weekend

big sticks

Last weekend we took a trip to the Old Bus Depot Markets in Manuka. Lots of great/interesting stuff there, bargain herbs ($2 a pot) and wonderful fresh lemonade and hot apple cider. I loved the cinnamon sticks - the biggest I've ever seen. 

seen while riding

Another great sight during a recent morning bike ride was a wallaby hanging out on the path. 

teepee update

It seems that the teepee is a personal protest about University of Canberra student accommodation. I love the idea that someone is actually living in it. No doubt it won't last long. Already on the Canberra website RiotAct there has been debate as to whether a teepee on a raft fits the definition of a boat, and if it does it's not supposed to be there. The teepee did look beautiful emerging from the mist rising from the lake this morning when I went for a ride. 


And while I'm linking, check out Audrey68's koala pics here and here. Seeing these pics makes me realise how rarely you see koalas that are not snuggling into the crook of a tree. 

the mystery of the lake

There is a teepee floating on Lake G! We don't know what it is doing there or who is on it. But it looks great and what a view you would have. 

ring ring

One of the weirder sites of note around Canberra is the carillon. We'd never seen it up close but the interest of curious visitors (our first since being back in Canberra) gave us a good excuse to check it out. I'm still not sure about attending a recital, but Aspen Island, where the carillon is located, is surely a great spot for a picnic. 

Ham in Spanish

M and I have started Spanish lessons. Our homework this week is to create our own vocab list of words that are important to us, with one word for each letter of the alphabet. 


In searching for words, I've come across a great site called SpanishDict. It translates words and gives you conjugations. Obviously it's automatically generated as it conjugates nouns too. To hilarious effect... 


For example: 

Future Continuous

• I will be hamming
• you will be hamming
• he/she will be hamming
• we will be hamming
• you will be hamming
• they will be hamming

Present Perfect Continuous

• I have been hamming
• you have been hamming
• he/she has been hamming
• we have been hamming
• you have been hamming
• they have been hamming

Future Perfect Continuous

• I will have been hamming
• you will have been hamming
• he/she will have been hamming
• we will have been hamming
• you will have been hamming
• they will have been hamming

Past Perfect Continuous

• I had been hamming
• you had been hamming
• he/she had been hamming
• we had been hamming
• you had been hamming
• they had been hamming

You have been hammed. 

yum - part two

So getting back to our delicious meal at Neila's ...


This is what we ate: 
To start, tea infused walnuts, and spiced fennel


For entree, tea cured salmon, almond, noodle salad &
sichuan pepper drunken chicken, lime, enoki soup


For main course, slow cooked beef short rib, tendon, lettuce, fungus &
duck leg, peaches, beans, almond, red shiso


For dessert, pumpkin dumplings, cinnamon butterscotch, ginger icecream &
licorice, prune frozen mousse, almond icecream.

yum - part one

Something we never tire joking about is that one of the great things about Canberra is that it's an easy place to get out of. This weekend we took a trip so we could dine at Neila in Cowra. With a previous visit nearly a decade ago barely a dim memory, we wanted to check it out again. The place is consistently rated highly for various foodie awards, which from our experience last night are still very well deserved. Our dinner was definitely the best food we've had in ages. But more about that later. 

First we went to Young and headed for the market. We arrived a little too late, so had some lunch at the Country Providore Cafe instead - great juices, coffee not bad, food so so - but a nice atmosphere, good service, and we bought some local produce too. 

The winery we had wanted to go to was closed - obviously Chalkers Crossing are doing well with cellar door only open Monday to Thursday (??), so M made a purchase of his chosen wines at the Young tourist information centre. There's a good range there, although despite their signage, wine is not for tasting, only for buying. We purchased a Moppity Riesling 2010 & Chalker's Crossing Hilltops Shiraz 2008. We also took a quick visit to Bluestill Distillery - a business making Australian gin, vodka, bourbon and whiskey. 

On our drive to Cowra we detoured when we saw a sign to Koorawatha Falls. We followed a dirt track and eventually parked when we saw other cars on the side of the road, and could see the track was looking a little too 4wheeldrive. Oh for the Jeep! A passing farmer offered us a ride up to the falls in his ute, but we decided to get some exercise. Once we made it up the hill, we found a charming spot with people picnicking and young people taking frightening leaps from the cliff top into the waterhole. 

I'm delighted to report that subsequent research (ahem, Wikipedia) suggests that Koorawatha is a kooky locality - with sightings of a 'hairy man' immortalised in a poem from 1900. Hehehe.

cucumber

Tonight we dined on, among other ingredients, home (pot) grown cucumber, which was delicious. 

The sulphur crested cockatoos were very plentiful tonight. M counted 55+ eating on the grass outside the front of our place. When I went to take a photo, a dog on its nightly walk gleefully frightened the whole lot into the air. 


I googled, but couldn't find a collective noun specific to cockatoos. There definitely should be. We suggest: a raucity, a shriek, a swoop, a barrage. 

slack

Not much posting but a lot of other stuff has been happening - a weekend to Adelaide, a walk in Mulligan's Flat Nature Reserve, workingworkingworking, went to a party, bought a new camera -  and plenty of bike riding. I'm not quite ready to ride to work, but I am getting used to riding morning and evening without getting too tired. One thing about riding regularly though - I get hungry!

Echidna in Mulligan's Flat Nature Reserve

Yellow Box-Red Gum Grassy Woodland