The Australian Bucket List (2) - Blue Mountains

When I close my eyes and think of the spiritual places in my heart, one of them is the Govetts Leap lookout in Blackheath. Lots of people visit the Blue Mountains, but most end up in the main area near Katoomba. I first got to know Blackheath when I went to a meditation course there, and I've been in love with it since. 

I drove up from Sydney on a rainy day, and as I ascended the foothills of the Blue Mountains, a heavy mist descended. 

I stayed two nights at this beautiful airbnb, on the edge of the bush on the quiet side of Leura.

It's a straw bale house and the owners left this little window in one wall just so one could appreciate how the house is actually built! 

It rained for most of my stay so I stayed inside by the fire, played the violin, read and sketched. It was a soothing time of self-reflection, albeit a little melancholic. 

I almost always stop by the Yellow Deli in Katoomba when I am in the mountains, it's a really cute place that reminds me of the tavern in Lord Of The Rings. I always imagine that I am a hobbit, though there's no grog and it's only Yerba Mate. My friend told me it was run by a cult.. maybe slightly offputting! 

On my last day the rain finally stopped. I got in the car and drove straight to the place of my heart - Govett's Leap lookout. What a stunning view! The ground was wet and most walks were closed in the area following a tragic family accident about a month before where a landslide claimed the lives of four people. 

One could still walk down the hill to the viewing platform where Bridal Veil falls crashed into the valley below, pretty full after all the rain.  

I just adore this landscape, the quintessential rugged sandstone of the east Australian coast

 

Doesn't it look like someone's cut it right there with a knife? 

Everywhere I turned, there was mist...

You can see in this picture why it's called the Blue Mountains - I think it's the oils from the eucalypts that gives it this blue colour from a distance 

This was an excellent vegemite-miso scroll from Black Cockatoo Bakery, a real hipster bakery that has opened up in Katoomba & Lawson. I had this scroll at Sublime Point, one of the most stunning spots in the Mountains but it never has many people there!

Carved into the rock at Sublime Point - do you think these people are still in love? 

Last stop of the day was Lawson. Here I trudged my way through some real muddy spots to get to Fairy Falls. I didn't counter a single soul getting to and from these falls. Quite a different feel to the big falls in Blackheath, but very nice indeed.  

Goodbye for now Blue Mountains, I will miss you!

The Australian Bucket List (1) - Tasmania

I was trying to explain the concept of bucket list to my French teacher the other day. She was confused, she said the closest thing was La liste des dernières volontés - the list of last wishes - but I'm not dying! Just moving to Canada for a year... 

Have you ever tried making a bucket list? If you close your eyes and imagine that you won't get to visit somewhere ever again, where would you want to go? Most of the things on my list are nature spots or food things... 

So the first stop on my Great Australian Bucket List is Tasmania. Mainly because I've been wanting to go to MONA since it opened. I recruited my neurologist friend to come along for our 5 day trip. 

Hobart

Autumn colours at King Edward Park on the way to Salamanca markets 

Wonderful berries from the Westerway berry farm. These were small, sweet and intensely strawberry. Nothing like the supermarkets!

On the ferry to MONA (Museum of Old & New Art) - actually a very rich guy's private art collection. 

I adore the autumn colours 

The art at MONA was actually pretty bizarre, but an impressive collection nonetheless. This gallery had thousands of the same motif done in different colours, and it was cool they had live music in several corners. 

View from MONA, a beautiful peaceful day

Hobart waterfront at sunset

A beautiful autumn leaf, near our accommodation in Sandy Bay 

On the way to Bruny Island we stopped at Willie Smith's apple museum, where we had this extraordinary apple pie. The shortcrust pastry was really solid and satisfying, the pie was utterly stuffed with cinnamony apple and the scoop of vanilla bean icecream was a perfect accompaniment. 

 

The Apple Museum!

Bruny Island

The best, freshest, plumpest oysters I've ever had at Get Shucked on Bruny Island

A beautiful double rainbow as we arrived at our accommodation - Bruny Island Bungalow, one of the nicest airbnbs I've ever stayed in. 

Sunrise from the Bungalow - this is literally the view from bed!

The Bruny Island Baker who drops off sourdough in these old school fridges everyday 

As a sourdough baker, I appreciate other people's excellent sourdoughs. This was a dark dark loaf (maybe 20% rye?) studded with sultanas. 

We went for a hike on Bruny Island to the Fluted Cape. Here the rocks are vertically oriented like the flutes of an organ - quite an extraordinary walk, though a little challenging for us city-dwellers who are not used to walking!  

Hello little one!

This was our reward for the hike, a wonderful ploughman's platter from the Bruny Island Cheese company. The three cheeses were ODO (One Day Old) bottom left, a soft young cheese in a herby olive oil; Tom top right, a friendly cheese that's like a half-matured cheddar; and a mature stinky-as French cheese bottom right. The woodfired bread here was also excellent. 

We went up to the Neck lookout for the view of the narrow passage way between North & South Bruny Island. What a view!

Sunset from the Neck 

Our last sunrise from the Bungalow 

Does anybody know why time goes faster on holidays? Felt like we were away for just an instant but it was a really fun- food- and friendship- filled long weekend to Tasmania. The nature of Australia is stunning, everywhere we turned were just so many gum trees typical of the bush here. We also saw heaps of kangaroos and possums, sadly some of which were dead... that's also very Australian!

In My Kitchen: May 2022

Time is passing so quickly! April was a difficult month as my father went into lockdown in Shanghai. The lockdown there has been insane - all shops closed, no food delivery and a huge uncertainty over how they would feed themselves. I slept very badly during April and haven't been cooking as much. But let's take a look at what happened.. 

It was the season of hot cross buns... 

This was the first batch of the season - sourdough vegan hot cross buns with a maple syrup glaze. The first batch was for the nurses on a weekend shift. 

Once I realised how good this recipe was, I tested it out again with chocolate chips - a winner! I took these to a lunch with some friends. 

In normal times I may have tried a different recipe, but I just didn't have the energy so I stuck with the same recipe a third time for when my high school friends came to visit. It was really fun making these together, even if we miscounted the number of buns! 

Also in my kitchen...

I think when I feel stressed I always want to make things with my hands. So I made this huge batch of wontons stuffed with homegrown chives and vegetarian mince. 

I also made this torta pasqualina - a traditional Italian Easter pie with spinach & ricotta. I wanted to make a pastiera but no shops were open on Easter Sunday and I didn't have eggs! I did manage to make ricotta from 2L milk I bought from the servos.. 

One of the nurses gave me this giant sweet potato! I was carrying it around on the ward round so another nurse swaddled it for me like my newborn - what a good size! 

Onto the food and music series...

Well there hasn't been much music since my string quartet disbanded - the other violinist is worried about Covid and is not doing any social events, and the violist has moved back to the UK. She came back to visit for a few weeks though and we finally got to catch up along with the cellist.. just the three of us so we played string trios.

We had a loaf of my sourdough, just like the "Good Old Days" and enjoyed it with the Beethoven string trio Op 9 No. 3 in C minor (I think that's the best one), the Op 3 string trio as well as some of the Bach's 3 part inventions to keep us grounded. 

My friend from the Gold Coast was visiting Newcastle and we had a dinner together, probably our last musical evening before I leave for Canada. We played the Mozart D major violin concerto and the first movement of the Beethoven Kreutzer sonata... It was pretty messy :) but a lot of fun! Here was the Battenburg cake I made to commemorate the occasion. 

The curveball... 

Well I have two curveballs this month - hope it's allowed Sherry! The first is the amazing bread "shop" on Bruny Island by the Bruny Island baker. He makes sourdough every morning and drops it off in these two ancient fridges. It's an honesty system - $10 for a sourdough loaf and 2 anzac biccies. What a spectacular location! I've been making a little "Australia bucket list" for my last month in Australia and Tasmania / MONA / Bruny Island was on top of the list. 

The other curveball is here - I've been wanting to share some music with you, as many of you have left such lovely encouraging comments. Here is S and I playing the first movement of a Mozart violin sonata. We had only played through it once before making the recording, so there are lots of mistakes, but I think it's obvious how much talent he has as a violinist and how much positive energy we have as a couple. It is quite extraordinary, if I may say so myself! 

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event - thanks for hosting Sherry!