Food, Glorious Food

My sister Sam and husband Phil arrived this week, looking forward to some pleasant Aussie weather. It all started so well with their first day hitting a peak of 28 degrees before nosediving back down to the high teens accompanied by a bracing wind and all in the space of a cat nap.
We had warned them of Melbourne's reputation of four seasons in a day but unless you have experienced it directly, it still can be difficult to get to grips with.
The week quickly turned into a foodie holiday with the best of the eating experiences Melbourne has to offer and a never ending sea of great restaurants and cafes in which to delight the taste buds. Unfortunately for Sam this did involve , on the second evening, her watching the rest of us tuck into a veritable banquet of: blue swimmer crab, scampi, barramundi, swordfish in pesto, sour cherry and pistachio semifreddo and a baked alaska for 6 whilst she looked on with a severe throat infection; only able to write down her requests for a beer which she mostly looked at, finding it hard to swallow even her own saliva.
The most hilarious moment came for me when Sam, now recovered and back on form decided to help pick up the girls from school. Since the girls now cycle to and from school, Sam was required to cycle the 1 and half miles to pick them up. The only spare working bike on offer was Grant's racer and accompanying helmet and because neither of us had the skill or inclination to make any adjustments to either, they were left set up for Grant. Watching her:with her feet unable to touch the floor, helmet slipping down over her eyes and body in typical racing posture as she set off down the hill, I screamed, "Have you ever ridden a racer before?"
"No where are the breaks?" She replied and proceeded to fly away at great speed with me laughing so much I nearly tumbled from my own bike whilst trying to catch her before she hit a main road. Watching her wobble around on thin tyres made for a very entertaining journey: equally so on the way home as Caitlin took great delight in sending her the wrong way at roundabouts with me shouting in the distance,"left, left" as she tottered precariously along!
They have now escaped to visit Noosa, leaving the improving Melbourne weather behind but bringing the rain with them!

Onwards and Upwards

I've rashly agreed at work to be part of a 4 man team in the run up the Eureka Tower event on 22nd November. Eureka Tower is the highest building in Melbourne and will involve 88 floors, 1,900 steps, and 300m or a 1000 ft of climbing.
http://techlab.scherdan.com/albums/skyscrapers/Eureka_Tower_0944a.jpg

As in all things Australian, the other 3 team Members are Olympic Gods in the atheltics world: one is even doing a road race on the afternoon of the same day - I may well become the limiting factor here.

In an attempt to bolster the cycling I'm again trying to get back into running - if nothing else to loosen the legs up a little from their habitual rotary motion.

If anyone is interested the world record for the equivalent race up the 86 floors of the Empire State Building is 9 mins 34 seconds!!! - naturally held by an Australian. I'm dumbfounded by this, but can't help think the other 3 are at least imagining a finish not embarassed by this time.

And Just an Afterthought

I just wanted to add a little something to Grant's summation of our holiday experiences in Queensland. He failed to mention that his references to Jaws quotes were due to the fact that we made the girls watch that cinematic masterpiece on dvd the night before our second snorkel trip. Caitlin took it in her stride although was heard to briefly ask whether we would see any Great Whites on our trip out to the reef whilst Ciara did a runner for bed just about the time Richard Dreyfuss saw the head coming out of the bottom of the boat, shouting"I think I need to go to bed now as I am very tired!!"

Spring In Melbourne part 1

So due to much public demand ( well one person did ask why we weren't blogging anymore) the Mungin blog has returned with vigour. I would like to say the same for spring in Melbourne being under the false impression that we lived in a dry and hot climate. Suffice to say the average temp during daytime has hovered between 14 and 17 degrees over the last couple of days and we even had hail. Apparently all the children in Caitlin's year looked on in amazement as ice fell from the sky, to which Caitlin remarked, "It's only hail!"

As Ciara's leg has returned to complete normality( it was diff to see where the break had been on her xray first week back) we have now started cycling to school. In fact I have begun to cycle everywhere in sandals and my new cycle shorts , oh and a top of course! This is in part due to my having given up running after another bout of injuries. Seb Coe I was apparently not, more like Eddie the Eagle well in trainers and minus the skies of course!

I have also returned to the early morning swimming although first dayI turned up at 5.30am in my eagerness only to find that the nutters don't start until 6am ! I was joined by Duncan Goodhue and the Australian olympic team who proceeded to swim, literal circles, around me as I attempted to do fly legs and crawl arms. Guess the instructor didn't mean housefly legs!

The last of my exercise regime involves a dance class on a Friday morning. Now those of you who are aware of my lack of dance coordination will not be suprised to find out that I stand at the back doing my own thing while the rest of the class try to find supportive words to encourage me,even the eighty year old granny whom I think must have trained in the Bolshoi ballet, seem to pick up the steps quicker than me. However true to form I persist in the abuse of body and street credentials in the happy knowledge that I'll only be here for another year and after that the mad semi clothed cycling, night time 'swimming' and she really shouldnt do that to music and in lycra, exerciser, will be a distant and hopefully hazy mermory in the Melbournian psyche.

I feel that I should also give mention to the fact that some of the people who live in Melbourne are completely sports mad! While waiting outside the swimming pool at 5.30am the other morning I saw numerous chains gangs of cyclists whizzing past . For those of you who don't understand the words chain gang, it is not as I once thought, a term for imprisoned folk chained together and made to do manual labour, but in the cycling world it is a term for imprisoned folk chained together and made to do manual labour for fun. And to think my husband wants to join this cruel sport!!

In fact he is pondering attempting another long distance cycle race and approached one of his new friends at work whom he knows does a little cycling. "Oh you mean you need a training partner. Yeah that could be fun but I just need to get the Marathon out of the way next weekend and the long distance sea swim race held over 10 miles then I'm all yours!! Grant was a little taken aback and after that stopped talking about it all.

The last thing I want to mention is 'The Return of the Ducks.' Yes once more the ducks have returned to our swimming pool. This is despite a) removal of their eggs from nest by the side of the pool.
b) me chasing said creatures around pool in my dressing gown as I am the only family member not scared of them
c) the liberal use of Duck Off - a substance recommended and then supplied by the swimming pool people - I was worried initially that this substance would do something unpleasant to our unwanted but lovely vermin,but I shoudln't have worried as they seem to love the stuff and I think it should be renamed Duck food!!
Anyway am hoping the warmer months and the sight of all of us Mungins in bathers should have the desired effect and if in fact this turns out to be the case I will be selling us on to other fellow 'ducks in our swimming pool' sufferers.

North Queensland - The conclusion

I write this as a summary of our holiday, and after a bottle of wine. I have to say its all beginning to feel a bit self analysis/therapeutic - you write down your thoughts and feelings into the void for your own purpose. C'mon guys the occasional comment on the blog: a hint of jealousy, derision, anything would be good.

Anyway, North Queensland. I had no preconceptions other than the barrier reef. That in itself easily overwrote the old mantra of reality being tinged by the weight of expectation: it really was gob smackingly beautiful, and I still remember moments of hearing strange muffled/high pitched whines as I would snorkel along pysically shaking with excitement and attempting to squeal with delight under water.

The land side of the trip was more complex. The landscape was beautiful and challenging in equal measure, and to a certain extent created the character of the people. It's all very well being Euro cool (quite literally) in Melbourne, but the relentless mega watt sun needs a certain individual to cope, and despite my recent complaints about Melbourne's Spring birthing pains, it ain't me.

Still, if you include the highly recommended detours from the obvious attractions on the coast, its a great trip to a true tropical paradise, and an insight into the genuine Australian outback experience.

North Queensland - The last leg

We only had 3 days holiday left and work was beginning to encroach on my thoughts.

We had a couple of days resting, wandering around Port Douglas, and letting the kids enjoy the pool in the complex, while I undertook the impossible task of finding a bottle of VB in Queensland.

These 2 days were bisected by our final trip out, this time to the Daintree Forest and Cape Tribulation.

The dust had cleared at his point and the drive north afforded beautiful views of the mountains, before we crossed the ferry on the Daintree River and plunged into dense rainforest with a road that started following the curves of the headland.

We stopped off at the Daintree National Park centre, walking through the forest and climbing the 4 storey observation tower to get above the canopy. Daintree appears to be the worlds oldest rainforest, containing a huge divesity of plant and animal life, as well as some of the earliest plants. Having admired lizards and the usual giant strangler figs we found out that the sting from the stinging vine remains diabolically painful for months and we quickly left.

We drove north to Cape Tribulation, hoping to see the Cassowary bird, an Emu like creature. There were road signs everywere to look out for them, but we saw none.

Finally we arrive Cape Tribulation, and quite literally run out of road. North of here its 4x4 only up to Capetown. We stayed for a while to admire the endless tropical beaces, and Cape Trib itself. Captain Cook beached his boat here for repairs after hitting a reef, and his diary had the rather odd line in it saying "This is where our troubles started"! I'm tempted to read the rest to find out what went wrong in this tropical paradise. Having exausted our views of the beaches we turned around and headed back to Port Douglas, still forlornly looking for Cassowary.

North Queensland - yet another day

Having pretty much become wrinkled prunes with all the water activity we now turned our attention inland.

The Atherton table lands are a plateau above the coast, rich in volcanic soils. Here are the coffee and banana plantations, and the small country towns of the Australian outback - population 200 and 3 'Roos.

We were aiming for the Misty Mountains and the waterfall tour - an area of probably a couple of hundred square kilometres dotted with waterfalls.

This was actually a great trip, seeing something a little different from the obvious tourist activities along the coast. The falls were set in beautiful scenery, at the bottom of steep ravines in surprisingly hilly country. With a little bit of green showing in the hills there was also a little homesickness.

The falls aside, there were some amazing lookouts. Unfortunately, the crystal clear views of the early holiday had been replaced by the remnants of the Sydney duststorms as they moved North, and haze and hints of what might have been were the order of the day.

End of the day were the Josephine Falls on the lower slopes of Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in Queensland. It would have been great to climb to the top, but 2 children, the ten hour round trip, and despite the path, rainforest all the way to the top said no.

We travelled 250 miles in total today, and it was well worth it for all we saw.

North Queensland - Day 10

And so to our second, and more focussed trip to the Outer Reef. It was Agincourt again, and with the same Company - Quicksilver. This time though it was 80 people on a high speed Catamaran, and instead of berthing at a pontoon for the day it made 3 roughly 2 hour each stops at places of interest. The focus here was also much more on diving with the snorkellers as hangers on.

The first stop was excellent, with the usual myriad supply of beautiful fish. We even managed to find our own Giant Clam, with Caitlin now practised enough to dive down and touch it. I really hope she retains these memories and they don't fade as she moves through adolesence.

Sharon and I took turns supporting Ciara, who was just about beginning to get the hang of the snorkel. One of the highlights for Ciara was when one of the crew started throwing bits of fish off the back of the semi submerged platform at the back of the boat. When our very own pet Maori Wrasse appeared, all 5 feet of him, Ciara initially had the "we're gonna need a bigger boat" look from Roy Schneider in Jaws, but quickly settled down to stroking this monster as it hung around the boat for 10 mins.

The second dive site was a bit more challenging, requiring a fair amount of swimming to see around. There was also a drop off with a pinnacle rising about 60 feet up and we were assured there were Barracuda here. In the end I just spotted some but couldn't quite get down to their depth. The fish were again good when you could find them, and it's where I took most of our photos (having now worked out how to use an underwater camera - http://www.flickr.com/photos/36445314@N08/sets/72157622387117133/), however you could feel family fatigue beginning to kick in.

The 3rd and final drop was becoming a swim too far for us. We started moving through a gap in the reef to the open Ocean, the boat rocking in the heavy Ocean Swell. The top divers were dropped off here in a very military style operation: 1 after another dropped off the back of the boat until a line of 15 bobbing people could be seen snaking out in a line.

We then back through the gap and settled against the reef for the next hour. The swimming though was fairly brief. Sharon and Caitlin went with the guided tour, but there were about 15 people instead of the 4 we had on the previous trip and they cut it short. There was also a heavy current to contend with, coming through the break in the reef a few hundred metres away.

An hour later the open Ocean divers caught up with us, and a tired group headed for home, with some great pictures and memories.

North Queesland: Days 6-9

Today we moved from the Hotel in Cairns to our apartment in Port Douglas. The drive along the Captain Cook Highway was great, and nearly the equal of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. Less dramatic, but endless white sand beaches, with rainforest hills rolling down to the shore were pretty spectacular.

The next 2 days consisted of lazy days around the pool and shopping and eating in Port Douglas, at the end of which I was getting a little bored.

Day 9 consisted of a drive further up the coast to stop at the Mossman Gorge. A beautiful deepcut gorge with large cystal clear swimming holes fed by chilly mountain water. Again as it wasn't the wet season it wasn't quite as spectacular as I guess it could have been.

The afternoon was a trip on a boat on the Daintree river to look for "salties". I was pleasantly surprised to see 2-3 resting in the water next to the Mangroves, but am beginning to think Crocodiles are a tourist hoax, and are really plastic mock ups - they never move! We'll need to go to the Northern Territory on the next holiday where they do the dangle chicken carcass thing to prove people like me wrong.

On the Saturday was the most depressing part of the holiday as we stayed in to watch the AFL Grand Final on the telly. It was the all conquering Geelong against the girls team St Kilda, who hadn't won since 1967, and there was a bit of romantic optimism in the air. As it was the game was close fought and went down to the final 5 minutes. St Kilda unfortunately lost - gutted!

Queensland Day 5

Yesterday we said farewell to Neil and Helen, at the end of what I hope was a great 3 week advernture for them: taking some in some of the great sights in Victoria (with mixed weather), a scorching Sydney, and the Barrier Reef. It was really good of them to come so far to see us.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and booking a day trip to one of the inner reef Isles for Day 5.

We chose Green Island, which was about an hour from Cairns, and consisted I guess of what was a small Atoll. The booking clerk promised Sea Turtles, Manta Ray, even sightings of Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa, all of which I took with a pinch of salt.

I was pleasantly surprised on arriving, as the Island was a bit of a tropical paradise: I was expecting Ricardo Montablan and that midget to welcome us, and we quickly booked some snorkelling gear, some sunbeds and obligatory grass umbrella and stared out over prisitine white sand to an aquamarine sea under a cobalt blue sky.

The snorkelling was suprisingly good off the beach, and although not quite as good as the Outer Reef. Swimming out just a little took you to some reasonable coral and fish.

After lunch we took the 10 minute boardwalk through the Island to the other side, admiring the rainforest as we went. The shock as we arrived at the other side was that there was basically no-one here. Your very own private beach paradise - it beggars belief. To cap it all we did actually see a couple of turtles in the water, occassionally raising their heads.

Finally hauling ourselves back to our sun beds the day only got better as an hour later Sharon came stumbling out the water like a scene from Jaws, shouting the same word again and again at the top of her voice. Tens of people turned to look, or lazily lifted heads from sun beds as Sharon shouted "Turtle!, Turtle!, I've been with Turtles".

As much to get away from the embarrasment, Sharon took her turn with the girls and off I went. Surely not, the chance of finding them, but 5 minutes later, there was one on the sea bed. He (?) moved as I approached and we calmly swam around each other for 5 minutes until I darted in for a fleeting touch of his carapace before he got fed up and wandered off.

As we sailed home that night, I was really trying to assimilate some of these incredible experiences.

North Queensland Day 3

The Great Barrier Reef. One of the great reasons to go to this part of the world is a trip to the Barrier Reef. The six of us had booked a trip to the Agincourt Reef - at about 30km out definitely the outer part of the reef - next stop the 1,500 foot drop off the continental shelf.

We went with a pretty slick organisation with their wave piercing high speed catamaran to spend the day attached to their pontoon. The only fly in the ointment is that we shared this wonderful experience with about 300 other people. Arriving at the pontoon, civilized humanity evaporated as 306 people charged for snorkelling gear.

Suitably togged up we had our first foray into the water and received two pretty quick shocks. First was that it may be an Ocean, but the Pacific isn't the North Atlantic: and with a temperature in the mid 20's was really pleasant to swim in. The second was that you have some idea of wondering around in the water waiting for the occassional fish to appear, but the minute your in there are fish everywhere, and evrey colour of the rainbow - its gobsmacking.

One of the highlights of the day for Sharon and I was Neil and Helen generously looking after the 2 girls while we went on an advanced snorkelling tour. "Advanced" or a large lunch had obviously put people off, and 4 of us and a marine biologist wandered/floated/swam off for an hour. The advantage with the expert was being taken to all the interesting spots and our eyes got wider and wider as we wandered from Giant Clams on the sea bed straight out of Hollywood 1930's movies, to sea sponges, to large coral gardens beatifully lit just a couple of feet below the surface. Its a bit of a pity really that one of the highlights with Neil and Helen visiting was the hour we didn't spend with them.

I took Neil's waterproof camera with me on this tour but didn't use it properly. Its pretty disappointing to think of all those great pics you took, and then get back on the boat and find there were none!

All to soon they day was over and we headed back to Cairns. Unfortunately, high on euphoria, the marketing spiel of a 20% discount for another tour was too much and we booked in again for later on the holiday on a slightly different tour.

North Queensland Day 2

Up into the rainforest on our first full day. For those that haven't been, Cairns and the rest of the coast is a thin strip about 5km deep backing onto the great dividing range.

Today we took a cable car up into the rainforest, past the Barron Gorge and falls, and up to Kalundra, an old staging post town, turned hip craft market, tourist spot.

This trip had trapped tourist all over it, but from the minute we started it was great. After an initial climb the cable car settled into a routine of gently gliding over the rainforest canopy, and once over the inital hill the coast vanished and we were in the Lost World. You could look out the window and down the 100 feet or so into the packed/tangled quagmire of vines, bushes, and ferns, or look out over the canopy and watch Cockatoo's swooping.

There were 2 interim stops, on the cable car with great opportunities to wander around boardwalks in within the forest. The second of these stops allowed a view of the Barron Gorge, the edge of which the cable car was following. At this point were the falls, with huge jagged cliffs carrying the river water down to the lower level. As it was the dry season the falls were great but rather overpowered by the cliffs. Postcards of them in full flow in the wet season look spectacular.

We eventually arrive at Kuranda which was a pleasant craft town. It also had a Butterfly World, where you got to wander around a greenhouse type area seeing some of the largest and most colourful butterflies I've ever seen including Cairns Bird Wing and Ulysees. Butterflies have the craziest abilities with that thing where they liquify there bodies in the cocoon and somehow rebuild it all into a butterfly. Its so specialized that toxins ingested by Cairn Birdwing caterpillars remain intact in the adult butterfly, completely ignored by the chemical soup process.

2 hours later we took the famous Kuranda train down the other side of the Gorge back to Cairns. This had been a working railway to get goods off the plateau to the coast, and included 15 tunnels chisseled out of the rock by hand - only in Australia.

The North Queensland Holiday

God we did so much, the blog will run forever.





This was the second and last of our 2 week holidays this year and we were going to be based out of Cairns and Port Douglas, spending the first few days with our friends Neil and Helen, before they returned to the UK.

We leave Melbourne and 3.5 flying hours later we arrive in Cairns, marvelling again at the scale of this Country. You could be in North Africa from London in that time.

Cairns was a little like Blackpool on heat: endless gift shops, "authentic" dijeridoo shops everywhere, and buskers. The buskers were generally mellow, although the one who played on the street below our hotel window played the same repetoire EVERY night.

Something to do with the heat, but Cairns drivers are like Melburnians on Ketamine. I mean it was like watching kids driving those little cars in theme parks. You could see them through the heat haze driving down the road, and you waited and waited and waited. Then they saw you wanting to cross and stopped! How anyone gets anywhere is beyond me.

The hotel was good - clean, roomy, with a balcony overlooking the Esplanade, the large outdoor "infinity" public pool, and the bay. It also had its own pool, mercifully in the shade.

Sydney trip with Neiland Helen Sept 2009

Travelled with Neil and Helen for my (this being Sharon since I'm in Sydney about once a month) second trip to Sydney to finish off our sightseeing there. Managed to find a few more things that we hadn't done the last time .

The first of these was a walk around the Botanical gardens where we spent a great deal of time being amazed by the fruit bat colony ( also known as Flying Foxes ). The colony was suprisingly active for the daytime and a soaring temp of 30 degrees plus. We managed to successfully duck the falling gauno as we watched and heard these flying acrobats, seeking perches amongst the trees.

Inside the park we also discovered a large pond, home to numerous tame eels. These eels which looked much like Moray eels to me (I admit to having no wisdom to bring to the subject) were obviously used to being fed, as every time a child stuck a stick into their watery homes they would swim quickly over to this spot, and surface through the murky depths, mouths agape. Not that dissimilar to me at lunch time in a swanky restaurant, when the plates are hovered inches from me on their way to their ultimate destinations: I am not sure if it has been the eating in Sydney or our recent holiday that has added 1/2 stone to these rapidly ageing hips!

We also enjoyed a night cruise to Darling harbour for a swanky night time meal, and a day cruise to Manly where I enjoyed sitting on the beach wall under the stately pines admiring the view whilst the children: made sandcastles(Ciara), posed( Caitlin) and kicked sand in people's faces (Grant).

The trip was finished off by a very enjoyable morning around the Rocks Sunday market. All of us spent a good number of hours trying to decide which trinkets to purchase, all of us except Grant that is, who looked on in disbelief at the amount of time his wife, kids and friends would spend emersed in tack and still claiming to want to see more. He seemed to make himself scarce whenever I needed a second opinion on a purchase which only held me back a small amount in the end, as I had friends there to help for once!

July -Sept 2009

Just realised how little we have been writing on blog site since returning from our last Queensland holiday.

Ciara's leg has healed really well and her cast came off 6 weeks after her leg was fixed. The wheelchair was a nightmare so was a great relief to see the back of that. She also received an Aussie statement at the end of term which means a classroom assistant finally!! Shame it had to be Australia that provided it but it may mean things are easier on our return to the UK.

Caitlin had a great term and continued to enjoy all that Australia has to offer including an Aussie accent and terminology. She now owns a pair of thongs (flip flops to you Brits), she wears sunnies (sunglasses) and swims in bathers (swimsuits), she meets people at the intersection (crossroads), she watches footie ( Australian rules football ) and supports St. Kilda avidly!! These are just a few of the ones that were pointed out to us when friends recently joined us for a holiday.

Grant has continued loving working out here - NOT! but has agreed to extend contract to Sept 2010 when we really will have to come home, and I really must stop enjoying this eternal holiday!

I have managed to engross myself in a new hobby - creative writing which I continue to inflict on my nearest and dearest, however no sign of a bestseller yet, not even a Jeffrey Archer, so guess I will have to find a real job on return to U.K!

The weather has been cold and rainy pretty, much like a U.K summer, with the odd day of mid to high twenties a forerunner of things to come. I am feeling a little nervous of anything hotter as I am more Celtic in temperament than Mediterranean.

Our friends from the UK came out to visit in September and spent 3 weeks with us. We managed to fit in the best that Melbourne had to offer i.e. cold weather, a wine tasting in the Yarra Glen where all the wineries were shut, and a trip to Williamstown where everything was closed due to lack of interest at that time of year. However the situation was rescued by some good restaurants, some good drinking sessions, and a few trips away. Hopefully the weather and holiday season will kick in for our next visitors due in Nov and Dec.