Robert need to buy a vowel, but no Vanna White in the offing!

So! I’m about ready for bed – these long, lazy days are certainly taking their toll!

So, goodnight for now; more tomorrow!

Love,

m

What an AMAZING country--with hoppy things!!

G’day, Everyone!

Had a WONDERFUL day yesterday, our first in Coff’s Harbour – straying FAR away from the coast…but to take this chronologically…

Got up early and headed out for a walk … sometime when I’m running low on things to talk about (if ever…) I will discuss Australian flies … however…supposedly, our resort is advertising as being “a block” from the beach, so R and I set out to look for it … a block…right…if that’s an example of an Australian “block” then this is a WAY bigger country than I’d thought!!

Walked out of the resort, and followed streets and signs, and FINALLY – something that felt like 2.5 km later, after several VERY strenuous UP hills, there it was!! A wonderful cove, lined by cliffs, stunning views – and of course, we did NOT have our camera! (So, you realize what that means.. we’re going to have to trek that way again…) Basically deserted except for a lady walking her miniature Schnauzer and a young man setting up for line fishing. Had a nice visit with lady and dog, and headed back.

Showers all around, as we’d really worked up a sweat – and were ready about 9 to head out toward the Jacaranda Festival in Grafton. Stopped first along the way at a small farmer’s market, but seemed to be more fleas (and flies!) than produce! Then hit Grafton. Beautiful jacaranda trees everywhere and even the rain the prior day hadn’t completely stripped them of their beauty! We walked through the market there, and I was lucky enough to find a unique Christmas present (but I can’t say what it is, as it’s for someone reading this blog!) and then decided to have lunch. Found the Crown Hotel in town, right on the river; lovely porch overlooking the boats. People water skiing, canoeing and kayaking; very busy place! LOTS of water; apparently due to the recent rains, rivers were VERY high up, although we saw evidence that they had been higher! Robert and I had a Greek salad and a Caesar salad, respectively; excellent! Then we pushed on (stopping for ice cream – Magnum Classic; my favorite!) along a very winding road, looking for a hand-hewn rock tunnel. Road quickly turned to gravel, which we traveled for 4-5 hours; thank heavens for Norm & Marg’s Land Rover Discovery! Suffice to say that all four of us LOVE to drive…which was good, as we were on the road something like 10 hours in total! The scenery was nothing short of spectacular! We were on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range of mountains; lots of trees and water and waterfalls – rivers were high, and at times we were actually fording them! This certainly is our way to travel!! Thanks, Norm & Marg, for an amazing day!! We saw a variety of hoppy things – I’ve included pictures; both kangaroos and wallaby’s, although (sorry, Zappala…) we still can’t really tell the difference! Just know that we enjoyed them immensely!

We didn’t get back, though until just 9 p.m. and by that time, the grocery stores in Coff’s Harbour had closed (!) – and we were still in need of supper! So, found Eagle Boys Pizza and carried out two pepperoni/mushroom pizzas – excellent! (By the way, there is also a Domino’s in town…) Ate at the condo and retired early – exhausted, but after an incredibly lovely day! So…up and another beautiful (albeit cloudy) and warm day in OZ! Finished the leftover pizza (MY kind of breakfast!). Marg & Norm have gone work a walk; I’m blogging, and R is reading…think today we’re going to explore “town”; supposed to be a wonderful walk to Muttonbird island, and through a mangrove swamp! So! Enough of yesterday – there is today to do!

Much love to all!

m

Coff's Harbour, here we come!

Hello, Folks! -- or sorry, G’day! Somehow I don’t think I’ll EVER have the right accent! And Robert can do it so easily! Oh well!

Yesterday, Friday, was our picking-up-the-car day and first long schlep; downtown Sydney to Coff’s Harbour, up the coast. Up around 5:30-ish and repacked. Hadn’t taken out too much to begin with, so not a big deal. We made it to breakfast right on time at 6:30 a.m. – YUM; really good things in the buffet this morning! Then, as we were on the “Executive” floor, we were able to check out right there! Made it convenient! Then downstairs and right into a taxi and dropped right at opening time – 7:30 a.m. -- at Avis. Folks were lovely and guided us into our little blue Toyota, which actually has Queensland plates! So, we are taking the car back home!

Traffic wasn’t really too bad at all, considering the time of day, and we make it through town and shot across the Harbour Bridge in no time at all! Wound our way through the northern suburbs heading toward Highway 1 and the Pacific Expressway. Nice easy driving. We stopped a couple of times – at Gosford for a mid-morning snack and then at some unknown spot (to us, and our map is in the car at the moment!) for a quick lunch. Got to Coff’s Harbour around 3:30 p.m. just as a TORRENTIAL rainstorm hit! Thunder, lightening, the whole bit! And talk about water coming down! Whew! Fortunately, the town of Korora is well sign-posted, and we were able to find the resort with no problems. Drove up to the check-in to ask for Norm and Marg, and guess who pulls in right behind us! Ha! SO nice to see them – even if we were now getting drenched! Got the keys to our unit, number 17, and headed over to unload and park.

The condo is nice. Two bedrooms, 1½ baths, nice kitchen and living/dining room. (Will include pictures as soon as it gets light enough to photograph!) Marg had volunteered to do dinner first night, and she made tacos with lots of fresh ingredients – they were great and we were hungry! We’re heading to the grocery store today, as we’ll cook dinner tonight … haven’t decided what exactly yet, as we’ll need to check out the food supply. There is a BIG Woolworth’s and a Cole’s in town, which are apparently the two biggest grocery chains. Also a HUGE Target, which we found surprising, for some reason.

Also on the docket is a drive up north on the coast to Grafton, for one of the last days of their annual Jacaranda Festival. Must say, the Jacaranda trees here are incredible! (There were jacaranda’s, of course, in Pasadena, so we’d seen them before, but here they are very popular, and we’ve been seeing them all the way up the coast – along with something Marg calls the “Coral” tree – a brilliant RED; just amazing, especially scattered among the jacarandas and other green trees; really makes for a spectacular display!)

So, to bed fairly early last night, around 9-ish, as we’re still feeling the effects of jetlag, and we did 7½ hours of driving yesterday. Nice quiet night, and we’re up at our usual 6-ish. Rained again – poured, actually, during the night; seems to have stopped now, and I’m thinking of getting R to take a walk with me as we need to see what’s around, as well as get our exercise for the morning!

So more later!!

Love,
m

A Lovely Day Down Under!

G’day, Folks! By popular demand (and you know who you are, Katy and Robert…) I will make every attempt to put in paragraph breaks … the only problem is that my blogging is really more of a random walk … no clear breaks of thought, just total and complete babbling! But…in the interests of my gentle readers of a “certain age” I will at least try … like now … otherwise, possibly I should just write four or five sentences and then make a break!! (Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, and read yesterday’s picture-less blog, we’ve now gone back and posted some pictures FYI!)

So…today, November 1. We are staying on the Executive Floor of the Swissotel, and that means free breakfast in the morning and free drinks and canapés in the afternoon! The breakfast was good – eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, fried rice (!), cheese (Swiss…what other kind is there?), salami and fruit. That’s what we ate …there was also the ubiquitous Swiss pink muesli, a variety of cereals, juices, milk, croissants and pastries … and yes, we did manage to fill up!

Then, we were out and about! Our first stop was a walk to the Royal Botanic Garden to see how well they are coming along with their plan to relocate the flying foxes … answer? Not well, because there were hundreds if not thousands still there! Because we were so early (round about 7:30-ish) the foxes were still flying in and getting settled in the trees for their daily nap. One of the pictures above shows one of the trees – each of what looks like little sacks is actually a flying fox! They’re WONDERFUL! Especially flying in – but our little digital camera just isn’t fast enough to catch one, but we did manage lots of plain blue sky pictures! Which is the main reason R is going to get a new digital camera for Christmas!!!

From there we headed toward the harbour, and a walk past the Opera House and to Circular Quay. We had purchased an all-day metro/bus/ferry pass and got on the first boat we saw that was ready to pull out. The poor guy who was working the gang-plank asked us where we were headed – not sure he liked our answer of “anywhere! It doesn’t matter!” And, as a matter of fact, we had a lovely ride – under the Harbour Bridge and past Darling Harbour, through Homebush Bay (home of Sydney’s Olympic Park) and almost all the way to Parramatta. For a lot of the time we had the entire front deck to ourselves, which was wonderful. Lovely warm day, lots of blue sky and sunshine, with enough clouds to make things interesting. The forecast said it was only going to get to about 70 degrees, but we are certain it got higher than that – we were figuring low 80’s! At any rate, it was lovely! Took about 2 hours, and we got back to Circular Quay around 11:15…just in time to catch the 11:30 ferry to Manly, one of our very favorite places!

Manly is on a northern peninsula, with water on both sides – one side the harbour, the other the ocean. We walked through the ferry terminal and out on to the Corso, Manly’s pedestrian-only main street. From there we took the beach walk along Marine Parade to one of our favorite restaurants, Kiosk, for lunch. We had a front-row table, overlooking the walk; beautiful views in several directions! For lunch, we decided to order four starters (seems that in OZ, the terms are entrees and mains…so we had four entrees.) The first batch included an amazing fried zucchini blossom stuffed with fresh goat curd, on a bed of really fresh peas and asparagus; just fabulous. Entree number two was a plate of very fresh prosciutto (is that an oxymoron??) with VERY fresh mozzarella and basil; yummy! That was followed by round 2 – prawn-filled tortellini with fresh prawns; good, and finally, scallops in a puff pastry with saffron and tarragon – outstanding! Just enough to split easily, and absolutely NO leftovers! Finally, I had dessert – a double chocolate tart with homemade vanilla/coffee ice cream – I don’t like coffee at all, but it was very faint, and had the benefit of crumbled oreos on top! Also chocolate truffles…just to help clear the palate! That, along with a lovely bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, made for an incredible meal! Have to say, the wines here are really superb!

The only problem with having a lovely meal like this is that we had to walk back to the ferry boat … slowly, believe me! Caught the next ferry back to Circular Quay – very much in need of a nap by this time; it was after 4 p.m. by the time we got back to the hotel! Slept for an hour or so, and this time, was able to wake up to take advantage of our hotel’s wine and canapés offer! Lovely wines, great canapés – cheese and crackers, lots of fresh (is there any other kind?) sushi, as well as chicken satay skewers with a very spicy sauce. Had a nice sit-down around some glasses of wine, and basically made dinner out of the canapés! Then out for yet another jaunt around Sydney; can’t believe we have to leave tomorrow!

Our hotel is just half a block from the monorail stop, so we grabbed the monorail and road clear around the circuit before finally getting off at Darling Habour. Walked around the shopping center, looking at Australiana and t-shirts, but didn’t find anything we had to have. Back to the hotel for a lovely bath – WAY too many bubbles … and a catch-up on emails. Found that the maid had been in our room, and left – surprise! Toblerone! Will this Swissness ever end??

So, on that note, off to bed! R sleeping soundly … question will be if I can somehow download the photos without waking him up! Oh well!!

Take care everybody, and here’s hoping that the paragraph breaks work well!

Love,

m