Skippy

Its coming up to my year anniversary in Australia and other than the zoo this sign is about as close as I have got to seeing a Kangaroo. Even though they are apparently everywhere I have had no luck.

 But yesterday I got to see Skippy finally and the didn't disappoint. Keen to get some fresh air we went on the Bushranger's trail along the coast down on the Mornington Peninsula. The walk is a 11km round trip starting at Bushranger's bay and ending up at Cape Schanck lighthouse.

The sea is pretty wet and wild along this bit of coast. The Australian PM Harold Holt went swimming off the coast in 1967. He disappeared when swimming and his body was never found.

The walk took us a couple of hours an apart from Joe being attacked and bitten by inch long black ants (everything over here wants to kill you!), everything was pretty uneventful.... until we spotted these guys, they were so close and didn't seem concerned about us at all. I finally got to see my kangaroos :)

You can just see the Joey's feet sticking out of his mum's pouch he was so big he could only fit in head first.

I think I may have to go visit them again soon, so long as I can convince Joe there will be no more killer ants!





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Paaaaarty!

One of my favourite things is organising, so when Joe turned 30 this week it was the perfect opportunity for me to get organising and have a birthday bash for him.

I organised a dinner and drinks with our friends a Rose Diner an awesome restaurant, bar and coffee house in Port Melbourne. The place has a an awesome relaxed atmosphere, yummy food, some of the most helpful staff I have ever met and have a great dining table upstairs ideal for birthday.

We spent the evening eating lots, drinking plenty and had a fantastic time. The pictures are a little blurry I would blame it on the camera, but i feel it may have been the wine.

We had some great cupcakes from Cupcake Occasion for dessert... we have also enjoyed finishing the left overs this week.

Not sure who thought Tequila shots were a good idea!

We left for home feeling rather merry. Thanks to Rose Diner for helping us have a fantastic night, I am sure we will be back soon.


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Station Street Trading Company

Once of the best things about Melbourne is brunch, there are so many cute little cafes that make the most amazing food.

We celebrated Joe's 30th last night (blog to follow) and were in dire need of a bit of a pick me up this morning.

The weather has been gorgeous the last few days, we are heading into winter but have had sunshine about about 25 degrees. We headed just down the road to the Station Street Trading Company. The place is relatively new but already has a dedicated crowd of Port Melbournians.

We settled in with orange juice and coffee and perused the menu

Keen for some revival Joe ordered a bacon and scambled egg ciabatta with tomato relish.

 I had hammed baked beans with a fried egg and ciabatta.

Yummy but I think Joe's was the winner as mine was a little bland. 

Feeling revived we went for a lovely walk in the sunshine and enjoyed the piles of autumn leaves. Now time for some left over birthday cupcakes, tea and a DVD afternoon me thinks.

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Olives

It is Anzac day in Melbourne and it is starting to feel Autumnal, although we have had gorgeous sunshine today.

We have two lovely olive trees in our garden, and I decided that I really should try and do something with the olives.

So using my day off, I decided to dabble in curing my own olives. I have no idea how it is going to turn out but I am going to give it a go.

After looking at lots of different curing methods, I settled on something that looked the simplest.


I love black olives, so I picked the olives on the trees that were starting to ripen. Olives can be stored in any jar that you would use for preserves.

I sterilised a couple of jars by boiling them.

Whilst the jars were sterilising, I cut a slit each side of each olive down to the stone.

Once all the olives were ready I added them to the jar and then covered in a mixture of rock salt and tap water. About 50g of salt to 500ml of water. I then weighted down the olives to ensure they stay under the brine using a plastic bag filled with a little water.


The salt helps remove the bitterness from the olives and darkens them. I have read that I now need to replace the liquid around the olives every week to 10 days for four weeks. Following this you can create a nice marinade for them using olive oil, pepper corns, lemons and bay leaves.

They look pretty next to my preserved limes, which are going down a treat in our curries and with couscous.

I will keep you posted on the olives.


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Oooh I love cake

In the words of Marjorie Dawes oooooooh I love cake!!!

You may have noticed my blog has been a little quiet recently, I have been rather tied up with work.

To cheer me up we went down to Acland street in St Kilda to get some cake.

The street has an array of amazing European bakeries open till late. Great when you need a sugar fix.

There is only one problem... Which cake shall I have?!

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Weekend in the Cool Country

So we spent our lovely long weekend at Harts Lane Studio in Daylesford, I like trying to book unique places to stay and this studio was a treasure trove of cool pieces of art and furniture.

Daylesford lived up to its name of the cool country so we explored our home for the next few nights and got cozy by the log burner.

We even found this sweet little fella outside - I had to resist stealing him.

We spent the weekend on lots of adventures including horse riding, the mineral springs bath house, the local vintage markets, exploring local vineyards and villages.

One of the highlights for me was the Red Beard Bakery in Trentham, they have been using the same scotch oven since the 1892 when the bakery supplied prospectors during the gold rush. The bread was beautiful and the hot cross buns delicious!

Sad to be heading home on Monday we drove past the mysterious Hanging Rock - if you haven't seen it I would highly recommend watching Picnic at Hanging Rock - A little bit creepy.

We finished our trip driving over Mount Macedon stopping in the settlement for lunch. I currently work at Australia Post and have a real love for the post shop's here, they are the heart of most settlements, especially those in the outback, This post shop was amazing, it encompassed a cute coffee shop, general store and the post shop itself and had a lovely community feel.

All in all a lovely weekend, I wonder where our next adventure will take us.







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