Weekend in Merimbula
< Alex on the beach
We (David, his brother Christopher, sister-in-law Sharon, their son Alex, and I) spent the weekend at David's house in Merimbula. Merimbula is on the 'Sapphire Coast' of New South Wales, and has a salt water lake is famous for its oyster beds. You can see them in one of the photos in the new gallery.
That's Alex in the photo on the left, drawing the first bar of Haydn's cello concerto in the sand of the beach (a first ever?), where we decided to work off our Saturday feast of fish & chips made with flathead caught by local fishermen. The beach sand is clean, creamy white in color when dry, and squeaks when you walk on it. There is a shore break good for swimming and easy body surfing, and a sandbar break good for board surfing. We watched a kite surfer taking advantage of the strong, cross-shore wind.
The boardwalk that meanders along the lake into town helped us work off another fish dinner. 
The house has a balcony wrapped halfway around it offering stunning views of the garden, Merimbula Lake, and the Pacific Ocean.
Heaven.
A Room with a View
< The view from my office
D: Well, I've started on the next adventure - the doctorate at Mount Stromlo (RSAA). So far, all I've been doing is the usual bureaucratic stuff like forms, keys, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. And an office. With quite a remarkable view. I shall have to resist the temptation to gaze out at the mountains all day!
Royal Melbourne Scones - Makes 16
< Royal Melbourne Scones
I baked some scones to go with tea this morning. They turned out well, so I'm posting the recipe here. (See photo of some we haven't eaten yet).
Plain flour for dusting
3 cups unbleached, self rising flour
3 ounces (80g) cold butter, cut into cubes
1/8 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups whole milk
pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 390F (200C).
Lightly dust a cookie sheet with plain flour. Sift self-rising flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl. Add butter cubes and cut in with pastry blender (or two knives) until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the milk. Stir with a flat-bladed knife until mixture forms a soft dough. Turn out onto lightly floured work surface and knead gently until smooth. (Don't knead too much or the scones will be tough.)
Pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick circle. Using a 2 inch diameter round cutter, cut dough into 12 rounds. Place rounds onto flour dusted cookie sheet. Press remaining dough together and cut out four more rounds. Place on cookie sheet with others.
Sprinkle tops with a little plain flour, or for a sweeter variety, brush tops with milk and sprinkle with a bit of sugar.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until golden and well risen. Transfer to wire rack.
Serve warm with Jam and clotted cream (or butter).
Note: for a special treat, add a third cup of currants or chopped dates to the recipe.
Finally, for the pedants: in the US they're pronounced to rhyme with "hones", whereas in Oz the word rhymes with "Fonz".
Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, Orchids, Christmas presents, PhD's, and it's official!
A trip to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve
< Pelican and Australian Ibis at Tidbinbilla
Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve is a 40 minute drive from the center of Canberra city center. It covers an area of about 55 square km and consists of a large valley floor, the Tidbinbilla Mountain and the Gibraltar range. The scenic drive through the reserve includes a lookout with panoramic views of the Tidbinbilla Valley. A hike along a Bush trail led to a small lake where David took the picture of the Pelican and Australian Ibis on the left. We also had a close encounter with a Red-bellied Black Snake (Linda was not happy), and saw two platypuses swimming (Linda was happy).
Black Mountain Reserve and orchids
< Sun Orchid on Black Mountain
The Black Mountain Reserve is nearly impossible to get into, now that the ACT Government has built the world's stupidest road interchange around it (it almost rivals Auckland's bridge for user-unfriendliness). However, we spent a couple of hours there on 25 October, a nice sunny spring day. The first thing we noticed was a group of orchid enthusiasts crouching over some small ground orchids, photographing them. So David photographed a couple too – see illustration at left of (probably) a Spotted Sun Orchid (Thelymitra species). Over 57 species of ground Orchids grow in the reserve. It's an orchid-spotter's heaven.
Christmas Goodies
Christmas baskets full of Australian goodies like TimTams, Venetians, Violet Crumble bars, Beerenberg blackberry jam, Christmas crackers, and tiny plush koalas are winging their way toward South Carolina. Christmas crackers are a party favor rather than a nosh. They look like a cylinder of wrapping paper tied at both ends. One person grabs one end. A second person grabs the other end. At the count of three, both pull hard. The cylinder breaks emitting a loud cracking noise. The person who ends up with the longer end has to wear the silly hat contained therein to the dinner table. A physicist has come up with a formula for the perfect way to pull a Christmas cracker.
http://www.physorg.com/news9192.html
David's doing a PhD
David has been just been accepted (today) into the PhD program at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at ANU/Mt. Stromlo. Wahooo!!!!
The Cosmic Smiley
< The Cosmic Smiley
On the 1st of December David also managed to snap a photo of the "cosmic smiley" - a rare conjunction of the crescent Moon, Venus and Jupiter (left).
A bigger image is available here.
And guess what...
Yeeeehaaaawwwww!!!!!, David proposed to me at dinner on November 13, and I accepted.
Oakey Hill
We went for a mile and a half walk up Oakey Hill today. Oakey Hill Nature Reserve occupies the ridge between Lyons and Weston Creek in south Canberra. There's a trig point (survey marker) at the top at 684 metres (2244 feet).
On a whim David took a series of hand held panoramic shots while walking around the trig point (a large metal structure). Some hours later, the result is quite a nice panorama. It may take a little while to load. When you see the photo, click on it, hold and drag, to scan the full panorama, or just use the control buttons. You can zoom using your mouse wheel, too, in some browsers.
The views are excellent.
The National Gallery of Australia and Floriade
< Heads in the water - National Gallery sculpture garden
Last Monday was a rainy day in Canberra. Rather than giving up on exercise altogether, we decided to hike the corridors of the National Gallery. The imposing building was designed in the twentieth century "Brutalist" style, and houses some wonderful collections. But! The gallery is not, to quote an elderly woman following us down the steep exit ramp, very user friendly. Favorite works were the Aboriginal Memorial, paintings by Australian artists Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, and Margaret Preston, and Jackson Pollock's "Blue Poles."
See our National Gallery and environs photo gallery and the National Gallery Home page.
Floriade is a flower and entertainment festival held annually in Commonwealth Park featuring massive displays of flowering bulbs with integrated sculptures. It takes place from September to mid October, and attracts more tourists to the Australian Capital Territory than any other event.
Tuesday's weather turned out to be better by far than Monday's - cool and sunny. We headed out to Floriade reasonably early but as usual the parking lot was jammed. Our luck held, however, and a parking spot opened up in front of us. David was a bit jaded ('oh, no, not another Floriade') but this year the flowers are very pretty and present a better than usual opportunity for some 'abstract' floral photos. We both carried cameras.
See the new photo gallery page by David. More to come.
P.S. Are you having Christmas this year, Judy? If yes, we'll be there.
BBQ, stirfry, Vanilla Slice, and 'round Canberra
< Black Mountain Tower from Mt AinslieL: Those of you who know me well understand that if I'm writing about food, I'm dieting. It turns out that David is an excellent BBQ chef. YAY!! That makes dieting a treat. On tonight's menu, pushing summer by a couple of months, was Porterhouse steak, corn on the cob, tossed salad, and an excellent DeBortoli Windy Peak Sangiovese. I'm at my best at the saute station, so we've been having lots of stirfrys. Yesterday's was pork. Here's the quick version:
1 & 1/2 pounds of pork loin, cut into thin strips
1/2 pound of fresh snow peas, cut diagonally into 1" wide pieces
1 medium carrot cut into 1/4" strips
1/4 to 1/2 green pepper (or red, or yellow) cut into 1/4" strips
1 small bunch of green onions, cut diagonally into 1/2" bits
1 stalk of celery, sliced thin
any other veggies you have on hand, mushrooms are good, sliced or cut into bits
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup unsalted peanuts (or cashews) crushed
3 tbsp sweet chili sauce with ginger
3 tbsp oyster sauce
a couple of splashes of dry sherry
Salt & pepper to taste
Peanut oil
Heat oil to the smoking point and add the pork. Saute until nicely browned. Add the sherry and burn off the alcohol. Add the garlic and carrot strips. Cook until the carrots are slightly softened. Add the rest of the veggies and saute until tender/crisp. Add the chili and oyster sauces. Taste. Add S&P if necessary. Serve over steamed Jasmine rice. Garnish with the crushed peanuts.
Today's photo gallery includes images from another trip to the Botanical gardens, a walk along the beautiful esplanade across the street from the National Library, views of the city from Black Mountain, Red hill, and Mt. Ainslie.
Oh yes... Vanilla slices. They are a heavenly concoction of layered puff pastry, and rich, vanilla flavored pastry cream. The best in the city are found at Deakin's Cafe d'Lish. Heavenly! Not for dieters.
Reminder to myself to get David's brother Christopher's recipe for Meat pie.
Embracing my inner tourist
< Drynaria fern 'nest leaves'Living with a native Canberran means I can be as curious as I like about Canberra without feeling nosy or intrusive. My Web design work takes up only a few hours a day, leaving the rest for day trips to places like the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG), the Mount Stromlo Observatory, and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla.
The Botanic Gardens, a wonderful collection of unique Australian flora, is on nearby Black Mountain. About 99,000 plants representing more than 6,800 species are cultivated. Each section of the garden is based on a theme, like Rainforest Gully, the Rock Garden, the Eucalypt Lawn and the Mallee Shrublands. There is a hot house with native orchid species and rare ferns that's open to the public, and a nice patio cafe at which to sip coffee and eat pies or pastry when you need a break from the hike around the gardens.
The birds in the ANBG are oblivious to visitors, and it's a haven for bird watchers. The Choughs (pronounced "chuffs") and Red Wattlebirds are very cheeky and practically demand to be fed. The day was overcast, but David took some photos anyway. We plan to return for more photos when the weather's a bit warmer and sunnier. See the latest gallery.
< The main dish at Tidbinbilla
Mount Stromlo Observatory is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU). The site of the observatory offers a spectacular view of the city. On January 18, 2003 a firestorm hit Mount Stromlo destroying five telescopes, workshops, seven homes, a priceless library, and the administration building. The ruins of the 50 inch Great Melbourne telescope are visible from the visitors parking lot.
We ran into a friend of David's, radio astronomer Dr. David Jauncey, who shared some fascinating stories about the fire. Dr Jauncey mentioned that the employees at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, our next destination (twenty miles away) were trapped by the fire there and battled it themselves. Amazingly, no one was injured and no damage was done to the facility.
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex is part of the Deep Space Network run by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It is commonly referred to as the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station. It is the only NASA tracking station in Australia still in operation, and is the largest antenna complex in the southern hemisphere. The four large antennas receive data from spacecraft, like the Mars rover, exploring our Solar System and beyond. The visitor center offers an excellent view of the largest dish, a piece of the Moon that's over 3.8 billion years old, the latest images from Mars, spacecraft models, and real, flown space hardware. The cafe and gift shop is open everyday for meals. There is a playground for children, and picnic areas from which to enjoy magnificent views of the Tidbinbilla valley.
The day we drove up Mount Stromlo (visible from David's house, in the distance) was quite cold, so we didn't take any photos there. The more sheltered Tidbinbilla valley offered better photographic opportunities (see the photo gallery).
