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Our big road trip part 5 (Melbourne)
We pre-booked our Melbourne accommodation online. I receive newsletters from the Shortstay apartments people and in a recent newsletter they announced the opening of their new apartments on A'Beckett Street. having never step foot in Melbourne City before I just had to rely on their website and Google maps (yes, i do love Google maps) to tell me where the apartments were and whether they looked ok. We arrived and they were very ok indeed. City Tempo looked almost brand new and was at a very convenient location. We were, as we soon found out, only 10 minutes' walk away from Queen Victoria Markets, within stone's throw of La Trobe street where the city circle tram passed (a free tram service, I might add!) and not far at all from the busy hub of the city centre. At $149 for a 1 bedroom apartment, it was good value too. Now what is it with us and apartments? Well, we realised earlier on that there is no way we can sleep with Alex in the same room. He wakes us up and we wake him up - not deliberately, mind you. So, we need him to be in a separate room for all our sanity, and a studio or hotel room just won't cut it. Ah, the joys of travelling with your offspring! On that first evening in Melbourne we met up with an old friend of mine from school days in Malaysia. We had dinner at Tiamo2 on Lygon Street - Melbourne's little Italy, where the food was good and plenty, and then moved on to Brunetti for dessert. Have you ever been to Brunetti? The display of cakes and desserts is simply overwhelming. It's quite amazing, really and I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it before. After getting over the initial "wow!", we settled for a rather large macaron and tiramisu. I wish I had taken a photo. Unfortunately when there is food before me, I often forget to whip out the camera. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was pretty good, and I'll be going back again if ever I were to visit Melbourne again. After an indulgence like that, we decided that we should walk home and attempt to work off some of the sugar and fat. I'm not sure that the walk was long enough to put much of a dent in our sudden weight gain, but it was certainly nice to see some of the city at night. We did not pass through the centre of the city but many of the places we passed were still busy, especially the eateries. One of the little discoveries we made during our walk to Lygon street that day was that there are more Malaysian eateries in that little part of Melbourne than you can poke a stick at. Yes, really! I'm not sure whether any of them are any good but we did stop at one for a snack of kaya (coconut jam) on toast. I think it was called Little Coconut House.  Very disappointing. It was made with thin wholemeal bread. Who makes kaya toast with thin wholemeal bread?? The bread should be thick, but light and white. The kaya should be sweet and rich with pandanous and slight caramel flavours coming through. Aside from being sweet, our serve of kaya toast exhibited none of those qualities. Fail! The next day, we explored Queen Victoria Markets, had breakfast there and then took the Melbourne City tourist bus from tehre to Chinatown. It was a pleasant, but long ride as the bus took us all around the city. We viewed the city from air-conditioned comfort, making notes of just where we wanted to get off next time to see more of the city. The bus had a pre-recorded commentary which told you what landmark we were passing and what there was to see and do at each location. We stopped at Chinatown for lunch, but not before sending a text to our friend, Hui Leng, to ask where we should go in an attempt to try the famous Melbourne yum-cha (or dim sum). She recomended trying Shark Fin House on Little Burke Street. When we got there I was expecting to see huge queues like we see in Sydney yum-cha restaurants, as it was right in the middle of lunch hour, but we must have been lucky as we breezed right through the doors and were ushered to a table immediately. Good food, but we were a little underwhelmed. I am not sure what I was expecting but it was just "yum-cha", you know? It was good, but amazing?? I am glad we tried it anyway. Next time we're in Melbourne, we'll try a different place for comparison.. all in the name of research, no?  Our tummies now full of dumplings and an assortment of other yummies, we set off around Chinatown. Alex loved the stone lions along the street and I think we must have stopped at almost every one and taken a photo. a small (yes,very small, believe me) selection:    Poor little man - Alex's legs could only carry him that far before he needed a rest, and another.. and another.  He mastered "the squat".  Finally in an attempt to lure him to walk a bit further so that we could get back to the apartment for a rest, we promised him a tram ride. Can you tell he was a happy boy once we got to the tram stop?  However, it was good 20 minute wait (or more??) before the tram finally arrived, and boy, were we glad to see it!  That night we met Hui Leng and her family (sans daughter who was at a school function) for a very ducky meal at Old Kingdom, Fitzroy. In Sydney, Peking duck is normally served in two courses. Apparently, this is not the case in Melbourne, where it is served in three courses. So, 4 ducks later... we all walked out very over-ducked and very satisfied. This was to be the first of two ducky meals this trip... Labels: Melbourne, road-trip
Our big road trip part 4 (On the road to Melbourne)
After 3 nights in Wangaratta, we proceeded to Melbourne, but not before I indulged in some woolly goodness. A knitter can't go to Wangaratta and not visit the ACS mill, can she? Of course not! So, on Monday morning before we left Wangaratta, we stopped off at the mill shop. Having recently attempted to take stock of what I have at home (note, the word is "attempted"), I was reasonably restrained, buying only some balls of Patonyle 8ply for a jumper for Alex and some cones of mill-end stuff. I'd tell you what they were if I knew. Most were unlabeled and I am yet to do a bleach or flame test on them. For $10 a bag, I figured it was worth the risk. What's the worst? If it were all acrylic or something equally yuck, I could use it for core spinning or donate it to charity. I have high hopes for the Patonyle 8ply. if it is anything like the Patonyle 4ply I have from years and years ago, it will wear like iron and I can make a slightly larger jumper for Alex and have it last a good 2 or even 3 seasons! I did indulge in a couple of balls of Patonyle 4ply as well. I intend to overdye those before knitting. I think overdyeing it may give an interesting effect, but first I need to re-skein it and I can't think of a more boring task! Onwards we pressed. First stop, Glenrowan. We were told it is a historic town. When we arrived, we realised that "town" was a little bit of an exaggeration. It was more like a village. There were a handful of shops along both sides of a small stretch of road, probably less than a kilometre in length. Still, we were there, so we got out to have a little look around. It was quaint. It was touristy. Everything centred around a Ned Kelly theme. It was Ned-this and Kelly-that, or Bushranger-something-or-other. There was a Ned Kelly Museum and a massive statue of the bushranger himself. Photo op!  Despite or initial disappointment, we did decide to stop fora breakfast/brunch and we were pleasantly surprised. We ordered a big breakfast, a sausage roll (home-made, or I should say "shop-made"?) and Devonshire tea. I wasn't sure what to expect of the scones. Very often , I am disappointed by the scones I find in Sydney as they are massive and bready and not the least bit scone-y. These were quite nice. Light, fluffy but not bread-y. They were large but not as huge as some of the monstrosities you find in Sydney cafes. It came with cream and strawberry jam. The big winner was actually Alex's sausage roll. It was a change from the commercial sausage rolls we were used to. The meat was not as finely ground as what you find in most sausage rolls and it had a nice tomato-ey flavour to it. The pastry was light and flaky and not overly greasy. We nearly ordered a second but decided that would just be overdoing it. Next stop, Euroa! Why Euroa? Well, Euroa is home to First Edition Fibres. Everything I have ever spun from them has been of good quality, and I could not pass up the opportunity to buy more, especially not when we were literally driving right beside the town.  This is what the place looked like. You'd be forgiven if you were to drive past it thinking it was just an old shed. We did.. twice, I think! We finally drove around the shed, and found a spot for the car out the front under some shady trees. I think Alex was rather unsure about getting out and visiting "the big shed". Neither was he impressed by the treasure trove of all things fibre-y in it. He did like their dog, though. Jacko. He was friendly but not overly so and wasn't boisterous. Not having grown up with dogs, Alex is never quite sure what to make of them, but he was happy to pat Jacko, and Jacko was happy to be patted. I walked away with two bags of fibre. Nothing too serious, but we did have trouble finding room in the boot of the car for it after my slight enthusiasm at Wangaratta. Fortunately, fibre squishes easily and soon we were on our way again. We finally reached Melbourne in the late afternoon. Not without some minor drama, though. As we approached the city limits, Chris asked me to look up traffic cameras in Victoria to see whether they need to be sign-posted like they do in NSW. Hmm.. why do you ask, husband dear? Anyway, I may as well tell you so that you'll know if you're ever to drive into Victoria. No, it does not appear that they have the same sign-posting requirements. It was rather handy having the mini laptop and mobile broadband connection after all.. even if I didn't really need it for maps at that stage. The Tullamarine freeway is a very very long road, as we discovered! I am pleased relieved to say that we have not received any traffic offence notices yet. Labels: Euroa, Glenrowan, road-trip
Our big road trip part 3 (Rutherglen and Beechworth)
Day 3, and we were still staying at Wangaratta. Our friends left on that morning. Alex was sad to see his mate go and kept pestering us with question - "When will I see Caelan again?", "Is Caelan coming to visit us in Sydney?", "Can we move Canberra closer to Sydney?Why not?", "What about if we move Sydney closer to Canberra?". What is it with this child? We cannot move cities, no matter how much we want to! Alex and Caelan had one last playtime together at the neighbouring park before we bade our friends adieu, and we left to go up towards Rutherford. This is when we made the discovery that perhaps my trusty pocket wifi isn't so trusty after all. Midway through our drive, my maps refused to reload!! It really wasn't the fault of the device so I should not blame it's reliability. The mobile broadband coverage was pretty much just around the Hume highway. the further we strayed from the highway, the weaker the signal. This was also when we realised that the roads in the area are very conveniently named. The road between Chiltern and Beechworth is called the Chiltern-Beechworth road, for example. So as long as we knew what was behind us, we could easily work out where the road would end. Very convenient when Google maps isn't working. Our first stop at Rutherford was at the Stanton and Killeen winery. They had some really nice stickies, and I wish we had the money and space to bring home more bottles than we did. We ended up with some nice muscats. Their topaques (also known as tokays) were nice, but not as nice as the muscats. They let us try some of their 25 yrs aged muscats and wow! It had amazing flavour that lingered. I am no wine expert and don't know all the right words to describe it but it was very very nice. It was tempting to buy a bottle (or three) but we refrained. At about $80 for a half bottle (375ml), it would have been a very expensive drop. The trouble with expensive wine is that I can't bring myself to drink it! What a waste. The other wine worth trying there is the Auslese, which we ended up buying as well. It is a light dessert wine with lots of flavour but not in-your-face-sweet. I would describe it as a sweet Traminer-ish kind of wine. Next stop was lunch at Rutherglen. We ended up at a pub, and the food wasn't bad. I had the poacher's pie which had beef and game in it. They never did say what sort of game meat was in it but by the two small bones I found in it, I'd guess that it had some rabbit or hare in it. It was tasty. They also served really good chips, much to the detriment of my disappearing waistline. Chris's lunch order was the mixed grill which was okay, but as mixed grills normally are, it was just average. Everything a little overdone, but there was plenty of everything. The chips were good, though. Alex had sausages and chips. Can you see a trend here? Well, aside from the chips, the steamed vegies were also good, but when you douse any food in that much butter, it has to be good!  poacher's pie  mixed grill.. notice the lack of vegetables??  sausages and chips. Alex was impatient. The next winery we visited was All Saints. It's a lovely setting, with a "castle" built on large grounds. There was a rose garden to explore, a little lake (or pond??) you could sit beside for tea, and a cheese shop on the grounds as well as the cellar door.   We very quickly discovered that the rose garden would have been more aptly named the mosquito garden. We took some quick pictures before venturing off elsewhere for more photo ops.   Peek-a-boo! We moved on to Beechworth after that. Google maps was still out of action (or at least our mobile broadband connection was) so we relied on a map that only showed the main roads, street signs and road names. We did end up in Beechworth without any trouble at all. The roads were mostly straight and boring. The town itself was interesting. It was quaint and quite pretty. There were many old buildings and interesting little shops for us to poke around.  Down one end of the street is an ice-creamery. Perhaps I have been spoilt by good ice-cream, as I was very disappointed by the ice-cream there. The almost fluorescent green pistachio ice-cream seriously lacked pistachio flavour. We also ordered rum and raising (which had 1 raisin in the whole serve) and another flavour which I can't remember. I don't know why I thought a small time ice-creamery would have excellent ice-cream, but I did. I now know better.  Labels: beechworth, road-trip, rutherglen
Our big road trip part 2 (Millawa)
So this is the aim of our stopover at Wangaratta - to attend the BB gourmet food and wine festival. This was our first visit to the festival but our friends were old hands at this. After a quick trip to KMart for some sunscreen, we met up with M, S and C at the Brown Brothers' Estate where they had already scoped out the place and bagged a nice table in the shade to share with us. It was close to being equidistant from the playground, the market hall (where the food was), the cellar door (where wine tasting was being conducted) and the music. As we entered the estate we were offered a glass of sparkling white. It was delicious. I can't recall what it is called now, but I know we brought a bottle home! After hassling me for a whole morning with, "Where is Caelan?" and "what time will we see Caelan?" and "Can we go see Caelan now?", Alex was happy to be reunited with his friend.  The boys enjoyed each other's company and I realised that there was no way I was game to come to another of these events if there was no other child with whom Alex could play. The boys kept one another entertained , even if they did have the occasional tiff. At one point, S's iphone was brought out and the boys were kept amused by the light sabre app. If you haven't realised by now, Alex is a bit of a Star wars nut. He loves everything Star Wars-y. A few weeks ago, he was apparently Luke Skywalker and I was Pricess Leah. hmm.. something odd, incestuous and wrong there, my child!  We adults were busy eating, drinking and being merry. The food was good. When I first saw the plates, I thought they would not be enough but they were enough. they weren't huge meals by anyone's standards. No, not even large. Every "main" was more of an entree sized dish and it came with a glass of wine. the menu included the suggested wine pairings but you could ask for a glass of any wine you wanted. We tried the Durif, which we liked so much we ended up with 4 bottles of it. We also enjoyed the Cienna. A lovely drop for a warm summer - like the one that we're heading into right now. We forgot to take photos of the main dishes, which were very good indeed. I had the lamb neck, which was really much better than it sounds. Chris had the steak sandwich (well, that's what I called it, but the description on the menu was fancier than that) - and it was very good too. We did whip out the camera for a few shots of the dessert. This is Chris's. I think it was a panacotta of some sort.  This is what I had. It was a prune and chocolate flan with rum and raisin icecream. I thought the flan was heavier than what it should have been. I think of flans as being light but the cake was quite dense and heavy. It was delicious, nonetheless. the rum and raising icecream was nice, but I think it could have done with a sprinkling more raisins and a dash of rum.  There was plenty of entertainment for the children. there was Trixie the clown whom the kids thought was fantastic. She did not freak me out as much as clowns normally do. She was quite nice. A funny sort of clown. No, I don't think they are ALL funny. Some are rather scary looking! The children also got their faces painted. C was a tiger and Alex was a pirate. He was a rather dirty looking pirate too.  Who's that knitting? Why, me of course! It was a relaxing day for me. I had my knitting and a glass of wine and the company of friends. Could not have asked for more. I had started a toe-up sock for Alex in the car and I was aiming to have it done by the time we got back to Sydney. You'll have to keep reading if you want to find out whether I achieved my goal. That wasn't the only knitting I had on the go. I was also knitting a shawl, but I can't show pictures of it as the owner of the shawl wants it to be a surprise. It's a commission job so I do as I am asked, especially when she's asked so nicely. I think we adults could have stayed all day but by mid-afternoon the boys were getting cranky. Yes, the little boys, not the big boys. The big boys were happy to be entertained by wine and music and I am sure they could have stayed all day. So we left around mid-afternoon and headed towards the Millawa cheese factory. Oh my, the cheese. I'd go back just for the cheese. They had a lot of goat's milk cheese which were not too "goat-y". I loved it all. the 3-year aged cheddar was delicious, as was the King River Gold and Millawa Gold (a washed rind sort of soft cheese - a little smelly but the good sort of smelly). What I loved the most was the Tomme. I had not had it before. I saw the little wheels (wheels? mounds? whatever..) of Tomme uncut and the mould was rather frightening to look at. However, taste a sliver of it and you'll know you're in cheese heaven. Another not-too-goaty goat's milk cheese. It is a hard cheese, almost like a parmesan. Very nice and flavourful. Mm.. I could do with a slice now, but unfortunately it would not have survived the ride to Melbourne, around Melbourne and back to Sydney, so we had to forgo it. We had a little snack at the cafe next to the cheese factory and then it was back to the motel for some rest and dinner. Alec fell asleep on the way back and I had to carry him from the car to the apartment. In the course of doing so, I lost one of his shoes (a croc-style shoe). Oops. After a frantic search around the car and on the path back to the apartment, I gave up. Alex woke up from his slumber a very cranky child but after dinner he was right as rain again, and (most unfortunately for us) raring to go! We stayed up for a little bit watching the (free) DVDs which we could borrow from the front desk of the motel. Did I mention where we stayed? It was the Parkview Motor Inn at Wangaratta. The folks running it were lovely and ever so helpful. they even found Alex's missing shoe the next day! We had a 1 bedroom apartment which was nice and spacious. There was plenty of room for the kids to sit on the floor and colour in or have a little dance. All in all, for what it cost, I think it was pretty good. Labels: Millawa, road-trip
Our big road trip part 1 (Wangaratta)
For a long time, Chris and I have been talking about taking a road trip together. If I recall correctly, this discussion started even before we were married. Then we got married, and I got pregnant, Alex arrived and then it was all too hard (or so it seemed) to take a baby on the road with us. Alex is now nearly 4 and in just over a year he will start school. It hit me all of a sudden that if we didn't find time to do this trip now, we may not have another chance for many years to come. Once Alex starts school, we'll have to start thinking about school holidays and school activities and plan around all of that. So we decided to go. And go, we did. Well, I did anyway. I got into planning mode and started booking accommodation, looking up touring maps, etc etc. It didn't long at all. The two things that took the longest were deciding whether we were going to fly in to Melbourne and hire a car and drive it back to Sydney, or drive the whole way there and back, and deciding where to stop on the way back. After a few quick calculations we worked out that it would not cost us that much to drive the whole way and driving offered us the flexibility of packing extra bedding for Alex in case we needed it. We didn't decide on where to stop on the way back before we left.. but that's a whole other story! Before we left, we had to work out what we were going to do about navigation. We don't have a GPS navigation system, you see. So, do we buy one for the trip and see whether we like it enough to use it after? Do we buy a whole lot of different street directories and maps? Then Chris had a lightbulb moment. How about if we just get a mobile broadband subscription (which we need anyway as a back up for my work) and bring a little laptop along with us? Google maps will see us through, right? We set out on the morning of Friday 19 th November, headed towards Wangaratta our first stopover. Chris drove. I sat beside him with my trusty pocket wifi beside me and little laptop on my lap. I was fully armed with a bag of knitting and a bag of food at my feet. Alex sat at the back and he was armed for the trip with a back pack full of goodies. I had gone out and bought a " Shrek movie pack" from my local QBD bookstore for $4.99. It included a sticker book which kept Alex entertained for ages. There were other things in the pack including a book which I could read to him and a "movie novel", which held his interest for all of 2 seconds until he realised there were no pictures in it. I also included Alex's drawing book, some reading books and a colouring book in his backpack. Alex slept for much of the journey,which was excellent for us because when he was not asleep, he was talking. No, I am serious. These days Alex is like a talking machine. He's either asleep or talking ALL THE TIME! You can imagine how grateful we were when the chatter subsided and we could hear gentle noises of slumber coming from the back of the car. Alex woke up in time for lunch at Yass. We stopped there thinking we'd scout it out and decide whether we want to stop there on the way back to Sydney. We very quickly decided it really wasn't interesting enough for us to want to stay there. Lunch was lovely, though. We ate at Cafe Dolcetto on the main street. The boys claimed the banana smoothie there was "to die for", but I don't like bananas so I took their word for it. My chicken salad was pretty good as was Chris's pasta. Alex just ate off both our plates. Having the mobile broadband connection and the laptop with us was very handy as we could look up towns along the way to see whether there was anything interesting to see or anywhere nice to stop for lunch or tea. Chris had a mad craving for sashimi, and I did a search. the nearest was at Albury, and no, we did not stop for that. There's plenty of Japanese food to be had in Sydney and Melbourne so there was no need to give in to his mad cravings. We pressed on to Wangaratta after that, arriving not too long before dinner time. Our friends, Megan, Shane and Caelan were already there. Megan and I left the big boys to nap, study or just relax while we took the little boys out to the park. The park was conveniently located about 5 minutes walk away from where we were staying. This proved to be very handy over the three nights we spent there as Alex just needed somewhere to expend his energy. The kids had a ball, and it was nice to be able to just sit and catch up with Megan. On the first night, our dinner consisted of fairly average Indian fare from the restaurant next door. We over-ordered (as usual) and ended up with leftovers which became dinner the next day.  It probably would not have been as bad had I not gotten angry with them in the first place. We placed our order on the phone and was told it would be ready for pick-up in about 20 minutes. I arrived there 20 minutes later to find that they could not find my order. What had happened? The lady who took the call still had my order attached to the order pad and the order pad was in her pocket. So I was told that they would rush it and I could have my food in 15 more minutes. Fuming, I walked to Coles to pick up breakfast supplies. After all it would be between waiting 15 more minutes for our Indian food or going elsewhere and being prime dinner time then, it would probably have taken longer to get our food. about 15-20 minutes later I arrived back at the restaurant. The lady who was looking for my order greeted me with horror in her face and the question, "Wrong order?" Uhm, no, I haven't received my order yet, remember? Anyway, about 10 minutes later I finally made it out of the restaurant with our food. Our 20 minute quickie dinner run ended up taking an hour. In the picture you can see a curried chicken dish in the front (chicken pishwari or something) which I found a bit ho-hum but Alex enjoyed. It didn't make his mouth hot :) I chose the saag paneer (usually called palak paneer in Sydney, I think) which was hotter than I was accustomed to but not too bad. We also had a chicken tikka briyani rice - I told you we over-ordered, didn't I?- which was again ho-hum. Hot but not spicy enough. We settled in to an early night that night. We were all tired after all that travelling. Besides. We had a big day ahead - at the Brown Grothers Gourmet Food and Wine festival at Millawa. Labels: road-trip, wangaratta
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