One of the great things about getting down to our beach house at Lorne for the weekend is the opportunity to cook up a feast for our family and friends.

The other is to make use of the fine seafood, vegetables and smallgoods available at the local stores.

For a party of six or more, a paella is the perfect dish to conquer both of the above.

The paella is a rice based dish, originating from Spain. It is thought the first paellas came from the Valencian region, typically using rabbit or chicken, snails and beans. Nowadays, the many paella variations now found in restaurants will likely bare little resemblance to the first dishes from 19th century Spain. The classical “Western” paella consists usually of seafood (often prawns, mussels and fish) and perhaps a surf-and-turf inclusion of chorizo and/or chicken.

While a traditional Spaniard may scoff at some of these new age interpretations, my opinion is that even a more Western paella, when executed in accordance with some basic paella principles, can still capture the spirit of the original dishes.

These principles are:

Rice

The rice is the star of the dish, everything else plays second fiddle. Therefore, the correct rice selection is crucial to a great paella outcome.

Short grain is strictly only acceptable, and preferably either Calasparra or Bomba rice. If the only thing you have is Arborio, then this is a one-time-only acceptable substitution. Jasmine or basmati are a definite no-no.

My preference is calasparra, I think the texture is perfect. It is also relatively easy to find at local markets and delis. Yes, it is worth the search.

Sofrito

The sofrito is a rich and jammy sauce, that provides the rice with some additional flavour and liquid. The sofrito I made was a combination primarily of capsicum and tomatoes, as well as bay leaves and garlic.

My version below was based on the Movida recipe I followed. I imagine that you could use a variant of these flavours to taste.

Stock

You really need a great stock for a paella. I wanted to make a great fish stock for my paella but I had trouble tracking down fish heads at short notice (a trip to South Melbourne market, Victoria Street in Richmond and even the fish co-op at Lorne brought no joy). This meant I had to purchase 1.5 litres of fancy stuff from Lorne Greens. ($24?!).

Make (or purchase) the best stock you can. It makes a big difference to the flavour of the rice once it all comes together.

Paellera

A paellera is a large, shallow pan for cooking paella. If you can’t obtain one of these, use a large frying pan.

Socarrat – optional(!)

The socarrat of paella is the burnt and slightly caramelised crust that forms on the bottom of the paella pan.

This crust of burnt rice is achieved by not stirring the rice for the duration of the cooking/absorption process.

Unfortunately, I think the heat was not quite strong enough during my cooking to achieve the much admired socarrat. I’ll mark this as an optional outcome from a paella, as you can certainly get a great tasting dish without the socarrat making an appearance.

The recipe I used was based on the Movida cookbook, by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish. Frank being the chef from the famous Melbourne restaurant by the same name. For my adaption, I excluded the rabbit, fish and periwinkles. I added squid, mussels and chorizo instead!

Making the Sofrito…

Here are the ingredients!

EVOO, Capsicums, Tomatoes, Bay Leaves, Onions and Garlic

Fry up some diced onion, garlic and bay leaves for around 10 minutes.

In the meantime, dice up the capsicum. (This sends you a little crazy after four of them…)

Loads of diced capsicum...

Add the capsicum to the onions. Keep stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick. It takes over an hour for it to really come together.

After an hour or so, it starts to go quite jammy...

...now jammy!

Making the Paella…

Here are the ingredients!

Peas, sofrito, squid, raw tiger prawns, white wine, fish stock, lemon, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, parsley, garlic, safron, chorizo, calasparra rice and mussels. Phew!

Firstly, take out your paella pan and fry up some olive oil, the saffron, rosemary, thyme and garlic. At this stage, you can also fry your chorizos. On a large barbeque, it was useful to be able to do this side by side with the paella underway…

Paella pan with chorizo cooking away...

Frying up the herbs and spices

Next step is to add the rice. Warm it through for a minute or two, then add the sofrito to stir through. Great colour!

Rice goes in...

In goes the sofrito...

Add the white wine and the fish stock. Now, from the point on, you should no longer stir the dish, in order to create the socarrat crust on the bottom (theoretically!).

Looks like too much liquid. Never fear!

The next 20 to 30 minutes is done by look and feel. Keep the heat as even as possible on the bottom of the pan. As you can image above, on a barbeque the heat in uneven. We continually rotated the pan at achieve an even heat.

Over the next little while, the rice will begin to absorb the liquid. Don’t stir, it’s not risotto!

Almost there. Adding the seafood...

You’ll see it get to a stage where it’s almost ready. It’s probably best now to add seafood at this point, as it needs the least cooking. A handy hint from my recipe was to place the prawns over little air bubbles in the rice, where steam was escaping.

Once you’re happy with it, cover with foil to rest.

While resting, fry up some garlic, a bit more of the wine and steam the mussels in a pan. Give them a shake after five minutes and throw out any that don’t open.

Place the best mussels on top of the paella. Garnish with lemon and parsley.

Voilà!

Sofrito

125ml olive oil
2 white onions, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 bay leaves
4 large red capsicums, seeded and diced
4 ripe tomatoes (alternatively, ~300g canned tomatoes)

• Heat the oil in a heavy based saucepan over low-med heat
• Saute the onion, garlic and bay leaves for around 10 minutes to soften
• Add the capsicum. Cook for around 30 minutes.
• Add the tomato and continue to cook at a low heat for another 1 to 1.5 hours
• Makes around 450g (or two cups)

Paella

100ml olive oil
pinch of saffron
2 tbsp of thyme leaves
2 tsp of rosemary leaves
4 garlic cloves, finely sliced
800g calasparra rice
sea salt
500g sofrito
1 chorizo sausage, sliced and grilled
250ml white wine
1.5 litres of fish stock
extra hot water on hand
1 squid tube, sliced into strips
small bag of mussels, debearded
12-15 small raw prawns
handful of frozen peas
2 tbsp of flat leaf parsley for garnish
1 lemon, sliced for garnish

• Heat the oil in your paella pan.
• Add the saffron, thyme, rosemary and garlic. Stir for a minute or so.
• Add the rice, with perhaps a few pinches of salt. Stir for a minute to coat the rice in the herbs and oil.
• Outside of the pan at this time, fry up your chorizo.
• Add the wine, and then fish stock, and stir to combine. Increase the heat to high to bring to boil.
• From now on, do not stir the dish.
• After 15-20 minutes, the rice will have made it’s way towards the surface. If you’re short on liquid, add more hot water if required. Don’t add more than necessary. Better to have to little than too much.
• Add the chorizo, dotted around the rice.
• Once the rice has almost absorbed all liquid, place the prawns and squid around the rice. Add the peas.
• Continue to cook for another 5 minutes or so until rice is done and no liquid remains.
• Remove from the heat and cover with foil, rest for 10 minutes.
• While the rice is resting, fry up a little extra garlic with wine and olive oil. Add the mussels and steam for 5 minutes. Discard unopened mussels.
• To garnish, add mussels to the top of the rice. Cover with the chopped parsley and sliced lemon.
• Serves six people very generously

Gentle Annie

I remember the first time I went berry picking. I was about 7 years old at the time and some family friends owned a blueberry farm (well, it wasn’t a farm, probably more accurately it was an acre or so of blueberry bushes at the bottom of their land). I was terribly excited to go blueberry picking and remember running out into the bushes, twirling the wicker basket along my arm. Pulling the plump berries from the bushes and shoving them in my mouth was great fun. However, as the morning wore on and the sun rose in the sky, the appeal of berry picking began to wane. I ended up discarding my basket (with precious few picked berries in it) and chasing some of the other kids up and down the bushes, generally creating a nuisance for the others who were actually harvesting the fruit. Eventually it was time to take a break and we went inside to enjoy fresh blueberry pancakes with ice-cream and maple syrup. To me, these pancakes were the highlight of the day.

More recently, we have made it somewhat of a tradition to visit Gentle Annie Berry Gardens whenever we head to Lorne. If we visit on a fine day during December or January we will head out into the gardens and come home with more berries than anyone could rightly need. When it is too hot, too cold or we are simply too lazy we still visit the berry farm, but instead of rushing to the bushes we make a bee-line for the tearooms.

The Gentle Annie tearoom is a study in all things berry related. Of course, they do offer a range of savoury dishes (pies, quiches etc which we have tried once or twice) but the obvious draw are the fresh berry concoctions. After a somewhat successful lunch at the Olive farm, we decided to stop by Gentle Annie for dessert. Here is our selection of berry related goodness:

Berry smoothie

Rich, milky, berry smoothie with an abundance of seeds and an excellent mauve hue.

Warm berry pie with ice-cream

A warm berry pie, served with ice-cream. The hot-cold combination in a dessert is always a favourite of mine. Soft, warm, oozing berries, encased in a thin, crispy, homemade pie shell (that I sadly can’t eat as it is wheaty).

Strawberry pancake with maple syrup

A simple pancake with fresh strawberry filling – yum!

And the winner of the day – fresh, warm scones with cream and  jam made from the gardens (strawberry and silvanberry respectively):

Assembly:

About to be demolished:

Sated and full of various incarnations of berry, we headed to the farm shop to replenish our stock of jams, preserves and sauces:

They make and sell a variety of jams (including strawberry, strawberry and rhubarb, silvanberry, loganberry and raspberry) as well as dessert sauces and cordials, ice-cream and berry sorbets. The farm shop even sold a berry candy that strongly reminded me of the roll-ups of my childhood (which they claimed were good for you, although even as a child I suspected these were not – turns out I was right).

Heading back to the car, balancing my prizes in my arms, it came close to that feeling of happiness I had after my first day of berry picking.

Details

Gentle Annie – Berry Gardens and Tearooms
520 Pennyroyal Valley Rd
Pennyroyal, Victoria, Australia 3235
(03) 5236 3391

In the tearoom, all things berry from about $7.50 – $12.00
Jams are $6 (although raspberry is $7)

This weekend I (inadvertently) ended up at Schoolies in Lorne. To be honest, this isn’t the first time I have ended up gatecrashing the highschool end of year celebrations. The first time this happened we were driving into Lorne on a Friday night at about midnight. We were perplexed to see huge groups of teenagers wandering the streets and a little concerned to see plumes of smoke in the air. It turns out that the teenagers were doing burn-outs, leaving tyre marks wavering down the centre of the main street. That weekend we vowed to avoid all activities that may be associated with the Schoolies and consequently had a relaxing weekend away.

Once again we happened to schedule a trip to Lorne during the Schoolies festivities. In my defense, this time of year is really the last opportunity for a quiet weekend away before the madness of Christmas and January. This weekend, as in Schoolies weekends past, we decided to avoid any potential Schoolies-related activities, lest we be branded a bunch of “toolies”. It was in this vein that we found ourselves visiting the olive farm Old Lorne Road Olives (OLRO) for lunch, followed by dessert at the Berry Farm, Gentle Annie (which I will post about later in the week).

OLRO is a favourite haunt for lunch with friends when we are in Lorne. It is situated about 20 minutes outside of Lorne, in Deans Marsh. The OLRO has a range of artwork for sale as well as a suite of olive-related products (including aprons, tea towels, olive oil, olives, olive tea and soap).

Old Lorne Road Olives

Six of us arrived for Saturday lunch to a moderately full dining room, with all tables bar one either full or proudly displaying a “reserved” sign. Despite us being “too old for schoolies” we were seemingly too young for OLRO, as evidenced by the po-faced waitress who wasn’t particularly welcoming. The waitress made little effort to find seats for us, eventually commanded that we sit outside (in the semi-cold) and thrust a business card at us, exclaiming “you better book next time!”.

It was an interesting start to lunch.

On the plus side, it wasn’t that cold outside and it gave us an opportunity to reel from our poor treatment, safe in the knowledge we could not be overheard. Further, it allowed me to take some photos of our lunch with my “big” camera, given no-one else had been relegated to the Siberia of the balcony.

After a couple more shall we say “interesting” back and forths with the waitress (which I won’t bother to detail here), we settled in with a bottle of Pizzini Pinot Grigio. The meals arrived and looked pretty good:

Cream of artichoke soup - not sure why I was given a fork...

I had the cream of artichoke soup, served drizzled with olive oil and garnished with an unidentified bit of greenery that tasted strongly of aniseed (a clandestine taste-test of an olive leaf on the way out assured us that it wasn’t olive leaf in the soup). The soup came with a lovely (or so I’m told) olive bread on the side.

Mr M & Mr D both ordered the veal and pork terrine. I was surprised when their meals arrived hot – my understanding was that a terrine by definition is served cold (and it turns out the Cambridge Dictionary agrees with me). In any event their meal (which was more of a meat loaf) was delicious; it was made with a mixture of veal and pork, covered in crispy pancetta and served with parmesan and a rich tomato sauce. I admit I had a bit of food envy.

Terrine?

The pistachio and polenta crusted sardines were also a winner. The fresh sardines were lightly crumbed and served with a salad of cucumber and olives.

Sardines

The mushroom tart (which from the menu description sounded great), was a lacklustre mess of cheesiness without any bite or interest. Unlike the other meals, it also looked pretty unappetising on the plate:

A sad mushroom tart

So all-in-all it was a bit of a mixed bag really. Most of the food was pretty good, but the service was pretty poor (or, in the very least it was odd and unwelcoming). At this stage I am undecided about whether I would return (I do love to hold a grudge!), so time will tell. Maybe you will have a better experience, but whatever you do, don’t forget to book!

Details

Old Lorne Road Olives
45 Old Lorne Road
Deans Marsh, Victoria
Ph: (03) 52 363 479
Meals from $10-25.

Coming up: delicious dessert from Gentle Annie.

With my ultramarathon training in full swing, I figured it would be a good idea to do some 400’s. 

However, unlike most runners who head to the track to run 400m reps, I headed down the Great Ocean road to Lorne for repeats of a hill that climbs 400m vertical.  Starting at sea level the ‘Five Mile track’ climbs, and climbs some more, up to 445m, over 5.45km (See map with profile).  There is only 3 little portions of respite as you make your way up, but when you’re doing repeats it makes no difference, as you have to run it all in the end.

My goal for the day was a 5hour run, and gain as many vertical meter as possible, with 2000m as a goal in the back of my mind.  Seeing as there is no real mountains near by (I mean 1000m+), I would have to do repeats of the smaller hills, and basically spend no time on the flat.  Ideally I would love to run up a huge mountain and finish at the top, but not even Australia’s highest mountain would provide more than 3hours of running. 

So straight out of the car and up it was, and up, and up.  With a hill like this, in the steeper sections it’s hard to control your heart rate, because if you go too slow, you’re basically not moving… and that just takes the fun out of it.  Before I knew it I’m holding 85-90% of HR max and there was no real chance for recovery until the top, which at the pace I was running was 39min (bottom to top).  On the flip side, once at the top there was a whole lot of down.  Even though my heart rate was able to come back down to a comfortable level, running downhill is just, and if not more, taxing on your legs. 

A full lap ended up taking 1hour10mins, a little longer than I had expected, but I would keep going up.  At the end of my third repeat, 3hours30mins run, I met up with my housemate (Troy) and we spent 30mins running along the Lorne foreshore to take me to 4hours.  I was smashed, blown, gassed, bonked, whatever you want to call it, but I was done.  At 4hours, 1500m vertical and the same in descent, with an average HR of 168, I had equaled my longest run, but increased the vertical gain by 500m. 

More long runs needed, more fuel pre run needed, but otherwise I’m happy with my progression, especially with the humid conditions.  I love my new Salomon shoes (XA Pro 3D Ultra), specially made to run off road, I have never experienced grip and comfort like it.  I also enjoyed running with my new NathanSports hydration vest (HPL #020), so snug to wear, with nutrition at my fingertips.

I now have a benchmark and some figures for running up some decent hills.  I intend to head back up the ‘Five Mile track’ a few times, with 6 repeats somewhat replicating (I think) what I may have to endure at the Bogong to Hotham.

In the end it’s all good training!

On a side note, I have to let you know how proud I am of my Mum….  She ran her first 5km race today!  27mins 30sec… that’s 5.5min/km pace… Not bad for a 55yr old woman that’s only been running for 6months!  Wooo!

I’ll keep you posted,

Ryan

http://www.bogongtohotham.com/

And, we’re back! Only one week late this time!

Week 2 of SNL was definitely a success. It was supposed to rain all day and night Friday, so we tried to prepare. All day Friday, however, it didn’t rain so we thought we’d lucked out. We got to 30 Rock at about 4 p.m. (2 hours earlier than the week before) in anticipation of a big crowd lined up to see January Jones and Black Eyed Peas. So, imagine our surprise when we got there and saw only one person sitting out waiting! We were so stoked! Figuring the threat of rain had deterred some less-dedicated fans, we couldn’t believe our luck. And it wasn’t even raining! Not until after we’d gotten all our stuff set up, anyway. Then, as if the rain had been waiting just for us, a light sprinkle began that continued pretty consistently All. Night. Long. For a while, we were the only people in line. Around 5 we were joined by a visiting Texan who is a comedienne and had been waiting her whole life to see the show. People didn’t really start showing up until around midnight, then there was another wave, like usual, around 6:30 a.m.

The first week, I had come unprepared for the bitter cold that forced some people out of line. This week, having had the experience of sleeping on the sidewalk and anticipating the rain, I was much better prepared, or so I thought. I had a blanket to sit/lay on, plus another to cover up with if I decided to try to sleep; the cheap novelty pillow I’d bought out of necessity the previous week and one off my bed; and a poncho and an umbrella. All of this I crammed (along with several books to read, snacks and drinks, a notebook, pens, playing cards, and a coloring book and crayons) into a duffel bag, which I had planned on sleeping on. I would have liked to be able to sleep. It’s kind of hard when the blanket you want to lay on, your pillow, and your body are all soaked through with rain. At several points during the night, I walked to the nearby McDonald’s and used the hand dryer in the bathroom to dry some of my clothes and my shoes. It was terrible.

So what does one do sitting outside in the rain for 13 hours, you might ask. That is an excellent question. Whenever we get to the end of the time and they start handing out tickets, we can never quite figure out how, exactly, it is that we sat out for all that time and didn’t get bored once. One thing we did was, whenever someone walked by and asked what we were waiting for, we would tell them that we were in line for “Star Search” auditions the next evening. A lot of people bought it, too! At some point in the night, the Texan woke me and alerted me to the presence of the most brilliant man of the 2nd half of the 20th century. . .as I stood and turned around towards the doors of 30 Rock, I saw LORNE MICHAELS walking from the building to his car. It was my proudest moment. He was clearly in a hurry–probably trying to get home and get some sleep before the show–but something he did (or didn’t do, I guess) struck me as odd. He didn’t even spare a glance for the dozens of people who were waiting overnight in the rain and the cold to see his work. But whatever. He’s Lorne Michaels.

So. . .Saturday morning, we got 2nd and 3rd choice for our show. I decided to play it safe and be number 1 for the dress rehearsal instead of being number 2 for the live show. I couldn’t bear to be disappointed again by not getting in! And, wouldn’t you know it, I got in! When I got in the elevator to go up the studio, and then again walking in and sitting down, I won’t lie to you–I cried. It was overwhelming to think of the starpower and the talent that had performed in the very room where I was sitting.

The show that night was pretty cool. January Jones was good, but not fabulous. BlacK Eyed Peas were awesome. Most of the sketches were pretty funny. It was cool to see the original show in person, then to go home and watch the live show on TV! I didn’t realize until I watching the live show on TV that Darrell Hammond had done a cameo on Weekend Update.

But alas, I must depart. Until next time!

In questi giorni I Will Survive di Gloria Gaynor compie 30 anni: ne approfitto per pubblicare una particolare versione dedicata alla memoria di Andy Hallett, l’indimenticato Lorne.

Testo della clip (angel 2×01 Judgment):

“First I was afraid.  I was petrified.  Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.  But then I spent so many nights thinking how you done me wrong, and I grew strong.  And I learned how to get along.
- Oh, you know what I’m talking about.  In this city you better learn to get along.  Because LA’s got it all: The glamour and the grit, the big breaks and the heartaches, the sweet young lovers and the nasty, ugly, hairy fiends that suck out your brain through your face.  It’s all part of the big wacky variety show we call - Los Angeles.  You never know what’s coming next.  And lets admit it folks: Isn’t that why we love it? -   I’ll survive.  I will survive!  Hey, hey!”

Great day to visit the Great Ocean Road!

Hi Go West,

We did the Great Ocean road trip on Sunday with Lee. We had a fabulous time and Lee was hilarious, it was hard to decide which one we enjoyed more, the great ocean road or Lee’s commentary!! The drive was extremely comfortable even in the extremely hot weather. This was the highlight of our vacation to Melbourne. Can’t wait to get back to Melbourne and book ourselves on the other tours with Go west. Thanks and a big thanks to Lee for making the trip unforgettable.
–
Warm Regards
Vivek

I had a magnificent Great Aunt, named Ruthie, who lived at Lorne on Victoria’s southwest coast. Her house was an imposing white weatherboard, hidden behind a dense hedge, across the road from the beach.

In her sun room she had scripted over a doorway, “Non fatuum huc persecutus ignem”: It is not by some idle whim that I came to this place.*

Ruthie had a keen interest in cooking and was not afraid of expressing a strong opinion. I have a distinct memory of her casting her eye over Jill Dupleix’s New Food (this must have been 1993) and disdainfully declaring that ‘there was nothing new in it’.

After her death, we also discovered the gem, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, on a bookshelf. If you ever see this in a second-hand bookshop, I implore you to PICK IT UP.  No one but Mrs. Beeton can instruct you in quite the same way how a dutiful wife may skin a rabbit for her husband’s dinner.

It was from Ruthie that I first heard of the restaurant and cooking school, Sunnybrae. This was a long time ago, in the days before I cared about such things, but I figured that if Ruthie was impressed, then it must be impressive.

I was extremely fortunate to have the chance to attend an all day cooking class at Sunnybrae on the recent Melbourne Cup Monday. Sunnybrae is run by the very knowledgeable George Biron and it is in Birregurra – about a half hour drive into the hinterland behind Lorne.

George informed us straight out that it was to be an ‘adults cooking class’. There was no hand-holding. We whipped through about 15 dishes in the day. The notes George gave us were sparse so listening and concentration was a must.

We made some great dishes and I was introduced to a number of new tastes such as perilla and the afore mentioned sea urchin.

An undoubted highlight for a city girl such as myself was picking the asparagus straight from the expansive vegetable garden and then cooking and eating it immediately (with blood orange and a maltaise sauce).

Harvesting asparagus for our lunch

My other favourite dishes that we made were:

• Avocado and apple salad with coriander and lime.
• River shrimp and calamari with aioli.
• Perilla and Thai basil salad.
• Pavlova roll.
• Star anis and lime ice cream.

Our lunch, featuring calamari salad...

However, while we learnt many new dishes, it was the ‘philosophy’ that George wanted to impart. He told us that he wanted us to remember:

• Cook with what is seasonal and fresh.
• Be inspired by what is at the market; plan your menu after shopping.
• Keep dishes simple and focus on flavour and texture.

Asparagus: very fresh, very seasonal!

I also was observing George a bit and noticed that he rarely used any sort of measuring implement for his dishes. He prepared everything using taste and feel and knowledge. That is something that I definitely have to work on – being an intuitive cook rather than sticking blindly to recipes. I guess it’s something that takes a lot of experience but I’m working on it!

All in all – not only did I learn a lot about food and cooking, but Sunnybrae is also a beautiful and special place and I highly recommend visiting if you ever get the chance.

Rhubarb in the vegie garden

* Well, this is what my mother once told me, anyway. A little internet searching reveals a literal translation of something like: ‘It is not foolish to follow passion/fire to this place’. Someone else has translated it as: ‘It is no will-o-the-wisp that I have followed here’, which seems closer to mum’s translation. Any latin scholars out there who can help?!?

UPDATE 23rd November: I looked up the source book cited for the will-o-the-wisp translation. It is: Maxwell, Gavin (1964) Ring of Bright Water, 9th edn. (First published 1960.) Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd.: London.  The book is about a man and an otter who lived in the remote wilderness of the West Highlands of Scotland. The quote is on the first page (p.3 in my edition). The book starts as follows:

I sit in a pitch-pine panelled kitchen-living room, with an otter asleep upon its back among the cushions on the sofa, forepaws in the air, and with the expression of tightly shut concentration that very small babies wear in sleep. On the stone slab beneath the chimney-piece are inscribed the words ‘Non fatuum huc persecutus ignem’ – it is no will-o’-the-wisp that I have followed here.’

Just like every other weekend I try to squeeze in as much as I possibly can, but this doesn’t always mean hundreds of km’s riding or running, and passing out on the couch incapable of doing anything else.  It’s all about trying to find the balance of pushing to a new level, somewhere different, exploring, learning, experimenting, and enjoying the experience.  For me this is not just about physical activity, but life in general, I try to apply this to every aspect of being.

I guess before I can tell you about Sunday I should fill you in with the happenings of Saturday.  Saturday was started perfectly, well I think so, with a 5hour return training ride to Lorne, with a visit to the top of ‘Benny’ (Mt. Benwerrin), with some of the young up and coming ‘roadies’, Blake, Steve, and Ollie.  ‘Benny’ is a 10km climb rising from the coast in the heart of Lorne, which winds its way up through rainforest to the top, with an average gradient of 4%.  The Benwerrin climb is no monster, but it takes its toll later in the ride, especially with multiple visits to the top, and the constant up and down of the great ocean road, making it a sensational training day.

The rest of Saturday was spent with friends wine tasting at local wineries as apart of ‘toast to the coast’, a Geelong region food and wine festival.  With the festival winding down, we returned to a friend’s house to continue the food and wine experience, with much decadence and good times.

Sunday also started off beautifully, but with slightly heavy legs, a little dehydration, but with lots of enthusiasm to get some more km’s in.  With a half hour ride out to meet the ‘Gooners’ (the Ocean Grove Sunday bunch), allowed time to loosen the legs up, get the blood flowing and take in some fluids.  A lap of Torquay, with an always speedy return to Ocean Grove via the coastal roads for a coffee.  The Sunday bunch has forever encouraged riders to join in and roll out towards Torquay or Portarlington (wind dependant) where everyone splits into groups and proceeds to try and tear each others legs off with hard rolling turns, attacks, fast cornering, and bunch shenanigans.  There is a great sense of community within this bunch and the social aspect is just as important as the physical benefits.

The post coffee ride home is always interesting, and depending on how many km’s are desired, the ‘extras’ loop can get quite long, and usually involves sprinting to every possible post, sign, line, or inanimate object.

Once home, a shower and a quick changeover to my running gear saw a friend (Cat) meeting me for what was to be her first ever trail run.  Anglesea was the choice, with so many trails, which any loop can be cut or extended to suit the desires of all.  Cat informed me that 30mins was her average run length, so I was determined to ‘help’ her stretch that out a little!

The trails saw us take in much of the course from last weeks Surf Coast 6 hour MTB race, with many tire levers and a multitool to be found along the way.  The only problems that seem to come about from running the trails are the wildlife, with Cat only just seeing the quite large (1.5meter) Tiger snake sunbathing on one of the wider tracks.  This snake didn’t appear to be very happy, rearing up before heading into the bushes.  For some reason, we found ourselves whispering, tiptoeing, and then sprinting past where our fanged friend was last seen. 

By the end of the run, which was an hour (well done Cat), we had seen another quite large snake, a brown I think, an Echidna, and heard many unnerving rustles in the nearby scrub.  A great run, especially considering no snake bites!  A cold water walk in the ocean, made the legs feel better, but the stomach was yet to be satisfied, and I was introduced to the notion of a ‘food crawl’.

The food crawl involves each course to be consumed at a different venue, and in this particular instance from different cultures.  We started with a highly recommended Japanese entre, followed by Indian curry as main (accompanied by some Aussie red wine),  and finished with an Italian geltato as desert.  I couldn’t think of a better way to eat, enjoy, and experience food!

All in all, A great Sunday, a great weekend.

Hopefully there will be many more just like this!

Until next weekend..

Ryan

Lorne is ‘the’ place you go for a long ride

You leave early, beat the traffic, the heat, the change, and enjoy the views of the southern ocean

Lorne is home to ‘The Arab’, ‘The Indian’, and ‘Kaos’, amongst other fine coffee institutions

Lorne is where you ride your bike, motorbike, drive your sports car, go surfing, go camping, go trail running, and go swimming

Lorne is famous for events such as the ‘pier to pub’, ‘mountain to surf’, and ’anaconda’

Lorne is accessed via the great ocean road, and includes some great little climbs like ‘Big Hill’, ‘Aireys’, ‘Urquharts’, and ‘the Widow maker’

When you go to Lorne you should always visit ‘Benny’ at least once

Even though stopping for coffee is integral part of training rides, stops should be limited to 30mins, as the return trip over ‘Big hill’ is painful enough without getting too cold

You should travel in a small bunch as it’s safer, there is more people to rip up or to rip you up, the coffee tastes even better with coffee shop stories, and there is somewhere to hide on the way home when you’re in ‘the box’

Either way… Lorne is ‘the’ place to go!

Ryan

The Great Ocean Road:

If you are staying in Victoria, Australia, you have to make sure you include the Great Ocean Road as part of your itinerary.  It could be done in as little as one day if you zip back and forth with not much time for stopping, but I would recommend at least 3 nights so you can take in all the sights along the way.  Many companies offer organized tours which can be a great way to do it if you are travelling on your own, or just want to put your feet up, relax, and not worrying about having to drive.  The advantage of renting a car of course is that you can meander and take your time, stopping as often, or as little as you like.  We decided to rent a car and spend 4 nights along the way as to include the Grampians National Park in our sites.

Day 1: Melbourne to Lorne

Views along the Great Ocean Road

We picked up our rental car from Budget around noon, and headed out of Melbourne and to the Great Ocean Road. Since we didn’t have a full day we decided to take our time and drive only to Lorne for the first night.  If you start out earlier in the day, another option would be to stay in Apollo Bay.  Both are quaint coastal cities with charm.  Good views and a number of small shops and restaurants in both.  As soon as you hit the Great Ocean Road, you will want to slow down, and take in the sights.  There are lots of scenic lookout spots marked where you can pull over and drink it all in.

Erskine Falls

It is a few hours’ drive to Lorne, which gives us enough time before dark to check out some of the town’s sites. There are a number of great walks around town which you can find outlined for you at the i-Site Visitor Center.  First on the list is Erskine Fall’s, the town’s main attraction.  Right off the main road you will see a sign that will take you to a carpark. It is about a 20 minute walk to the falls, worth the effort.

Our next walk takes us to Teddy’s Lookout point; a beautiful high vantage point that looks over the coast line.  You can park very close to the lookout or park at the bottom and walk up if you are looking for a bit more of a hike.

Teddy's Lookout

We saw our first kangaroo’s here, right in someone’s backyard on our way up to the lookout.  Now I really feel like we are in Australia! Snap some great shots from up here of the lookout from the mountain over the coastline, and we are on our way. Last but not least on our agenda is walking the beach to the Lorne pier.  A newly constructed pier extends quite a ways into the waterfront. Yachts and crashing waves are the highlights to be seen.

We pick up some groceries from the New World which is located conveniently beside the YHA hostel that we are staying at.  This YHA hostel is a series of separate cottages located just off the main road, but if feels as if you are in the middle of the rainforest.  Flora and fauna abound.

Great Ocean Road Hostel in Lorne

Our room is a loft, meaning that we have to take a ladder to get into it.  It has a great cozy feel, like we are sleeping in a tree house, but if ladders aren’t your thing make sure specify at reception.  We meet a few other couples that are travelling as well and hang out in the kitchen to chit chat as we prepare our meals for dinner.  Andrew and I play cards (no one knows how to play Euchre so we are stuck playing rummy the two of use), and then end the evening off watching, A Good Year. Up early tomorrow so we can get back on the Great Ocean Road, stay tuned!

I went to Fan Expo on Saturday, expecting another low-key event ala Friday night, but instead was met by this:

That line up looped right around the Toronto Convention Centre, and continued inside. Fortunately, I had a ticket and was able to surpass the wait.

Inside was Revenge of the Nerds. I’ve honestly never seen so many people in one place. Didn’t these things used to be niche?

Admittedly, the line-ups for Hollywood sneek-peaks were game-over. But the line-ups for comics-related sessions were modest. So to a certain extent, I guess it still is niche.

Overall, the crowd destroyed common misconceptions about nerds.

Myth # 1: Nerds are male.

I didn’t check the attendance records or anything, but I’d hazard to guess the gender division at the conference was half and half.

Myth # 2: Nerds don’t get laid.

There were hundreds of couples, and dozens of full-on families. Including this adorable Daddy/daughter combo that wins the conference, and my heart.

Take that, mainstream media that perpetrates nerds as socially inept man-children who can’t speak to women and remain virgins until they die.

Although, the crowd did overwhelmingly prove one stereotype right. Male nerds, for the most part, have horrendous tastes in fashion and facial hair. I’d post a picture or two to illustrate, but that’s just mean.

That lack of fashion-forwardness does not extend, however, to costumes. Nerds do fictional characters better than Hollywood, any day. Here are some highlights:

For more, check out the Flickr set.

Just thought I’d stop by & mention Australia’s awesome line up of Meredith & Falls coming!

Meredith Music Festival.

Akron Family, Animal Collective (Fuck yes), Bag Raiders, Eddie Current Supression Ring, The Middle East are specifically who I am in it for.

Falls Festival.

Grizzly Bear, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Editors, Moby, Midnight Juggernauts, Andrew Bird, Sarah Blasko will be fantastic.

Just hope I can get some tickets!

A second attempt to use Animoto; this time of some images of some waves from Lorne.

Feeding the birds

Thanks these two happy campers, Glen and Mark from Canada for sending us a pic from their recent visit to the Great Ocean Road. These King Parrots are just some of the spectacular birdlife we encounter on our day tour, and always seem to know when we’re about to arrive, descending on our group for a beak full of native seeds!

Friends joining the Great Ocean Road Tour

Just look at this bunch of trouble makers posing for the camera! These sulphur crested cockatoos are regular visitors on our Great Ocean Road tour and just love a bit of human attention.

Surfing beaches along the Great Ocean Road

Visitors to the Great Ocean Road’s most famous surf spot – Bells Beach – have been treated to some truly “gnarly” waves over the last couple of weeks. The surfers have been out in big numbers to make the most of the awesome conditions!! It’s a fabulous spectacle to watch these catch a big wave and pull out some funky manoeuvres on their way in to the shore.

The end of day 1 of the Expanding Horizons Conference and a good day of conversations despite the wild weather.  This year the organisers have worked hard to increase the bandwith into the conference and it’s the first conference I’ve attended with a range of network connections beyond the conference website including a NING, a wikispace and a Twitter hastag! (#elh09)

All good fun, but the conversations are what matters, and there was plenty of good sessions, including Andrew Douch’s keynote on redefining classroom and some great strategic conversations around social boundaries of learning and assessment including the murky legal waters around student-teaher online interactions (see my OneNote doodling on ‘murky legal waters’ below)

And, did I mention how beautiful Lorne is, nestled in the the corner of the bay beneath the hills? When you come here with the crowds in summer, you can forget that.  I took the picture at the top this morning on a walk between sessions.

Mehrin and I took some time off this week to go and stay at Jeff’s grandparents’ holiday house in Lorne and have a bit of a break.


On Wednesday we drove to Apollo Bay. (We’d been planning to go to the Otway Fly Treetop Walk, but it was too far and we were too tired.)

These are some pictures we took on the way back to Lorne, along the Great Ocean Road:

On Thursday there were at least four whales in the bay. It was pretty exciting to see them. We’ve never seen whales before, and they don’t normally come to Lorne There were pretty close to the beach as well.

Thursday afternoon we went up to Erskine Falls, which was really nice.

One annoying thing was that there were extensive roadworks being done I Lorne the whole time we were there. Judging by this sign about the redevelopment, I don’t think we were the only ones annoyed by it:

(Not annoying enough to ruin the holiday though!)

Click on this link to buy

From the Visit Victoria website:

An 8.5 kilometre drive from Lorne on the Erskine Falls Road, this is one of the most popular falls in the Otways. An easy walk brings you to an overlook of the falls cascading 30 metres into a beautiful fern gully. Moderate walk down steps to base of falls.

Details:

• Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mk II
• Lens: Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
• Exposure: 13 exposures (2,1.66.-1.33,-1,.66,.33,0,.33,.66,+1,+1.33,+1.66+2 EV)
• Aperture: f/18
• Focal Length: 16 mm
• ISO Speed: 100
• Accessories: Expodisc, Manfrotto 190XB Tripod, Manfrotto 322RC2 Heavy Duty Grip Ball Head, Canon RC1 Wireless Remote
• Date and Time: 01 August 2009 12.00pm

Post Processing:

• Imported into Lightroom
• Exported 13 exposures to Photomatix
• Tonemap generated HDR using detail enhancer option
• Re-imported back into Lightroom
• Exported HDR and 0 EV exposure to CS3 and layered HDR on top of 0 EV
• Brush tool to even out the contrast
• Curves layer for contrast
• Unsharp Mask
• Re-imported back into Lightroom
• Added keyword metadata
• Exported as JPEG

I WAS AT SOMEONE’S PLACE but the room I was in looked like a room from The West Wing, like, this parlor-type room they had in it. The back wall is massive. There’s a massive TV and on it we’re watching baseball. It’s a playoff game between someone and the Dodgers (I’m a closet Dodgers fan). They were doing a pre-game press conferences where the two starting pitchers were almost facing off, like two boxers do to mug for the camera after weigh-in. Thing is, one of the pitchers was apparently hated by everyone, so he was wearing a big protective fat-suit, or, like, a mascot’s costume. It was huge. He looked like one of the Fruit of the Loom guys. Anyway, someone was throwing stuff at him during the press conference/interview. Someone in the crowd yells aloud, “Hey, that’s not fair.”

Then we’re not watching baseball anymore. The lights go out and we’re going to play John Madden football on some video game platform. The TV is huge. The room is dark, and serious. And the version of Madden we’re playing is ostensibly a newer one, but I was given a regular, 8-bit Nintendo controller. I find out we’re playing with partners, and my partner is my friend Lorne, who I grew up with, and grew up playing video games with. The opponent, I can only make one out guy. He’s big, and fat, and this is his place, this parlor with the big TV.

Wrapped across this storyline was another.

A Montreal friend, CB, lives away from the downtown and as such doesn’t hang out downtown all the time. In the dream, we are talking on the phone about her coming into town to see me. We are supposed to go shopping or some such thing. When we’re talking on the phone, I can see her like I’m a fly on the wall of her place, like I’m watching a movie about her calling me. She’s super dressed up (the last online conversation we had included snippets of her talking about how she likes to dress up like such and such) and super excited, because (in the dream) she really wants to see me and really is looking forward to making the trip into the city. We have further conversations about meeting up and hanging out and what we’re going to do.

This wraps into the Madden dream because I keep leaving the game that we’re supposed to be starting to check my phone because I haven’t heard from her yet. We keep on talking about how we’re going to play the game, which is in teams but one player at a time. Like, I’ll play offense against one guy and then defense against the same guy, and then hand off the controller. I think after we haggle about this and settle it, I get a call from CB saying she’s running late, or that she can’t find me, or that something came up. Again, I can see her as she makes these calls, like I’m watching a movie about it. But we end up never meeting despite all the promises, and, in the dream, I am dejected because I want her to watch me play video games against a fat guy (which is, I think, all that any guy ever wants of any woman).