Like a worm on a hook

Posted on February 2, 2012 by waggadventure

We’ve only been here about 7 months, but we’ve figured out some of the migratory patterns of birds through the Riverina. This may not be 100% accurate (or even 10%!), but here are our observations on birds that have visited our neighbourhood and moved on. We’re not sure if they come and go looking for warmer or colder weather! But, as the seasons change, so do the birds.

This is an immature crimson rosella. Pretty spectacular, eh!

Parrots: We’ve mentioned parrots a lot on this blog. We like to brag that we live among them! And the cool thing is that there have been so many different ones. Most of them move pretty quickly, so precise identification is a challenge for us, as sometimes the difference is very minimal (such as how much blue is on their wings). But after a few days we started to notice characteristics more accurately.

When we got here in July, there were a lot of Red-rumped Parrots. These were here for a long time, but are a bit less common right now. Then came Blue-winged Parrots. We first saw them in Corowa in November, and they’ve been in Wagga for a few weeks – there were some passing through our back yard one night this week as we ate dinner. We are afraid that soon they will be going for cooler climate  in the mountains, but it has been a cooler-than-normal summer here, so for now they are still hanging around.

Young crimson rosellas are beautiful, but this is what they grow up to be! Dan is proud of this photo - he spent several hours sitting on the deck of our cabin at Casa Luna, drinking wine and watching birds, trying to get the perfect photo for you...

During late December and through January, there were a lot of Rosellas around, both Eastern and Crimson. These are the spectacular ones. They are the kind of bird that you would want to have in a cage in your house…though that wouldn’t be nearly as amazing as living among them and seeing them as you are out cycling or are walking from your car to your office in the morning.

Just before Lisa headed back to a North American winter, we were out cycling early morning. A whole lot of beautiful Eastern Rosellas flew past us at one point and she blurted out “I don’t want to go to the cold place where there aren’t parrots.” Crimson rosellas are quite amazing, but Easterns are stunning.

Damp and snowy Ontario and Quebec, or Eastern Rosellas...? Which would you choose? Of all the birds we live with, these might be the best.

We’ve also been lucky enough to see the occasional Turquoise parrots over by the coast. At first, we thought they were just bluewings (just blue wings…we’ve become so complacent…) but then realized that they also had blue faces. Unfortunately, we just get a quick glimpse of many of these birds, so no time to get photos.

And now we will stop bragging about parrots and talk about some less spectacular birds.

Honeyeater: This is a kind of bird we didn’t even know existed. But for a few weeks, there was one hanging out in our back yard. It took awhile to identify him; at first, we thought it might just be a myna that had been playing Rugby League and got a bit of a shiner. But no, it turns out that it was a blue-faced honeyeater.

Sure, he isn't a parrot, but this blue-faced honeyeater is still quite pretty. He lived in our back yard (feeding on this bottlebrush) for a few weeks.

It was was one of those moments where we both thought “Wow!”, not because it is a really beautiful bird (sorry honeyeater, you ain’t a rosella) but because it might actually be the first time we saw a bird here that we had never heard of before. Yes, we see lots and lots of parrots (sorry, we said we would stop bragging) and cockatoos, and while those are unusual, we at least knew about them. Recently, campus has been inundated with Red Wattlebirds, which are another kind of honeyeater. On first glimpse, they could be a blue-faced honeyeater, or even a myna but we’re pretty sure they are wattlebirds (we’ve been told this is something that shows up this time of year…). We saw another honeyeater at the coast, who was very different, so it will be described in an upcoming post).

This pair of fairy wrens started a family in our back yard and moved on. Hopefully they liked our little resort, complete with spas, enough to stop by again on their way south...or north....

Superb Fairy Wrens: Yes, that’s their real name! We also think they are superb… but kinda cool that somebody just went and named them that. The males are the blue ones, and the babies and females are brown. We had a pair nesting in our back yard this spring, and they would come out to play in the birdbath and feed every evening as we had dinner. Then, as summer came, the babies appeared too. Unfortunately, they seemed to have moved on.

Darters: big water birds that we’ve seen here and there. First one was in Melbourne in September, then we didn’t see any for quite a while. Dan spotted one in Canberra in late November, and since then they’ve been pretty common around the lakes and dams around Wagga. We assume they will go away again. For a while, we weren’t sure what they were, thinking maybe they were cormorants (which we also see occasionally) but have pretty much got it figured out now by how it holds its head while flying. The really cool thing about darters is that you can sometimes see them sleeping with their wings out…it looks odd and hopefully they don’t do it on a windy day or they might end up getting blown away.

Darwin would probably say that these birds evolved to scoop yabbies out of dams.

Spoonbill: Another large water bird that has shown up for the summer. And again, first spotted near Corowa; even though it is only about 100 miles away, it is a lot hotter down there so migratory birds show up there first on their way north. The name spoonbill is quite descriptive – basically, they look like a short-necked egret that someone grabbed the end of its beak, pinched it so it became spoon-like, then stretched it.

Laughing Kookaburra: Yes, it’s the ubiquitous bird that everyone associates with…somewhere. We didn’t actually realize it was Australian. Not sure where we thought it was from. Sing along now kids…”Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…“. We often see these around town or out on the highways, sitting on hydro wires. Cohen would love these little guys: is there some sort of mash-up that can be done “like a kookaburra, on the old hydro wire…”? Probably not. Unfortunately, because they live on wires, they are really hard to photograph. Dan’s never heard one laugh; they just sit silently on the wire for him. Lisa has heard them laughing… probably at Dan, since he looks pretty goofy in his bogan (surfboard) shorts in the backyard (sorry – no photo; it’s embarrassing enough to see Dan walk around the house this way, let alone have a pic for posterity).

Does the silver ring around their eye work like that black goop NFL players smear under their eyes, deflecting light to they can see bugs better?

Silvereye: this is a cool little guy that has been living in our back yard for quite a while. They came in late November or early December, and are still here. They fly all over the place, swooping up and down, obviously feeding on bugs. Some nights, we can’t figure out why they don’t just sit with their mouths open and let the bugs fall in…

And yes, we said we would stop bragging about parrots, but the pics below are the yellow version of crimson rosellas, which only live along the NSW/Vic border. These ones were on the lawn as we had breakfast at our friends’ house near Corowa…so no more bragging but, for most of you reading this, we live among parrots and  you don’t. Hah.

Posted in birds, parrots, rosellas, wildlife | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

summer in the city

Posted on January 29, 2012 by waggadventure

Lisa has been in North America for almost  2 weeks, so I’ve been learning about what Wagga is like in the summer. She did this to me when we moved to Edmonton too…went back to Ontario for her PhD defense in December, 2000, leaving me to freeze in our first Alberta winter. I will never forget the day she left.

It was December 8…I remember this because on the trip to and from YEG K-Rock was playing John Lennon’s music on the 2oth anniversary of his death…it made me want to hurl. I don’t mind the Beatles (OK, actually they bore me), but most of Lennon’s solo stuff was horrible. And I just can’t take that level of sentimentality and hero worship… I took her to YEG very early in the morning, then went to work at UofA. Because Edmonton was so far north, it was still dark and cold. Really cold. Really f#%$ing cold. And I had to walk four blocks. For those who know UofA, we parked in N lot, beside Hub, and I worked in Extension (now Terrace). Half way, there is a Tim Hortons where I always stopped. So that morning, when it was around -40C, I get my coffee, go to my office, and see that I had been holding it so tightly that some had run out under the lid. And froze on the side of the cup. Froze. Hot coffee, paper cup, and ice. WTF was I doing there? That day, I also saw my first sun dog – a winter version of a rainbow, where the moisture in the air freezes and you see a colour spectrum. And then going home, a thermometer I had in the car never went over -30, despite having the heat on full. Yes, that is a lot of detail to remember, but it was my first day experiencing that level of cold, and it is something I will never forget.

And it is part of the reason we are in Australia…cold sucks!

Gotta love the accuracy of the weather app I have: 27 degrees, but feels like 26.9!

So when Lisa was planning this trip to North America, we were joking that I would have the opposite experience – that she would be abandoning me to the hottest days of my life. But, fortunately, that didn’t occur.  A typical day has started at about 20c, and gotten up to about 30-33. But there has always been a breeze – Wagga seems to be very windy! – so it is a pleasant low 30s. And the ‘evaporative cooling’ system in our house has meant it is usually about 24 indoors. Quite nice actually.

This gorgeous weather has meant that I have spent most of the past 2 weeks on the patio. All meals at home have been consumed out there (well, not brekkies…those are a bit of cereal and a grapefruit hoovered over the sink, but all dinners and lunches). I worked at home one day, out on the patio. I’ve determined that we don’t really need a house, just a patio! And I haven’t put on long pants in the whole two weeks.

The odd thing is that the bug population has died down. Earlier in the year, there were a lot of moths (and by ‘a lot’ I am estimating maybe 100 per cubic metre of air space…! A LOT!!!); those were followed by scarabs and other beetles. And flies and mozzies. And fruit flies that liked to do the backstroke in our wine. But the past two weeks have been pretty much bugless. They will probably return when Lisa does, and she won’t believe me when I say how pleasant it has been. But I guess if there were bugs banging up against the window, that would roust out the cats…I think there are cats here. Something eats that food that I put out each morning and evening, and when I come home each day there are indentations on the bed that look like cats. But for some reason, when their mommy is away they avoid me.

So besides having pleasant weather and few bugs, what is a Wagga summer like? Pretty dead. It is school summer holidays. No one is at work anywhere (the few of us at my job comment about how empty the halls are and how every email gets an ‘out of office until February’ auto-response), not much seems to go on. Even the farmer’s market was dead.And there is nothing going on in the neighouring towns; the regional reports in the Daily Advertiser talk about events in February and March, not January.

The  only people that seem to be working are the ones doing construction on the road to the uni. This has been a bit of an issue with me, because the diversion (detour in Canada-speak) adds an extra 2 km onto the morning commute. That is nothing really, unless you want to do it on a bicycle and 2 km and one extra hill at 8 am is too much! So, despite the fact that this would be a perfect time for me to be both health conscious and environmentally friendly by riding every day, I’ve been driving to work. I did, one day this weekend, ride the new route and was pretty proud that even with the extra hill it added less than 4 minutes to my time, which means I am getting faster. Because that construction is supposed to last into April, I guess I am going to have to start using this longer bike route because I don’t want to stop riding. But I’ve still managed to get in about 250 km of cycling while Lisa was away (weekend mornings and a few afternoons…riding when it is 32C is probably the cyclist’s equivalent of hot yoga…you need water!).

What else have I done? Not much. I’ve figured out which bottle shop has the best beer selection (not great, but good) It is in a bit of a bogan neighourhood, oddly…I can’t see why this demographic warrants it!

Basil grows really well here. This started out as 6 little plants, and we've harvested enough for a huge jar of pesto and a lot of pizzas and it just keeps on growing.

And I have perfected pizza on the barbecue. Sorry Wade, still not making my own crust, but I found that one of the big supermarket chains sells a really good cryovaced, imported-from-Italy, thin crust! And I determined that the expensive bocconcini doesn’t taste any better and actually doesn’t melt as well. And if you saute mushrooms in beer, they are more flavourful! So Lisa will be coming home to a great pizza margherita con funghi dinner in a couple of days.

Other than that, it has been a pretty uneventful January. Which seems typical for Wagga.

Posted in aclimatizing, airport, Australia, beer, cycling, Edmonton, Uncategorized, wagga, wagga wagga, weather | 2 Comments

Things that make you wiggle: How to speak Australian, part 5

Posted on January 25, 2012 by waggadventure

Or more appropriately, things that make you squirm.

An orthopedic nightmare, but the lack of shape to the sole makes these the ultimate spider killers.

We know that there are a lot of different terms for clothes here. Some are also used in the UK, such as jumper for what Canadians call a sweater. Some are international words but are just less common outside of Australia; an example of this is singlet for a sleeveless shirt. We’ve heard it before, but most Canadians wouldn’t use it. What would we call it…a ‘wife-beater’ probably? Hmm, maybe singlet needs to be more universal. And Australians wear thongs on their feet…pretty much everyone owns a pair of those flat plastic sandals that Canadians call flip-flops. We think they are so common because the lack of tread makes them good for stepping on spiders…Dan’s Ecco sandals have too much tread, so he has to stomp a few times before he hits one…with thongs, you can’t go wrong. So when an Australian says “My thongs are uncomfortable” they aren’t talking about having a wedgie.

When looking online for a picture for here, there were a lot of choices. This one seemed the most appropriate.

Long and useless but kind of entertaining aside here about what Aussies call thong underwear, which is probably g-string. Triple J radio had a great phone-in segment recently about embarrassing moments, and some teenage girl called in to say that her mother hated the fact that she often wore low-slung jeans and a g-string and had a whale tail. The next time she saw it she would make her regret it. So one day her and her mom and some friends were out for lunch and Mom was on her way back from the toilet saw a young woman with her undies showing and thought it was her daughter and decided it was time to make darling daughter rethink the fashion choice and grabbed the back of the undies and yanked. Mom must have been drinking a bit because she pulled hard enough to not only give a wedgie to, but actually rip the skivvies (my term, not what the girl on the radio said) off of, the wrong teenage girl…wrong table, wrong whale tail…Yup, that would be embarrassing to a whole lot of people.

Which segues perfectly the lone word of this version of HTSA.

Skivvies/Skivvy: Most North Americans, if they think of anything when they hear the word skivvies, would probably think of underwear. Probably mens’ underwear (tighty whities) but maybe womens’.  It might not be something that is in common usage, but it is used.  Australians, however, have a word that sounds the same but is spelled different (is that a homonym or a homophone?): skivvy. It means a tight-fitting, long-sleeved shirt. A singlet with sleeves, sort of.

And why does this matter? Well, the parking and security controversy at the Wagga airport wasn’t the biggest news here last week.  There was a change of Wiggle. We (well me…Lisa is still away and I doubt this has made international news so blame me, Dan, for any/all inaccurate or offensive statements in this post) don’t know anything about the Wiggles except that: 1) they are the Australian version of Sharon, Lois, and Bram; 2) they are probably too old to be doing what they are doing; and 3) they formed out of the remnants of a band called The Cockroaches (this bit of info came from a friend).

The Wiggles, from left to right: Joey, Dee Dee, drummer du jour (Tommy, Markie, Richie, Markie again) and Johnny.

But now I know that, besides being the home of Dame Edna, Wagga is also where one of the Wiggles is from. The Wiggles don’t actually use their real names, but just go by their character. They are Spongebog Wiggle, Oscar the Grouchy Wiggle, and Jerome Wiggle (though he’s probably not the original Jerome because giraffes only live 25 years and he was on The Friendly Giant for longer than that) and Toonces the Cat Wiggle (who got the job when he ran over the other prospect for the job, Flippy the Flipping Chihuaha – sorry, the video isn’t allowed on Aussie computers…). OK, I admit it, I don’t actually have a clue who or how many Wiggles, maybe some readers do but don’t bother correcting in the comments please!

Sam and Greg: Hey ho, let's go, Stab 'em in the back now

Anyway, back on track…It is the current/now removed Yellow Wiggle (nee Sam Moran) who is from Wagga. The Daily Advertiser, in a series of recent articles, has been proudly calling him the “Wagga Wiggle” (is that something like Cootamundra Wattle?). But Sam isn’t an original Willy Wagtail Wiggle. He has only been part of the group for about 5 years, replacing original Big Bird Yellow Wiggle (nee Greg Page) who had to step aside  because he had a hernia. Last week, the big headline in the Daily Advertiser was that Greg, the original Trini Kwan Yellow Wiggle was coming back. At first, it seemed like an amicable split, as Aisha Sam was amicably stepping aside. Then it started to hit the Australian media – not just in Wagga, this was in national papers and on national radio – that Sam didn’t really want to leave, but Ol’ Yeller is out of rehab better and ready to come back. It seems Sam was just a fill-in. It has started to become a drama that rivals the Julia Gillard/Kevin Rudd ALP leadership issues.

Yellow's two wives high fiving for being married to a Wiggle. Well, they were, but not any more.

It is really hilarious watching this unfold, seeing how much attention it is getting, with the media getting commentary from kids about how they like or dislike the current  yellow wombat Wiggle and don’t want him to leave, and how the Teletubbies Wiggles are all about being nice and friendly and they wouldn’t just dump Laa Laa Sam to bring back Tommie (he was the first drummer) Greg who helped start the multi-million dollar company… So it really seems like it is Greg’s job if he wants it. But then again, Sam did come as part of a package deal; it seems his wife is Dora the Explorer Dorothy the Dinousaur, who was part of the Wiggles’ show. Is Greg worth two characters? Who knows? Who really cares?

To sum this all up, I just have to say that as someone who speaks Canadian first, Australian second, hearing all week about a children’s entertainer who performs in yellow skivvies/skivvys has been a bit creepy!

Posted in Australia, cultural differences, language, wagga, wagga wagga, wiggles | Tagged | Leave a comment

bigger birds

Posted on January 21, 2012 by waggadventure

One of the things we loved about our first trip to Wagga – and one that we found very bizarre – was the airport. And with Lisa away in North America, I get to write another post without her about anything I want.  For a variety of reasons, I have chosen the airport. First, I decided to write about it because I cycled to it this morning – it has been pretty hot here this week, so I didn’t get out any afternoons. And construction near the  uni means I can’t ride to work. So I went for a long (53 km) ride on Saturday morning that involved the airport. The second reason it was on my mind is that Lisa is away – so she flew out of, and will be coming back to, this airport. But the third, and most important reason for writing about it is that it has been in the news a lot this week.

In 2009, Skyscanner (whoever they are) came up with a list of bizarre airport names. This one was on it, along with other Aussie airports such as Useless Loop, Woodie Woodie, Wee Waa. Batman, and Moron. Too bad they didn't know that it is actually closer to Gumly Gumly than Wagga Wagga.

The Wagga airport is about 12 km out of town, in a suburb called Forest Hill. It is owned by the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) and leased to the city. The air force still uses it  a lot, because they have a base in Forest Hill.  About 215, 000 people board/get off planes in Wagga each year (compared to about 6 million in Edmonton). So it is a relatively small airport. Qantas and Regional Express fly in to it; they each run 4 or 5 flights per day to Sydney and REx has another 2 or 3 to Melbourne. That’s it, in terms of commercial flights.  There is some private stuff, some cargo,  and some military, but really we don’t see a lot of planes in the air here. To put the size and use into perspective, there is one food place there: it used to be run by Mick’s Bakehouse, a local pie shop, but they didn’t think it was worth having so the airport is running it themselves. And the Avis car rental is run from town – someone from the office here goes out when there is a plane coming in. It isn’t really a high-turnover place.

We love that it is so laid back – one room, for people waiting to leave, waiting to meet someone, just hang out, etc. And security is a bit lax. “Any sharps in your carry on?” “No.” “Any weapons or explosives?” “No.” “OK.”

When you do a Google Image search for Thirsty Crow, photos from our blog come up! When you search for Wagga airport, you get a bunch of random crap. Maybe that will change after this post.

There are major changes coming, and ones that Waggans don’t really like. The first of the changes is that they are going to start charging for parking. Up until now, it has been free. Just pull up on the field, lock up and take off… But they say things are getting a bit crowded so they have to start charging. Rates: first hour free, $2.20 an hour after that up to $11 for day, and max $55 per week. Sure this seems like a big increase, but compared to other places it isn’t outrageous. Edmonton, for example charged about $4 for the first hour… And land isn’t free, so people need to pay. The problem is that it might actually be the first paid parking in Wagga. Currently, on-street parking in the city, including the CBD, is free. So are off-street lots. As is parking at the university (which is a real salary bonus for us!).  “Restricted parking” means park between the lines…and they haven’t even implemented that on most streets yet. So the idea of paying to park where there is a lot of open space just seems wrong to Waggans. And sure, maybe the cost is a bit high, but I’m sure they have crunched some numbers and figured out what is needed.

Because the SOPA/PIPA laws in the US haven't passed yet, I can take a chance on using this image of the inside of the Wagga airport, taken from Wikipedia, and not worry about being charged with anything yet.

The second change is that they are getting real security! There will be baggage x-ray, a separate waiting room for people cleared, etc., just like a real airport. And we understand this. Airports are federally controlled everywhere (Dan thinks they should be run by the UN as neutral territory…) and they should all meet certain standards. But we’ve probably flown in and out of more airports than most Waggans, so we get it.

So this will affect us – mostly Lisa – a bit. We will have to figure out how long it takes to clear security here! And we have visitors coming in the next few months so will have to make them aware that they can’t take a bomb back to Sydney.  But otherwise, we are just glad we got the cats processed through Wagga airport before it got serious.

And, well, I just have to say, as Wagga airport finally enters the post-9/11 world, the terrorists have won…

Posted in airport, Edmonton, Qantas, wagga, wagga wagga | 1 Comment

Hard Yakka

Posted on January 18, 2012 by waggadventure

When we were on our reconnaissance visit to Wagga in late 2010, unbeknownst to us a new business was being started that 1) would have hastened our decision, and 2) has made our move more enjoyable. In February 2011, Thirsty Crow became Wagga’s first (and only) craft brewery and brew pub. It is about to celebrate its first anniversary.

The heart of the Crow...stainless steel tanks for brewing. It will be expanding this year.

As a bit of an overview of Thirsty Crow, it is a great place. Large warehouse-like space, funky decor (nice art, great furniture), and good food. The focal point of the venue is the brewing facility, which is right out in the open. The menu is pretty small, mostly pizza but very interesting ones. The Thai chicken is Lisa’s favourite; I like the bacon and mushroom one. We haven’t had the nerve to try the “Sunday roast” pizza yet.  Of course, there is an interesting beer selection, both made there and elsewhere. And there is a good list of local wines, though we only have beer when we go. The clientele is not your typical Wagga bar crowd (or so we are told…we don’t go to other bars here), being mostly a bit older, and quite often a lot of groups of women. The owner is quite happy with the people that come in, sees them as serious beer people as opposed to heavy drinkers, and is proud of the fact that despite there being a lot of alcohol consumed there, in the year it has been open there hasn’t been any sort of bad incident (I think the term he used was dust up…). This is in contrast to the bars down the street that are known to be pretty rowdy.

Besides pints, middys and schooners of beer, you can also get sampler trays.

Monday nights in Wagga are always a bit dead; not much is open, people are probably hung over still, so not a lot of drinking going on. Because of this, Thirsty Crow has cheap beer on Monday for members (we are). So we occasionally (not often enough) go there for pizza and beer.

Another new initiative for Mondays is a small-group beer tasting session with the brewmeister. After seeing it announced on Facebook, and Dan emailed the guy to sign up for the first one while Lisa would be somewhere on a plane over the Pacific. She will maybe try to get to one later in the year.

Dan writing here…switching to first person…

The 'label' for the vanilla milk stout. They don't bottle the beer yet, but these are on the taps.

The session was quite fun and informative. And it wasn’t just a tasting really – there was some work involved.  Not hard yakka, but yakka just the same. Everyone was given a scoring sheet based on the official beer competition judging guide and had to give their impressions of the beers, not just on how much you liked it but on how it fit the profile of what that style of beer is supposed to be. Craig, the owner and brewer, was using this feedback to help him perfect the beer both for the customers but also for an upcoming beer competition in Melbourne. They won a medal last year for the vanilla milk stout, after only being in business for a few months, and want another medal this year.

First up was the Kolsch, a light German-style beer that is, honestly, a bit boring. But as Kolsch’s go, it was an OK one…everyone agreed but also most of the people there don’t want that kind of beer. I ranked it 11.5 out of 15.  It was a bit too bitter for this style, and there wasn’t much of an aroma.

A chalkboard on one wall keeps people informed of what is happening in the brewery.

Next came the latest batch of the stout. I have had this before, but not this batch. It is a nice dark, heavy beer, but I felt the head didn’t last long enough. Taste and smell were a bit off too, because the latest batch of vanilla wasn’t as good. Vanilla extract is processed using bourbon, and this one was very strong; so strong, in fact, that it was noticeable and overpowered the usual chocolate and coffee flavours of a good stout and the real vanilla flavour itself. Score: 12.5/15.

Third on the menu was the Robust Porter. Good toasty, chocolatey flavours, but I thought it was a bit too dark in colour to be perfect. And sort of a one-note nose. 12/15.

The winner of the night, and one of my favorite beers.

The last one we got was the Pale Ale. It is a great bitter and citrusy ale! I love it…it is my go-to beer when we go there.  13.5/15 – it lost a 1/2 point each on of the three categories: appearance (too dark I thought), aroma (a bit too much citrus, not enough malt) and taste (I think it could have been a bit more bitter and dry).

It was a fun evening of learning bit about the short history of the brewery/pub, a lot about beer making, quite a bit about the beer culture in Wagga (lack of really!)  and Australia (not bad), and what is in store for the future of Thirsty Crow (more capacity, a bottling machine!).  I was sitting right beside Craig, so had some good chats about beer around the world, not just what he makes. He’s a huge beer aficionado. One of the interesting things is that he knows what he can’t make well and brings it in from other craft brewers around the country, and on a revolving basis so there is always a variety of external beer both on tap and in bottles. Of course, I haven’t gotten around to trying most of it. I think only once have I had a non-TC beer there, something on tap that looked too interesting not to try.

An example from above is that when we first moved here, there was a Hefewiezen available. We both love wheat beers! But he hasn’t made it recently, and the reason (I heard) is that the cheap Chinese-made equipment he has in the brewery can’t handle the heat needed to properly brew beer with wheat in it.  Interesting!

The other participants at the session were an interesting bunch. Overall, it was a pretty sedate affair; most of the people just listened to Craig talk. But at my end of the table there was some discussion. There was a young guy who was quite obviously a beer fan, and a regular at TC and was quite friendly. There was another guy who I would use two of the same descriptors for…fan, regular…but not overly talkative. And there was a couple (maybe? not actually sure) who I had a great chat with; she was an Aussie who had recently spent 2 years in Canada, he was a Canadian (Ottawa region with a French accent) now here in Wagga (I’m assuming her visa ran out and he came back with her…he said he had been here for 8 months and had about another year left, which means young tourist/worker visa). He was quite quiet, but she was very friendly. We talked about how the craft beer culture is far better in Canada! But, at least that culture is something that is getting a bit better here and hopefully will continue to grow.

Posted in beer, Thirsty Crow, wagga | 2 Comments

Like a drunk in a midnight choir…

Posted on January 14, 2012 by waggadventure

In Edmonton, our backyard had some sparrows (what we referred to as “basic brown birds”) and the occasional robin.  There were ducks and geese flying over, seagulls, pigeons and magpies. Pretty boring. Here, we are inundated with new and exciting birds! So many in fact that this is going to be a three-part post (for now). This first one is about ‘everyday birds’ – ones that seem to live year-round in the Riverina. We also found a great little web resource (called Birds in Backyards) where you can learn more about many of these cool Aussie birds; we’ve inserted a number of links here, so you can hear what we hear.

Galahs are misunderstood here in Australia, but they have tried in their own way to be free.

Galahs: One of the most common birds we see, they are a member of the cockatoo family, which is somewhere in the same family as parrots.  They can be seen feeding on the ground all over the city, and might seem a bit ‘pigeon-y’ (even though the pigeons here are better than ones in North America…see below) but when you get out into the country, you realize how beautiful they are. Australians, for some reason, don’t like Galahs. Aussies think these birds are stupid; maybe they are, but there is a dumber bird we’ve found, as we will point out later.

A rare picture of a lone cockatoo. There are usually a million of them and they are really fracking loud.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo: Equally common. These guys are big, and they are gorgeous. Australians probably take them for granted, but we love them. But, there is a down side to them. They are loud. Really loud. So loud, in fact, when we start house hunting, before we put in an offer we will go stand outside it early morning to make sure they don’t live around it. They make sleep impossible. We’ve seen these cockatoos doing some pretty interesting things though. One day while cycling, we saw a bunch of them land on a power line and then flip over and hang by their feet like bats. It was pretty cool. Then, even cooler, a few days later while driving through Bungendore, we saw them do that, then grab the line with their beak and hang by it. No idea why, but it was really interesting.

Willie Wagtail: These little guys are really cute! They are defective members of the fantail family, we think. Fantails do as their name implies: fan out their tail. Wagtails do as their implies: wag their tail. We think they have some genetic problem that won’t let their tail fan out but they keep trying.

We didn't take this picture of a magpie, but these birds are so abundant that no one would be able to say we violated copyright. But, this is a great picture so we will acknowledge it: Source: Barbara Hardy Institute http://www.unisa.edu.au/barbarahardy/ Photographer: John Hodgson.

Magpies: These aren’t the same as the magpies in Edmonton, which were European magpies. There are Australian Magpies (larger, mostly black with some white) and Magpie Larks (smaller with more white).  The larks are pretty innocuous, but the Aussie magpies are vicious and  a cyclist’s nightmare. We made it through this past nesting season without getting attacked, but by law of averages, within a few years Dan will probably have a big scar on his head or be missing a part of an ear from a magpie attack. When  you hear an Australian Magpie, you wonder who in the neighbourhood just bought a theremin.

Australian wood ducks are more populous than magpies, so try suing us for not crediting this photo...

Ducks: in an earlier post about things we thought we might miss in Canada, ducks were one of them. And we wondered if there were ducks in Australia. Yes, there are. Hundreds of millions of them! There have been a lot of news stories about them recently, about how the population is growing exponentially because of the end of the drought, about how they are devastating the rice crops in the Riverina (not a funny story, but you can’t not laugh at the fact that the farmer’s name is FOWLer), and how the Victorian government is allowing more hunting. The common ones that we see are the Australian Wood Duck and the Pacific Black Duck. They are all over the place, and have chased us on the bike trail around Lake Albert even, when they thought we were going to run over their babies.

Marsh birds: There are two distinct ecosystems at Lake Albert. Most of the area is quite open, and that is where the ducks live. But at the south end, there are some trees around it and a marshy, reedy area that is populated by Purple Swamphens, Dusky Moorhens, and Eurasian Coots. These guys are all pretty similar. The coots have white bills and mostly stay in the water. The moorhens are black(ish) and have red bills with a yellow tip. The swamphens are our favorites though: their neck and breasts are purple, and when the sun hits them right they are quite shiny! There are a lot of them at Lake Albert, but Dan was also inundated with them while cycling around Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. These marsh birds also share their space with…

Great or little egret standing in a dam in North Wagga. Source: Dan Given. (You don't think we would steal a photo this bad, do you? In the photographer's defence, however, it was very foggy that morning.)

Wading birds: we’ll lump both Egrets and Herons together here, partly because we are sometimes not 100% accurate on identifying them. We see more of these long-legged, long-necked beauties in one day than we saw in a life-time in Canada.  Little egrets and great egrets are pretty much the same except for size, and from a distance it is hard to judge: Is that bird, standing in a dam 100 metres away, 60  cm (little egret) or 80 cm (great egret) tall? Hmmm?   There are also white faced herons and white necked herons. These ones are easier to tell apart. Pretty much every dam in the Riverina has its own egret or heron, as do most streams, and there are always some around the lakes. They seem to be pretty solitary, and probably territorial, as we never see them together.

Ibis (Ibi?): all over the place, huge prehistoric looking creatures with beaks that would go right through you.

An introduced species, in 2008 the myna was voted as "the most important pest in Australia". Of course, mynas are mostly urban and any farmer who has lost lambs to a fox would argue with that designation.

Common Myna: who knew where mynas lived? We didn’t. Or what they looked like. But we now know what they look like, and where they live. And it seems that most of them live in the bushes outside of Dan’s office.

Crested Pigeon: actually kind of cute for a pigeon. The best thing about them is when they take off their wings make this really great squeaking sound like they need oiled. No room for a photo, but lmgtfy.

Plovers/Masked Lapwings:  It’s a plover. No it’s a lapwing. No, it’s a plover. There seems to be some discrepancy about this bird. One of our bird books calls this bird a Masked Lapwing; the other calls it a Masked Plover and says another name for it is Lapwing. The locals all call it a plover, though.  We call it (Lisa edit: Dan calls it… not me; this is just rude!) the “16 year old bogan girl who didn’t know she was pregnant and has her baby in the Macca’s bathroom” (Macca being Oz slang for McDonald’s); this is the dumbest bird on the planet!  Like the bogan girl, plovers just ‘give birth’ wherever. Their ‘nest’ consists of wherever the female happened to be walking at the time the eggs just seem to fall out. Lawns, parking lots…whatever. You would think that they would plan ahead better, but no.

Oops, my eggs fell out. I reckon I'll just have to sit here for a month.

In the spring there were plover eggs all over the place. One laid her eggs about 1 metre from the intersection of 2 busy footpaths at CSU and facilities people had to put up a barrier to protect the eggs. But, they are good parents: both mom and dad violently defend the eggs; on campus, this became a spot to avoid for a month.

Common Blackbird: OK, so not every bird in Australia is interesting. But we have a family of them in our backyard, so we like them a lot.

You are probably all very frustrated now and wondering why we haven’t talked about parrots (since we mention them in almost every post).  We do see parrots every day, but not always the same ones. Well, those will be coming up in the next entry, about what we call ‘migratory birds’ – or ones that seem to be seasonal and only stay for a short time.

I'm a purple swamphen. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Posted in Australia, birds, cockatoo, lake albert, magpie, Riverina, rural life, wagga, wagga wagga | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Happy anniversary

Posted on January 11, 2012 by waggadventure

One day last weekend, we realized that we have been here for 6 months. We actually missed the proper anniversary day – we might have celebrated it somehow (pizza and beer at Thirsty Crow?) if we had remembered.  But in honour of our being here for a full half of a year (and part of three seasons: end of winter, spring, start of summer), it is time to revisit some of our previous posts and offer a few follow-ups.

Even after being drowned in Raid, a redback is pretty distinctive.

We have the spider population as under control as we will get it. The Mortein can says it is effective for “up to 6 months”, but at about 3 months webs started appearing along the eavestrough, so Dan did another extermination. We have a spider or two in the house most days, ranging from tiny to not-so-tiny. But we’ve figured out what ones are (mostly) harmless (the ones in the house generally) and just whack them with whatever is nearby. Lisa even hits the odd one with her hand now. And her best kill was two redbacks! She was working at home one day, out on the patio, and happened to see one in one of the boxwood bushes.  After first photographing it, she sprayed it with Raid, and then realized that there were two dead ones on the ground. Good hunting. (Last minute update: Dan smashed a huge white-tailed spider with a rolled up newspaper this morning, in the middle of the dining room floor. We aren’t sure if it was still alive, or the kitties had already killed it. And according to our spider book, these guys (white tails, not the cats) aren’t as dangerous as people often say, but we still don’t want them around.)

Malachi has learned how to sit on the post too. We don't know if Lester taught him, or it was a natural reaction to a spider.

The cats have also learned to hate spiders; they act as an early warning system by circling the intruder and looking worried… but they are smart enough not to touch anything that enters the house (funny that! They used to eat anything that moved in Canada. Good instincts).  The kitties have also settled into Aussie summer (shedding like crazy, so Lisa has taken to brushing them daily) and no longer jump at the sound of the magpies or Galahs outside the window. Overall, they are back to their normal routines – following Lisa around the house while pretending that Dan doesn’t exist. And Lester had to go to the doctor recently for an infected cut on his chin. We’re not sure if it was from fighting with his brother or a spider, but it required 10 days of medication.

When we were at the Apple Blossom Festival in Batlow, we saw that the orchards had netting over them; we didn’t know for what (sun? fruit flies?). Turns out it is hail netting. But a major storm whipped through the Riverina in early December and the netting didn’t hold up. About 60% of the Batlow apple crop was destroyed.  The area was declared an agricultural disaster zone, meaning the growers will get compensation for lost crops.

All this netting didn't manage to keep the hail off the apples. We have been told that it is quite useful when orchard owners want to hide their marijuana crop from police helicopters though.

But interestingly, weather patterns here are such that Adelong, just a few miles away and on lower ground, didn’t get hit; we have been buying apples at the market from a guy from there and he said his crop is doing well. So the price of apples is probably going to be high this autumn, much like bananas were in the winter because of last year’s storms in Queensland. When we got here, bananas were about $14 per kilo. Now they are at about $2/kg and have even been down as low as $1. Yay!

The cherry orchards in Young also had a shitty year. On our last trip there to pick, there were a lot of bad cherries. It seems that when a cherry gets too wet, it splits then rots on the tree. And it rained quite a bit this year. According to a news report, Ballinaclash lost about 60% of their crop; not fully lost, but they couldn’t sell them as cherries. Instead, they process them there, making jam or even wine with them, in an attempt to not have a complete loss for the year.  And while at Casa Luna at year-end, we heard stories about how cherry growers in Shepparton (Victoria’s equivalent to Young) last year got a lot of rain, and actually hired helicopters to fly/hover over the orchards to blow the water off the cherries. Wow! This must have cost a lot of money, but might be better than losing an entire crop.

Anyone want to buy a bakery? The Australian government would probably give you a visa... And Ganmain is a nice little town.

The Ganmain bakery went up for sale a while ago. These are the people that make the famous Ganmain Pies that Dan ate in the competition. The owners were retiring, according to an article in the Daily Advertiser. We haven’t seen a follow-up, so don’t know if it sold yet or not. The Ganmain Hotel is also up for sale. It is a 9 room hotel, has a pub and some pokies. And a food service area that is closed. According to the ad, it does about $7ooo business each week, but could be more if the new owner re-opens the restaurant. It was passed in (the Aussie term for “didn’t sell”) at auction. No one met the reserve bit of about $450,000. But there were interested buyers, and it was hoped that a sale would be negotiated soon. This doesn’t bode well for Ganmain; two of its major businesses both being up for sale and not getting a lot of interest. Small towns here, like everywhere unfortunately, are dying out…

Speaking of dying out, the CSU cheese factory has closed (shock! horror!). The exact organizational structure of it has always boggled us. With the winery, we understand that it both supports and is supported by academic programs. But the cheese factory was different. It seems that Barry, the cheesemaker, leased this space to make CSU-branded cheese. You could buy it at the CSU winery cellar door, Wagga farmers market, a few local shops, such as Knights Meats and Duffy Brothers. But he also sold it to CSU for their use; pretty much any university function features CSU wines and cheeses. But economically, it wasn’t feasible for the uni and at the end of this  year, Barry got the boot. He’s not going quietly though. The Daily Advertiser has run several articles, all from his side of the story, about how he thinks he should be able to buy the equipment to set up shop in Coolamon. He even has a lawyer involved. The uni isn’t responding publicly. We don’t know what is going to happen, but if he doesn’t continue making cheese somewhere we are going to miss his cheese. It is generally really good – and even if someone might not like all of them (and we don’t), you have to give credit to a guy who developed a new style of cheesemaking.

And in case anyone cares, Dan made it through magpie season without getting hit (oh, you would have heard if he didn’t – he would have been announcing that proudly!). A couple of close calls while riding to work, even with the idiot sticks on his helmet. A couple more close calls after he took them off, but no contact. And, in a moment he is quite thrilled with, he actually did get hit by a parrot! Again at Lake Albert, a guy riding a horse beside the trail rousted up a flock of red rumps and one ran into Dan’s shoulder as he cycled by. How cool is that!!! Almost as cool as cycling beside a kangaroo near Balldale (yes, that happened too!).

No, Lisa doesn't have the puffy coat out because NSW had a cold spring. She is heading back to Canada (and Texas and Quebec) for a couple of weeks in January. She will have to wear it, while Dan will still be in shorts.

So lots has happened in the past 6 months, and we are starting to feel like we live here. One evening last week it dropped down to about 21 Celsius and, like a good Aussie, Lisa was chilly. We actually ate dinner inside this past Monday because it was only 23 on the patio. Dan, however, is still acting like an American tourist, and hasn’t worn long pants in 2012; he says he can make it the entire year in shorts – so the challenge is on! (Last minute update 2: we awoke this morning to an unseasonably cold day, and Dan is wearing jeans to work…so the short pant streak has ended at 10 days.  Another one will probably start tomorrow though.)

We’re looking forward to the next 6 months. We signed another lease on the house…buying right now isn’t feasible, but maybe by July. Of course, if we do, we’ll be in the process of moving and probably miss the 1 year anniversary of our arrival. If we do remember it, Thirsty Crow, here we come.

And maybe after year, we will have figured out what a rissole is, too.

Posted in aclimatizing, apples, Ballinaclash, birds, bug spray, cats, cheese, cherries, cold, cycling, gardening, spiders, weather | Leave a comment

and a new year begins

Posted on January 7, 2012 by waggadventure

A view from Casa Luna: cockatoos flying by a vineyard. One of the wines we had with dinner probably came from this paddock.

And so… to continue our tale of our New Year’s excursion. Our package at Casa Luna included breakfasts and dinners, as well as what was described as “a long and languorous candlelit degustation dinner of our Italian-influenced food, with every course matched to King Valley and Italian wines – starting at 8.00 pm and finishing late.”  So at 8 pm on December 31, we went to the Casa Luna dining room where we met, for the first time, our fellow resort guests, along with 2 couples from another nearby accommodation that doesn’t serve dinner. After some prosecco, canapes and chat, we sat down to a wonderful 4 course dinner. Gwenda, one of the owners, is a former caterer and an aficionado of Italian food; the public areas at Casa Luna are lined with Italian cookbooks and, of course, her cuisine goes perfectly in the King Valley. First up was a prawn salad (veggie version for Lisa), paired with Dal Zotto arneis; next was quail with another Dal Zotto white (a blend of 4 grapes), followed by duck breast with chestnut sauce, paired with two wines – a local (literally, next door!) barbera and an Italian barbera. Dessert was an amaretto cream with cherries and a berry wine.

Our building at Casa Luna was easy to find in daylight, but the walk back after NYE dinner was a bit of a challenge.

Just as dessert was being served, someone noted that it was 11:55, so Dave (the other owner) turned on the radio, we heard the countdown and fireworks from Sydney, then everyone went back to their food. A dozen people in the building (two owners and 10 guests) and no one really cared about NYE! We finished our food and everyone staggered off across the dark property trying to find our cabins, and marveling at the bright sky. We don’t remember the last time we saw the Milky Way! Other guests took the time to name the stars (they call the “big dipper” the “big saucepan” here) and then we called it a night.

The road that Dan couldn't resist at 6:45 am on New Year's Day. It was less appealing on his return trip at 8:00 am, because the hill going up to Casa Luna is long.

On the morning of the first day of 2012, Dan woke up around 5:45 and looked out at a beautiful sunrise. He went back to bed, and lay there for an hour pondering his bicycle, 20 degrees, sun, the prospect of parrots and kangaroos being out at that hour, and the probability that there would be no cars on the road. All this was weighed against only 5 hours sleep and a lot of wine the night before. But, after an hour of anguished deliberation, he got up, got dressed, and hit the pavement for a 40 km round trip from Myrrhee to Moyhu. And yes, there were parrots (hundreds!), a couple of kangaroos, and a masked owl (another first). And no traffic except one other idiotic cyclist who he met going both ways. He got back to the resort just as Lisa was emerging from the shower, glad he hadn’t woken her earlier.

After a light continental breakfast, we toddled off to Milawa again to do a bit more exploring – this time to visit the cheese factory. We can buy Milawa cheese here in Wagga, but were unaware of the full range, which is pretty spectacular. Soft, semi-soft, hard, goat, cow…they probably make (and let you sample) 20 different cheeses! We stopped in again on the way home, the next day, to purchase a few of our favourites.

All is quiet on New Year's Day at Lake William Hovell.

Casa Luna also prepared a picnic lunch for us on 1 January, and so we decided to take in some scenery. Lake William Hovell is up in the mountains at the south end of King Valley, and the source of the King River that gives the valley its name. It is a nice little lake, made larger by a dam, and set in a bush at the end of a long and twisty road.  Since it was a long weekend and about 38 degrees, it was pretty busy with families swimming, fishing, and just generally kicking back and enjoying the sunshine. We had our picnic in the shade of an evergreen tree that was home to a pair of fairy wrens who entertained us while we ate.

The entrance to the Pizzini cellar door is a bit strange, but 40 metres through this wine shed, there is a beautiful modern tasting room.

Then, back down the mountain for…you guessed it…more wineries. We skipped Chrismont – it looked nice, but we had actually tried many of their offerings at their outlet in Milawa – and we skipped a few others too (sad when there are so many wineries you have to be selective, isn’t it??). We did stop at Politini, which is fairly small; the old guy at the cellar door (if you look on the website, you’ll see a pic of him playing the accordion!) told us all about how he started it and all about how he is the grower and his son is the winemaker.  Then off to Pizzini, which is much larger and more elaborate, but still a small family operation in the overall scheme of things. Both offered up some good wine, and if not for having to drive, we could have checked out the other dozen or so producers in the neighbourhood.

The site of an amazing meal at Casa Luna, and inspiration for us when we finally get our own house.

At the Casa that night, we had a great pizza party! Casa Luna has an outdoor dining area with a wood-fired pizza oven (actually common here…all the other guests that night had one in their backyard too…we can’t wait to buy a house!) and Gwenda had prepared crusts and toppings and we all sat around and drank and made our own pizzas (Lisa had salami, olives, basil and cheese and Dan had basil, olive, anchovy, cheese, and potato).  There was some conversation about how Italians use pizza as a first course, but even during this conversation, no one really mentally prepared themselves for what came next. After all the pizzas were finished, Dave took the coals from the oven, put them into the built-in barbecue, and then grilled some sausages (made from their own cows!) and lamb chops.  And the wine-fueled feast continued until around midnight…at least everyone was smart enough to leave their porch lights on that night, which reduced the stumbling in the dark.

Sadly, the next day brought us back to reality. Breakfast, load up the car (bikes on roof, about 4 cases of wine in the boot), and back to Wagga. We made a detour to Rutherglen for a pie at Parkers Pies (maybe the best pies we’ve had, and we’ve  been sampling a lot) because with January 1 being on a Sunday, the 2nd was still a holiday and everything between Milawa and Wagga was closed. It was starting to get hot down in Victoria. Really really hot. When we were in Rutherglen, it was 39; the next day it got up to 40. Wagga was about 4 degrees cooler. And we were too wined out by then, so we actually made it through Rutherglen without stopping at any wineries!

The heat in Vic (and here) is a serious issue. The hotter and drier it gets, the higher the fire hazard rating goes. While driving down, it was ‘high’; coming home 3 days later, it was ‘very high’. We’ll talk more about those fire ratings later as the summer heats up…

Posted in cycling, food, holidays, King Valley, mountains, New Year's Eve, wine, wineries | Tagged , | Leave a comment

how deep in the valley

Posted on January 4, 2012 by waggadventure

Not hard to figure out what this post is going to be about. Vino!

There was a newspaper article recently about impulsive online shopping while drinking and how the purchasers (what they called “boozy shoppers”) often regretted their choices. We recently had an experience doing this, but were thrilled with the results.

A few weeks ago, we were drinking a bottle of wine from Symphonia. It was a great wine from a winery (now owned by Sam Miranda…more on that later) we had never heard of in the King Valley, a place we had never heard of. So, Dan goes online, looks at the Sam Miranda website, and sees the link about King Valley; before sobering up he had booked the New Year weekend on the edge of a remote village called Myrrhee (pronounced my-ree). Lisa had gone to bed hours earlier, long after that bottle was gone. But, luckily, Dan waited until the next morning to get Lisa’s stamp of approval before providing his credit card details to secure the booking.

La Cantina winery. An old Italian guy making old-style Italian wines, and selling them in an old Italian-style building.

King Valley history in a nutshell is this: a lot of Italians moved there a couple of generations ago. They were tobacco farmers. When people stopped smoking as much, they did what Italians do best – plant vines and make wine! And fortunately, they did it how they’ve always done it; they took advantage of the climate (similar to northern Italy) and grew grapes. Most of them sold their crop to bigger companies in the area; some people we spoke to were proud of these relationships, while others spoke of being time of being “exploited” through small payments for grapes. Eventually, many started making their own wines too, often cutting ties with the “corporates” completely. Now, there are small family wineries making wonderful Italian-style wines  (from grapes like barbera, nebbiolo, sangiovese, pinot grigio and arneis) that are lighter and more complex than the ubiquitous Aussie shiraz, cabernet and chardonnay.

And where you have great wine and lots of Italians you’re also bound to have great food. The King Valley is no exception! There is a great food(ie) culture in this region, where the signs note that you’ve entered a “Gourmet Region” of Australia.  Many of the wineries have superb restaurants and there are some interesting food producers too. King Valley Fine Foods makes dips and pestos from a variety of ingredients; the Milawa Cheese Factory is heaven for anyone who isn’t lactose intolerant.

Loading up the bikes in Wangaratta. As you can see by the sky, it was an absolutely beautiful day!

Another feature of this region is the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail, a network of about 100 km of bicycle trails. The network is made up of mostly reclaimed railway tracks, with some other trails now added. Much of it is flat and straight and fun to ride and goes through scenic rural countryside. There are fields of cattle and sheep, birds, trees, streams and dams, and the trail is easy enough that you can actually look at them as you ride.

So, what was our weekend like? Started off with a ride on the rail trail. We both went from Bowser to Tarrawingee (gotta love Aussie place names!) and back (about 25 km); then Dan put Lisa’s bike back on the roof of the car and continued on to Wangaratta (aka ‘Wang’, only another 8 km). Lisa picked him up there, and we drove to Milawa. There we did a little bit of exploring (there isn’t much there really!) and then went for a spectacular lunch at Brown Brothers wines.

Dan's lunch of pig (3 ways) at Brown's. Yummy.

Browns is the oldest winery in the area, and also the largest by far. They have a great restaurant and property, and the wines are OK but nothing special.

And then off to find our accommodation.  Casa Luna Gourmet Accommodation is a collection of tin buildings on the side of a hill just north of Myrrhee (about 25 km south of Milawa). It isn’t really in the King Valley; it is on the west side of the ‘mountains’, overlooking Boggy Creek and a whole lot of vineyards. It was beautiful! Lots of birds (parrots, cockatoos, wrens, silvereyes, goldfinches…), some kangaroos, millions of butterflies, supposedly some wombats (though we didn’t see them), cows, etc. A nice rural escape.  We checked in, Lisa read while Dan went for a quick ride through the region (another 13 km in a brutal heat!), then the host brought us our dinner of an antipasti plate and a bottle of wine. Best of all – no mobile service! We were off the grid and forced to kick back.

Another hot (35C) and sunny day in Oxley. Perfect for kicking back on Sam Miranda's patio, sipping a glass of pinot grigio as we awaited our food.

Next morning, after a hearty brekkie, we went back to Milawa, parked the car and cycled almost to Wang. On the way back, we stopped at Sam Miranda winery in Oxley (about 6 km out of Milawa) for a tasting and ended up making a lunch reservation…quick pedal back to the car, changed our clothes and drove back to the winery for another amazing lunch, out on their patio among the parrots… Sam Miranda isn’t a huge winery, but it is pretty spectacular. The cellar door/restaurant is stunning! Make sure you look at the website to see it. Though a relatively small winery in the big scheme of things, Sam obviously has a lot of money to build this place, to buy other wineries like Symphonia, etc. And so bike friendly he even sells jerseys with his logo on them. Yes, we each bought one (Dan’s is white, Lisa’s is rosé).

Another Italian family, more Italian-style wines, but Dal Zotto serves theirs up in a more Australian building: a tin shed.

After lunch, time to do the King Valley proper. We hit a few wineries, ranging from tiny to medium-sized. La Cantina, for example, is pretty much a one-man operation; the old Italian guy makes great nebbiolo. Gracebrook is bigger, and a two-person operation; he grows the grapes and makes the wine, she runs the restaurant. Dal Zotto was the biggest one of the three that afternoon, and it seems to be pretty much Dad, Mom, a couple of sons and their partners (the person running the cellar door was a daughter-in-law who said she and her husband came back from Sydney to help with harvest 4 years ago and never made it out…King Valley is that attractive!). Dal Zotto was the first in the area to make prosecco, and started a booming tourist attraction known as The Prosecco Trail. They also make great arneis and some really, really good barberas.

And then, boot (trunk!) full of wine, we headed back across the hill to Casa Luna for New Year’s Eve dinner. More next time on this fabulous retreat and how we spent the first two days of 2012.

And by the way, in case you haven’t done this yet: vote for us in the Canadian Blog Awards for Best New Blog. Please. It would make us really happy (not as happy as we would have been if we had nominated, and won, for the post about Dan’s tattoo, but still happy).

Posted in cheese, cycling, holidays, King Valley, mountains, New Year's Eve, wine, wineries, winter | Tagged , | 1 Comment

let us be the first…

Posted on January 1, 2012 by waggadventure

to wish all of you a Happy New Year! Being where we are, we enter 2012 before most of the rest of the world, so we get the jump on this.

Many people use this holiday to make resolutions and plans for the new year. We’ve never done that, so probably won’t start now. Instead, we think it is a good time to reflect on the past year. Did we do much…? No, not really.

This was our itinerary last year at this time, from Valparaiso around Cape Horn and up to Buenos Aires!

We welcomed 2011 on a cruise ship off the coast of Montevideo, Uruguay. We had, in the couple of days preceding that party, decided to move to Australia. So at the stroke of midnight in whatever time zone Uruguay is in, we kissed to a future of many southern hemisphere New Year’s Eves. From then on, 2011 is a bit of a blur…

Argentina, penguins, flights, winter, snow, visa applications, AQIS apps for the cats, snow, lots of domestic travel, snow…that takes us to about the end of February. Did we mention that it was snowy in Edmonton? And cold? This, we remember!

Sell a house, purge our belongings, lots of goodbye parties, more travel for work and to visit family…

Then the pseudo-departure. Most of June was spent in the UK, back to Edmonton for a few days and then the real departure, with a one-way ticket from YEG/YVR to SYD and on to our new home…We figure that in the first 200 days of 2011 we probably each logged around 35000 miles of travel – Lisa probably a bit more, Dan maybe a bit less. And if you take into account December 2010, we’re probably pushing more like 60000 for the year.

And finally, Wagga Wagga, the city so nice they named it twice. Whirlwind weeks of finding a house, buying a car, establishing a new life. Lisa starts her new job, we lived without furniture and cats. We got our cats, we got our furniture, Dan gets a job….we get a normal life.

Eventually we start to explore the region – dog competitions, pie eating competitions, farm sculpture, cherry picking, cycling, wineries, making new friends… Locals tell us we probably know more about the Riverina area than people who have lived here for years. Lots of high points. We live among kangaroos, the occasional wallaby, daily sightings of parrots, rosellas, galahs, cockatoos, fairy wrens, egrets, darters, herons… and bogans. And a lot of new insects, the occasional red back spider and the spectre of brown snakes to keep us on our toes (the count so far? Dead snakes = 2; Live snakes = 0). Our backyard, and neighbourhood, is abundant with flowering things that we have no idea what they are. Life is good.

There have been some low points. We missed a couple of weddings and the birth of a new baby, Dan’s dad died, we miss people…

Unlike Wagga, where it's 30+ this week, Edmonton will be creating another snow pile. This is last year's snow pile... so big that CTV Edmonton launched a contest to see when it would melt (the winner would have this year's pile named after them... we feel sad for them!).

And now we have a warm Christmas season that isn’t part of a vacation – Chrissie lunch at a winery on the edge of Wagga, and as this post goes live at midnight, January 1, 2012, we are on a decadent 4 day, 3 night weekend in one of the country’s best wine regions (full report is coming soon!). We considered doing the uber-touristy visit to Sydney for the fireworks (something many Canadians experience on TV every year, since we’re still awake and sober enough at that time of day on December 31st to appreciate the pics) – but the idea of being surrounded by millions of drunk people while we waited for fireworks at the Harbor didn’t appeal to us. After all, a quick Google image search provides lots of pics of these iconic images, without the jostling of crowds or the vomit (well, we’re not sure what you’re doing as you read this… but we’re safe).

Hmmm, not a very eventful year, eh? Maybe we should make a resolution to try to actually accomplish something in 2012 (Lisa edit: speak for yourself, Dan-o! As I filled out ALL of the paperwork for the big move, I feel like I accomplished a lot. Guess you’ll just need to work harder next year… like doing our Permanent Residency applications all by yourself? Oh wait… those are almost done, again, by ME! Guess you’ll have to work a lot harder… or start searching out day spas where I can relax a bit). Perhaps you, dear readers, will join us in our adventures? Remember (for those of you in the northern hemisphere, at least), with an extra day to plan it’s not too late to add Wagga to your “to-visit” list for 2012.

And, oh yeah, please vote for us in the Canadian blog awards cdnba.wordpress.com. We’re thrilled to be up for the 2011 Best New Blog!

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