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.