catchup!

 2026, Butjikit, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, Sailing, us  4 Responses »
Feb 022026
 

Sal, Kai & Danni fishing the Hole in the Wall

Well its hard to believe, but the last post was on our final days in France, so basically early October, and here we are in the first week of February! I really dont have a lot to write about! We have slipped back into our lives fairly seamlessly, time away on the yacht followed by time back at home! Kai & Danni have also returned from OS and back working and living with us at this stage, (although expecting to get a houses through work.)

So I think I am just going to post a series of photo galleries to bring us up to date!

First trip back after France, we sailed up thru the Gugari Rip (Hole in the Wall) and round into a bay on the North side of Rarakala Island to join friends from Darwin who were up there on their yacht, Nebula. After they left we spent time in Guruliya bay before coming back thru the Gugari Rip and home.

When we got home we met a very interesting couple on a very cleverly designed cat, Alan & June have lived in Thailand for 10 years and started a company building performance cats up there, this was their own boat they were sailing back to Brisbane.

Next up was a trip up to an old favourite, Australian’s Bay, I managed to catch a massive mackie trolling behind the tender and as I lifted the monster into the tender its teeth brushed across the top of my foot and bottom of my leg, slicing me open like a razor, deep, and blood gushing everywhere! Our friends Annie & Jayden came up in their Stabicraft and so we spent a week with them and fished out of their boat while living on the yacht. The highlight was Annie catching an extremely rare fish in Australia, the Pinjalo Lewesi!

Back home for a bit and then Sal and I spent a week around Cotton and Astell Island exploring and fishing.

A few jobs to do when we got back, the strapping on the head of the mainsail needed attention and I ended up making a head board out of nylon cutting boards and bolting it together. Will probably outlast me! Trampoline need re stringing too so I got some new dyneema and re-rigged it.

So the festive season passed with everyone else at home and me staying on the boat in my best Mr Grinch style, then when the weather cleared we set off with Kai & Danni and headed to a stunning new location on Guluwuru Island that was surrounded by cliffs, had a beautiful sand beach, and wonderful waterfalls and fresh water swimming holes.

We also caught some good fish in the Gugari Rip (see photo at top of blog), and on the reefs to the south, at night the squid were on and so we caught a couple each night before having a big cook up! There were a family of sea eagles (Dhamala) in the bay and one of the juveniles kept landing in the rigging, so thats what we named the bay!

Home for the January birthdays, Kai on the 8th, me on the 11th and Danni on the 13th, Sal made a huge choccy cake which lasted over the 3 b’days!

Nearly there! Dave had 5 days off and wanted to head out, it was too windy to head North so we slipped south around Cape Arnhem and headed down to Buymarr. Had a few days anchored in the bay to the east of the community and fished the creek as well as exploring the beautiful coastline and islands.

When we got home I realised the old trailer we use to take the tender from the boat club yard to the boat ramp (100m) had rusted out completely and was broken in half, so I spent a few days cutting it up to salvage the wheels, axle and drawbar and then took it to the hobby shed, bought a length of steel channel and one of the other yachties, Harold, who is 90 years old, offered to weld it up for me! He is an amazing guy, his last big trip, in his 80’s was sailing single handed up to Japan, on to Russia, across to Alaska, back down to Japan and home again!! He is more sprightly and agile than me and still welds as well as anyone I have ever seen!

Ok, I will try and make it a bit shorter between updates rather than a marathon like this! Happy New Year to anyone I havent caught up with this year yet!

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 5:28 pm



France 9

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends, us  2 Responses »
Nov 132025
 

fresh garlic

Well, we have been home a month this week, and I am well aware that I never produced the final post in the France series, our last week or so back down at Arne & Dominique’s, a fabulous end to a mind blowing time living in France for 2 months!

Our first adventure of the closing days was driving South to Valence, a city we had wanted to visit and just hadnt go there, but finally we made it, had a wander round another lovely French city, bought some noughat from Montélimar, the town famous for its noughat which is about another hour further south – our friend Frank, who lives on his yacht in Gove Harbour, left his homeland, France, 55 years ago. He has never been back! We asked him what he would like from France and after thinking for a while he said, “some soft noughat from my hometown, Montélimar.” So we were finally able to fulfill his wish!

We also managed to get back to our favourite French-Lebanese restaurant, Auberge du Pas-Sage, just down the road, in Serre-Nepol, a couple more times, Sal & I for lunch and we took Arne & Dominique for a last dinner before we left. We enjoyed some very nice Lebanese wines and they gave me a couple of Ricard glasses and a water jug after Sal mentioned I had been trying to buy some to take home – an extremely generous gesture!

Our last trip into the French countryside was a drive to the North East, a direction we had not explored and lunch in a town called La Côte-Saint-Ande, we once again discovered a great little restaurant, a workers style brassiere which was filled with the old machinery from a mill or something.

We discovered a beautiful old hotel that had been converted to the Marie (civic centre) and the most amazing gardens in the courtyard. There were also many interesting buildings using a style of small stone work we had not seen elsewhere.

We then stumbled on the most amazing huge hall which was obviously very old and filled with incredible timber. Its still in use today for the weekly market in La Côte-Saint-Ande. We found a plaque with some information and translated it –

The market hall A “market house” is mentioned as early as 1309 in La Côte-Saint-André. This name designates the market hall of the town, which has come down to us in its 15th century form. The building has five bays, separated by rows of wooden posts supporting a four-sided frame. The stone blocks on which the posts rest replaced the original sideboard walls at the beginning of the 19th century, similar to those of the Crémieu market hall. The house which occupies a corner of the building retains parts of the 16th and 17th centuries (fireplace, staircase and ceilings). In the Middle Ages it housed the seat of the court and the Savoyard and then Delphine count’s administration. Its proximity to the market hall testifies to the central role of this multi-purpose space in the center of the city. With a length of 76 meters and a width of 29 meters, this medieval hall is one of the largest that has come down to us. A document from 1548 specifies that the five bays corresponded to the location of five trades: weavers, mercers, regrattlers (retail merchants), shoemakers and butchers. Classified as a Historic Monument, the hall still hosts a weekly market today.

 

We had a final dinner at Le Sabot, Dominique prepared a French classic, Pot au Feu, and we dined with a few of our new, close friends! It was a lovely night, tinged with sadness at the imminent departure of the “Aussies at Sabot” for their home! Dominique also gave me a lovely old Ricard bottle to go with the glasses and water jug that our friends at Auberge du Pas-Sage had given me, I felt very blessed!

And so our time in France ended, an unbelievably amazing 2 months that exceeded any possible expectations we had. Just wonderful in everyway. The trip home was uneventful, no jetlag for some reason, we spent a few days in Darwin and then finally arrived home on the 10th October. We hope you have all enjoyed the vicarious adventure with us, its not a time of our life we will forget anytime soon!

I will leave you with a little video of us driving home to La Sabot, up the winding narrow road that leads up past Rene Claudes house and up to Dominique & Arnes. Enjoy! (turn up the sound!)

 Posted by at 9:10 pm



France 8

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends, us  4 Responses »
Sep 302025
 

Semur-en-Auxios

A bit late with the update! Sorry but my roughly weekly schedule for posting has blown out this time, as I write this we enter our last week in France and we are back down at Dominique & Anre’s house. First though, lets go back to the last week or so of our time in Montbard.

First up, some pictures from my walks thru the village, along the canal and the river, something I tried to most days, weather permitting.

We spent more time exploring in various directions, a drive up to Auxerre and a walk thru the old city on a lovely late summer’s day was interesting. We drove back home thru Chablis and Tonnere where we stopped for a very pleasant glass of chardonnay at a bar. The forecast was for a few lovely warm sunny days before the rain returned so we were determined to make the most of it!

Auxerre is notable for the Saint-Etienne Cathedral, originally built about 500AD, it was destroyed by fires between the 9th and 11th century, and rebuilt in the 11th century, then rebuilt in a different style in the 13th century! Its certainly an impressive building!

Our next day of discovery was a drive to Semur-en-Auxois, we drove into the town centre, parked and wandered around the very pretty town. Sal found some good second hand shops to browse thru and when we had finished exploring we decided to drive to the river on the edge of the town as we had packed a picnic lunch of wine, baguette, cheese and pate so we thought the river would be the spot for that. We nearly didnt find the spot because it was very difficult to drive to due to the extremely steep and narrow streets and at one point 2 other cars were backing out because they had decided there was no pathway forward, but we persisted and were rewarded with a view that realised as the most beautiful town we have yet visited in France, what had not been obvious from the town centre above, was just how steep the hill was that rose out of the river side and how beautiful the buildings lining the hill. Again, another piece of our luck that comes from how we travel and our exploratory mindset!

I have split the galleries in two as we took so many photos here!

I made a little video of bits of footage we have shot driving thru the French countryside, some in Semur-en-Auxois, some on the open road and some in other villages.

The amazing weather continued so the next day we packed another picnic and went back to Vezelay to see it in bright sunlight and then had a picnic in the village below, Saint-Père, again on the banks of a river.

The next day was to be the last of the warm, sunny, clear days before the cold and wet set in, so we packed our 3rd picnic in a row and headed off, we got no more than about 7kms and as we were driving thru Fain-Lès-Montbard we saw a sign that there was a boot sale on and then saw the carpark full of people selling their unwanted goods. This is Sal’s idea of heaven so of course we stopped and went on the hunt for bargains! Sal got some nice clothes and we found a beautiful set of a bigger bowl we will use for salads and 8 small dishes we can use for condiments, they are in amazing condition, local porcelain and only cost 10 euro for all of them! I also got a lovely resting spoon for 1 euro!

We then headed for a little tiny village called Foissy-Sasoge, we had found there was an Emmaus site there, part of the RRUSE network, basically these stores are huge second hand stores run to collect donated materials, sort and resell while providing income, jobs, housing and other support to the disadvantaged,

“Emmaüs Dijon, established in 1972, continues the mission initiated by Abbé Pierre, grounded in its four core values: hospitality and support, sustainable development, employment, and housing. As a social enterprise, it is dedicated to promoting social inclusion and solidarity. To employ disadvantaged people and reduce waste, the organisation runs a number of second-hand stores in the region.”

Being a Saturday afternoon, and as we were making our way to the city of Beaune in the heart of Burgundy, we thought we would stop and see if it was worth coming back for a look when it was open. When we arrived we were surprised to see there were some people standing around the building as if it might be open, but there were plastic chains cordoning off the entries, after some discussion in Franglish we discovered they were shut for lunch and opening in 10 minutes, at 2pm!

So we waited around with a quickly growing crowd of people, by 2pm there were about 50 people waiting at the plastic chains, at exactly 2pm an old guy opened the chains, and the whole crowd aged from about 18 to 80, ran furiously across the grounds to jostle for entry to the huge building and sort thru the tons of second hand goods to hunt for a bargain! It was truly comical and unexpected! It was not just the huge building but also a massive outside area filled with second hand stuff.

Sal was once again in her element! Frankly I found it a bit overwhelming, so much stuff, and most of it junk really (although there was still a lot of really nice stuff too)

After lunch we drove up to Beaune and thru some of the other primary Burgundy villages. It was nice to see all the vineyards on the hills surrounding the towns, but we were pretty underwhelmed by Beaune, very touristy and busy. As we drove home we returned thru the same little village where the boot sale was, they had finished up the boot sale but were still selling a sausage in a baguette and a glass of wine or beer so we pulled up for a quick feed!

Monday night saw us back at La Mirabelle for another amazing meal! It was sweet-sad because we knew it would be our last, we were booked into Le Chez Soi for the next night which would be our last in Montbard.

And so it was off to Le Chez Soi for a last meal with Chef Raphael, at first there was only one other table, a couple, another couple came to the door to try and get a table but Raphael told them he was full and not taking any walk ins. You could see the confusion on their faces – they could see there were only 4 people in the restaurant!!

As we suspected another group came in to sit at the 3rd table, they were a group of 6 and as we discovered when we all sang happy birthday,  it was Nathalie’s birthday. This lead to some chat between the 3 tables and when they discovered we were Australian they became very friendly, Bernard & Claire have a niece working in WA and Jean & Nelly have a daughter in Brisbane, from there the conversation in ‘Franglish’ continued! Towards the end of our meal they told us they wanted to sing a song for us and asked us to join them and Raphael was given the job of camera man!

This lead to Bernard asking us to join them all back at his house “for a few drinks”, they live about 75m from the restaurant in a beautiful house at the top of the old village. Who could resist an offer like that!? So we walked up the stairs, round the corner & into their house.

What ensued was an incredible night of hospitality from Bernard & Claire, Jérôme & Nathalie & Jean & Nelly, singing, talking, drinking various local spirits, chatting to their niece on the phone in Australia, and probably much more that we cant remember due to the alcohol content by this time! It was another reminder that our sort of travelling delivers an experience so different to the Farcebork/IG/TikTok tourism. With tourism enough money can buy you the same experience as any other tourist, but no amount of money can buy the sort of experiences we enjoy as travellers. We may have only really stayed in 2 places for 2 months in France, but experiences like this night will stay with us the rest of our lives and remind us just how wonderful people are the world over!

Mind you, the hangover felt it might last the rest of our lives too!! It lead to the decision the next day NOT to leave for the drive back to Dominique & Arne’s. Instead on a drizzly cold day, about lunchtime, I got out of bed and did the walk of shame down town to where we had left the car the night before to pick it up and return to bed!!

So the following day we arrived back in La Sabot after a long day driving, we stopped at a city called Mâcon for lunch and discovered yet another wonderful French city, on the banks of the Saône. Lovely wide streets, beautiful buildings, and a relaxed, happy feel to it. It was nice to be back in Dominique’s kitchen & I enjoyed cooking for all of us again, Lamb Kleftiko one night and beef ribs the next! They have gone away now for 4 days in Austria, so we have the house to ourselves for a few days, the weather has come good again, although its much cooler now. We have just 2 days together when they return and then drive up to Lyon next Sunday to drop the car off and fly out home to Australia.

Just to finish up what has been a very long post, I have been collecting pictures of some of the beautiful cars I have spotted in France, mainly Citroens!

 

 

 Posted by at 5:24 am



France 7

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends, us  2 Responses »
Sep 152025
 

Dijon

So Thursday saw us driving Kai over to Dijon to catch his bus to Munich, after dropping him off and saying our goodbyes after a fabulous week with him, we decided to spend some more time checking Dijon out, so we moved the car to a long term carpark and started wandering. Its a very beautiful city, huge wide streets and promenades, feels very slow and relaxed, no one rushing or stressing! Its sort of the perfect size city for us! Big enough for the title of city, but small enough to have a great feel.

We stumbled across the Jean Jacques precinct which was full of bars and restaurants and on the spur of the moment booked dinner for that night at a lovely looking French-Japanese fusion restaurant, L’Aspérule. So we decided we better find a cheap hotel so we could stay the night, but first we went to visit the Cité de la Gastronomie et du Vin – basically the French Gastronomy Center, and specifically the Cave de la Cité, a wine shop with 3 floors form a sort of ‘wine library’, 3000 bottles of wine, 250 of them sold by the glass. They range from a few Euros to a lot more when you descend to the Cave des Grand Crus. Here they have some of the most expensive wines in the world. The wines sold by the glass are mounted in special cabinets, you load a card with cash and then insert the card above the rows of bottles, and select the wine you want and how much, 30ml, 75ml or 150ml and then it pours the glass from the bottle. The small 30ml glass means you can afford to taste very expensive wines that would be otherwise outside your budget.

We did a series of blind tastings with 2 glasses, one with a cheap Burgundy and the second with an expensive one, eg a grand or premium cru. (cheap one was €2.50 for 30ml, expensive up to €35 for 30ml) It confirmed our existing opinion that we are not the greatest fans of the reds of Burgundy. They are a little light and thin tasting for our palates, something I would put down to the singular use of Pinot Noir grapes. We also were consistently able to pick the €20 bottle from the €400 bottles – but the difference in taste in no way justified the difference in price in our opinion. Give us a $25 bottle of good Australian Shiraz or Cab Sauv any day!! We finished with trying a few Côtes du Rhône, including some very old Grand Crus, as these have a flavour profile more to our palate.

We followed the tasting with a quick bite of lunch at one of the brasseries in the city of gastronomy and then found a room at the Hotel de Paris and had an afternoon nap before heading out to find a bar for an aperitif before dinner.

It was in the Jean Jacque precinct again that we found an amazing underground bar, in a back street with no other shops, restaurants or bars, was a sign on the footpath and stairs leading straight down underground to a beautiful space. Apparently most of the old hotels in Dijon had a cellar like this that was the restaurant for the hotel, this had been such a space and long after the hotel was gone, repurposed as an underground bar, Le Caveau de Saulx. The staff were very knowledgeable and helpful, again a great range of wines, many very old ones. They had a simple system, you could get a glass of a range of newer wines for €10 or a glass of a range of old wines for €15 a glass.

So, time for dinner, and round the corner to L’Aspérule, they were only offering their degustation menu tonite, either 5 or 7 courses and the option of the Sommelier choosing the wines, we went for the 7 course and the Sommelier’s choices. Most courses he gave us a glass each, from different bottles, we then shared the glasses so we got to try both wines and compare them and discuss how they matched the food, so in the next gallery are the courses and the wines he presented,

Ok, lets take a breath before reloading! As you can see, the food was beautifully presented and I can tell you the flavours were just incredible, a real journey of discovery over a few hours, the wines too were amazing, obviously very high end French wines. By this stage we are starting to feel rather fat and full, but there was plenty more to come!

 

As you can imagine, it was a bit of a waddle back to the hotel, although despite us having put on what felt like a couple of kilos, this was offset by my wallet being much lighter – to the tune of €400! We checked out mid morning and drove back home to Montbard, ducked into the markets to pick up a couple of things, including the most amazing roast chook with potato slices cooked in the chook fat below the roasting bird! (lunch for a few days!) and did very little over the next couple of days! Simple dinners at home and NO wine!

Of course resistance was short lived and Sunday night saw us driving 10 minutes over to neighbouring village, Saint-Remy, to La Mirabelle, a cosy little restaurant we had been trying to get a table at since we arrived. It was another surprise with a very unusual menu for this region, none of the typical dishes. It was another incredible meal, the food was thoughtful, clever, beautifully presented and the setting was intimate, almost like being in the dining room of someones house. We chose a few of the seafood dishes because we have come to appreciate that the distribution networks in France mean the seafood freshly caught in the Med or Atlantic coast, is in the restaurant here the same day. I am glad we did because they were stunning, and talking to the chef afterwards he told me he was born and trained in Brittany so seafood is his passion!

We treated ourselves to a very nice Chardonnay from Burgundy, we have learnt we much prefer the whites from Burgundy to the reds and in fact I think they are the equal of the Chablis chardonnays, often at a much lower price point.

Somehow I have missed that the afternoon before this dinner we had a drizzly drive thru the countyside to visit a hill top town called Vézelay which has a huge 11th century basilica. Its certainly very pretty and we will likely come back one day when the weather is better. You can see the scale of the basilica if you zoom in to the person standing in front of it!

Well that is quite enough for what was meant to be a quick and short update of a week that it felt like we really didnt do much!! Maybe because for the first time we had a few days where it was just Sal and I on our own? Anyway, luckily its been a dreary drizzly morning so lying in bed and updating the blog has been a perfect activity!

 

 

 Posted by at 9:11 pm



France 6

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends, us  8 Responses »
Sep 102025
 

Week 6 in France saw us leave La Sabot & our friends Dominique & Arne, we were very sad to leave, we had such a wonderful time with them and would have happily stayed the rest of our time in France there. The opportunity to drive north to Montbard & spend some time in our friend’s house there was too good to miss. Rob & Denise are good friends from Gove who have owned the house in Montbard for about 15 years, Montbard is near Dijon, right next to the Bourgogne (Burgundy) wine district, just south of Chablis and Champagne so its a pretty compelling area for wine and food!

We wanted to get to Montbard before Rob & Denise left so that set the timing somewhat and we drove up, past Lyon and then across to a beautiful town, Cluny, that René-Claude had recommended we stop in. We had a wander around, found a great wine shop to buy some wine to take with us and then a lovely little restaurant for lunch. We just had the Plat de Jour (dish of the day.) A delicious entree of grains & fruits presented like a tartare, pork escalope with green pepper cream sauce, red potato mash & green salad. Dessert was a pear and almond tart.

We jumped back in the car and passed thru some more pretty towns and villages before arriving late afternoon in Montbard. We quickly settled in with Rob & Denise and they took us to some of their favourite restaurants and gave us lots of tips about what to do, where to go, and how to live in a French town! Friday became quite a tricky day as we had planned to go to the Montbard market early in the morning and then drive over to Dijon for the market there and to have some lunch and a bit of a quick look around with Rob & Denise again giving us tips. The problem was that Kai was due in on the train just after lunch, he had long planned a surprise visit to see his mum, and so I needed to get back in time to sneak out and pick him up from the train station.

It was quite funny as we spent all morning & most of our time in Dijon hurrying around, telling Sal that Rob had to get back before 1:30 to pick a parcel up from the post office before it shut, then Kai let me know he had been delayed and wouldnt be in until after 4pm so we went from hurrying madly to then telling Sal we had found out the post office didnt shut after all so we could now have a leisurely lunch in Dijon before making our way home! Everyone was in on the surprise visit, Dominique & Arne, Rob & Denise, me, Danni…everyone except Sal! I think we did pretty well to keep her completely in the dark, especially as she kept pushing me to drive over to Germany to see Kai & Danni!!

 

A couple of days after Kai arrived we put Rob & Denise on the train to Paris for their flight back to Australia and now we are just enjoying the local area and spending time with Kai before he heads off to Germany to do Oktoberfest again. We did a day trip up to Les Riceys which is the Southern most Champagne appellation, we visited the Marquis de Pomereuil Champagne Co-op, a co-op of the smaller vineyards in Les Riceys. We had a delicious lunch in Châtillon-sur-Seine at Restaurant L’ Evidence.

In Châtillon-sur-Seine we also visited the museum which features an incredible array of relics mainly from the ancient Roman site at the village of Vix a few kilometres away. Vix was settled by the Romans about 500BC and the most famous find was the grave of what is known as the Vix Princess, she was a young woman buried in a huge burial chamber with many artefacts, her body rested in a coffin on a cart with the wheels removed, lots of jewellery and also the Vix Kraten, a massive bronze wine container, the largest metal artefact found in western antiquity.

Here are some more images of Montbard, food, beer and Kai’s visit!

…and more of the same!!

Last night we had one of our culinary highlights of the trip, maybe one of the culinary highlights of our life! We booked into a tiny restaurant in the heart of Montbard, Le Petit Chez Soi, which we were told is a tapas and wine bar. It is literally tiny, has only a few tables, as an example it already had the “Complet” sign on the door when it opened at 7pm – us and another table of 6 was all he would serve! He runs it totally on his own, all the waiting and all the cooking! Its not so much a tapas bar as a set menu of 3 tapas, one main, fromage & a dessert. It also has a small a la carte menu. He selects all the wines and they were amazing wines! We started with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Spain which was perfect for the 3 tapas dishes, then he opened a 2004 Tempranillo from Spain, another incredible wine! For the desserts he opened a Brachetto D’Acqui from Italy, a bubbly red.

The food was next level, a charcuterie of superb meats on baguette with a dob of some delicious fruit preserve, mussels done 2 ways and a potato, cheese dish that was exquisite. Kai & Sal had the steak for mains, with a delicious sauce, perfectly dressed salad and a little potato gratin with a bit of fried courgette, I had the prawns, grilled with salade and courgette. The dessert was a plate with some sort of rich chocolate and nut slice, soft meringue, sorbet and crème fraîche.

It was truly a memorable and intimate meal, surrounded by dozens of amazing wines, art work and beautiful music from his curated playlist. It was also insanely cheap, the whole meal for 3 including the 3 bottles of wine, came to €75! As you might imagine, we tipped him generously and booked again for next Wednesday!!

So, Kai is off tomorrow, he has a bus from Dijon to Munich so we will take him over in the morning and spend the day exploring Dijon some more. The weather is still amazing really, its definitely got a bit cooler, but most days are sunny and mid 20’s so we cant complain!

 Posted by at 8:44 pm



France 4

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends, us  6 Responses »
Aug 252025
 

baked tomatoes

So we come to the end of 3 weeks here, life has continued at a leisurely pace – while packing in plenty of great experiences!

Sal & I started the week with a drive out to the NW of our village, a direction we had not headed previously, Arne gave us a recommendation for a lunch spot at one of the villages we intended driving thru, but we had got no more than 5 minutes from home, and driving thru the neighbouring village of Serre-Nerpol I spotted a small bar and restaurant, and so I screeched to a halt, threw a U turn and we went to check it out. Ordered a drink at the bar and noticed a few people arriving to eat, so we asked for the menu.

The owner came out, a lovely woman, she explained that the menu included French & Lebanese dishes as her mother is Lebanese, we asked what she suggested we select for lunch and she recommended the trio of meze, frog’s legs in garlic butter, then mains of a lamb kebab dish and a duck breast with risotto. After finishing our drinks we moved into the restaurant and worked our way thru a huge and delicious lunch!

The food was amazing, obviously created with love and passion, the mezes were simple but delicious, the frog’s legs amazing and so full of flavour, the kebabs came with a strongly seasoned salad and freshly made aioli, they were marinated in spices and char grilled. The combination of flavours were amazing and the parts of the dish complimented each other perfectly. The duck breast was perfectly cooked and the risotto was as good as I have had in Italy! So all in all, another example of what we love doing, discovering hidden gems while driving through the countryside with no particular plan!

Of course there were lots of yummy meals at home as well, I also popped over to Voiron to source some freshly roasted coffee as my stock I had brought with us had finally run out.

The confit duck with quince mash was a flavour bomb! The next highlight was a drive over to Saint Marcellin for some shopping, I had offered to cook for a group of friends coming over on Saturday, they were coming to collect a couple of trailer loads of fire wood from Dominique and Arne, and amongst them was the guitarist, Jean-Luc, so I suggested I would cook for everyone, and after dinner Jean-Luc could play for us!! Anyway, whilst in Saint Marcellin we decided to try out a restaurant Sal & I had spotted the first time we visited, it looked very nice and had an interesting menu so we stopped for lunch.

We only wanted a light lunch so we shared 2 entrées, escargot and a tomato salad with buffalo mozzarella. The snails were so good! But the salad was amazing, the mozzarella had some pesto and like a dukkah on top, drizzled with olive oil and of course the tomatoes here taste like nothing we get in Australia! I also loved the little cup and saucer the coffee came in! As we left we spotted the wonderful old Simca Aronde, it was totally unrestored, original condition.

Friday we were lucky to score a special treat, the village we are on the edge of, Notre Dame-de-l’Osier, used to have a very highly regarded pizza restaurant, due to various reasons the owner no longer operates the restaurant, but once every month or so he sends a text to all the locals to tell them he is doing a pizza night, he sends out the menu, you pick the pizzas you want, and then he texts you the time to come and pick your order up. So Thursday night Dominique got the text that it was on this week, so we picked our pizzas and ordered!

They were as yummy as we had been led to expect and we felt very lucky to have been here for one of the village’s famous pizza nights!

So the big day arrived, the pressure was on! Dinner for 9 – and all French gourmets!! Rick’s Bar & Grill (on tour), was under the pump. Sal & I had planned a typical French approach for the meal, we started with a charcuterie, so a selection of local cold meats with some cherry tomatoes, home grown roquette and pickles. We also did a side of rock melon. We then served a main of my famous spiced mini meatballs in tomato red wine sauce with fetta cheese and Sal did a selection of fresh blanched beans and garden vegetables. Then we had a selection of 4 cheeses with fresh figs and the meal was finished with an amazing dessert that GiGi brought with her, a nougat ice cream cake with fresh berries.

By all accounts I think we pulled it off! Everyone seemed to enjoy our contribution to the day and there was very little left over at the end of the night. We also enjoyed a selection of nice wines as well as a delicious champagne with the cheeses as is the French style! Arne lit a log to add to the ambience and add a little warmth as the night air chilled a little.

 

Here is a fairly poor quality video of some of Jean-Luc’s music in the salon, also a bit of footage of the kitchen and dining room!

Finally to close out the week, here are some photos of the view on my walks thru the local villages and forests, I am up to 10km a day now and the scenery is just stunning, sadly the photos never quite capture the steepness and scope of the landscape, but hopefully it gives a sense of what I enjoy most days!

Ok, thats enough for this week! We are off to Lyon for a few days with Dominique, Arne & Rene-Claude so I expect that will be a post of its own next weekend!

 Posted by at 8:52 pm



France 3

 2025, foodie stuff, France, friends  6 Responses »
Aug 202025
 

Renovator’s dream!

So, here we are, 2 weeks into our stay in France, in one way it feels like we live here now, in another it seems like we just arrived! Week 2 has been packed with eating & exploring, as is our want! Dominique had bought a couple of kilos of mussels so I knocked up my take on Moules Marinières, always a bit of a challenge doing a classic French dish when in France, and staying with a very good cook, but there were no complaints!

Sal & I also drove over to Saint Marcellin for some shopping and had an explore of the old centre of the village and found a cute little cafe. It was only 11am but everyone was taking either wine, beer or coffee, so not wanting to stand out from the crowd, we had a sneaky vin blanc each. The glasses were gorgeous! (zoom in for the detail!) We also met a delightful woman who sat at the table next to us, she had good English and was a local resident so we had a very pleasant discussion. She had also visited Sydney so I think that helped.

I did another bbq with the local Scotch Fillet and got the timing better this time, Sal knocked up a yummy veggie salad and we finished with poached pears with cream, the peaches are just sensational here, so much flavour! The girls were also preparing pavlovas for a meal at more friends of Dominique & Arne’s, Guy & Snezhana. They also have a pool, so we headed over in the afternoon for a swim and then dinner.

Their pool is solar heated which made it perfect for us tropical visitors! I enjoyed a new taste, blueberry beer by the pool and then we retired to their beautiful garden for dinner, an entree of fresh local tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella followed by bbq kebabs with an amazing baked potato dish that Snezhana made, then a plate of local cheeses before the amazing pavlovas created by Dominique & Sal. All in all a very pleasant evening!

I picked up a nice looking chook at the local boucherie, (butcher), it didn’t look anything like a chook you would buy in Australia! Obviously totally free range, and as we later saw when driving around, indeed they do raise them free range as the photo of them under the walnut plantations show. Dominque roasted the chook in the traditional French style and it was amazing!

free range chooks!

We also went up to Saint Marcellin to see a friend of Dominque & Arne’s, Jean-luc, play guitar at a cafe, to our surprise it was right next door to the cafe where we had enjoyed a glass of wine a couple of days ago! The music was great, the boutique beers very tasty and our friends Gigi & Jean-Claude were also there.

Our next adventure was a trip up into the mountains, Montagne De Lans, these are the chalky cliffed mountains that run to the south of Grenoble and are the backdrop for the garden here where we stay at Le Sabot. The road up through the gorge to the plateau was challenging to say the least! Overhanging rocks, very narrow, winding and huge drops on one side as you might expect for a mountain road!

The village of Villard-de-lans is on the plateau and is a major town supporting the ski runs in the winter. Its very pretty and enjoyable to walk around, it was very busy on the day we visited as it was the Sunday of a long weekend and half of Grenoble had driven up for lunch! We had a wander around and a nice simple lunch at a local restaurant.

Sal & I went for a drive to visit a specific roadside bar & restaurant for lunch, and on the way we visited Chateâu de l’Arthuudière which is a very historic building dating back to the 1300’s!

“The first written testimony of the existence of the strong house dates from 1345. Construction of a round tower in the 13th century, to which was added a rectangular tower at the beginning of the 14th century. Construction of the west wing in the early 16th century. The estate was burned in 1580 by the Huguenots. André II de La Porte undertook the restoration of the castle around 1590, including the first floor of the north wing. The monumental staircase and the rearrangement of the east wing, date from 1680. In 1726, transformations were made to the castle. At the end of the 19th century, the round tower was raised by a polygonal brick volume, covered with a terrace. The eastern wing receives a white limestone base and the corner chains are taken over. In the 1950s, a fire destroyed the east wing.”

“The Arthaudière was originally a strong house founded in the Middle Ages that saw three families succeed each other: the Arthaud, the La Porte and the Marcieu.

The Arthauds being the first owners of the strong house, the castle inherits its name. Period: 13th century until the beginning of the 16th century.

Then came the family of La Porte. Period: 16th century to 19th century.

It took the La Porte family five hundred years to give the castle the appearance we know it today.

Five centuries to transform, as their fortune grew, the modest stronghouse of the Arthaudière into a prestigious castle.

During these five centuries they distinguished themselves in the service of royalty, which repeatedly hailed their actions and courage. They were rewarded by Louis XV who raised their lands to the rank of marquisate in 1729.

Five centuries to become one of the most influential families in Dauphiné, so that their last member, Joseph Nicolas de La Porte, could claim the titles of Marquis, Field Marshal, Knight of the Order of Saint-Louis, Knight of the Legion of Honour, Commander of the Sword of Sweden, Saint-Maurice and Saint-Lazare in Piedmont.

Then came Marcieu’s family. Period: Mid-19th century until the end of the 19th century.Then came Marcieu’s family. Period: Mid-19th century until the end of the 19th century.

In 1893 the castle was sold to Mr. Cote, a Lyon banker, who had the brick rise of the tower built.

The owners then succeeded each other

Since the end of the 19th century, several unfortunate events have distorted the appearance of the Arthaudière: questionable elevation of the round tower, and above all, fire of the eastern wing in 1952.

The Castle was bought by the town hall of Saint-Bonnet in the 1990s and classified as a Historical Monument in 1991. Currently the Château de l’Arthaudière is in full restoration.”

After our historical wander we made our way to Bar des Copains in Saint-Bonnet-de-Chavagne, a quaint little village with a tiny restaurant run by Kristen, its basically patronised by local farmers and workers and has simple food produced out of its own garden with other local ingredients. Dominique recommended it as being the type of place we like to eat, and she was exactly correct!

The food was sublime, the entrée of paté with a simple salade of tomato & lettuce was amazing, the tomatoes so sweet and full of flavour. Loved the extra bread in a plastic bag with a knife stuck in it, true rustic! The main course was a dish of very long, slow cooked beef with an omelette with lots of fresh greens in it and topped with a bit of melted cheese. The beef was incredibly tender and tasty. Next up was a couple of hard, aged goat’s cheeses, very good and to finish a couple of blood orange sorbets. No menu, no ordering, we just sat at a table outside & Kristen brought us the dishes as required. She spoke no English, but brought out photos of her son who is 25 and living in Singapore, so we showed her photos of Kai and made connections without language!

(just a reminder, you can click on an image in the gallery to stop and start the slideshow or go thru it manually.)

 Posted by at 2:04 am



Darwin

 2024, Darwin, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, Lumiel, Sailing, us  9 Responses »
Aug 282024
 

Darwin sunset

So, not sure where the time has gone, but our 6 weeks in Darwin is nearly up, early next week we plan to set off for home! Today Kai left Darwin and flew to Adelaide where he will spend a week or so before departing for Greece & his european adventure! And Dave arrives on Friday to rejoin us for the trip home.

Winding back to the beginning, once we arrived in Darwin, Dave and Kai both flew back home to Gove and Sal & I settled into our Darwin adventure! One thing I added to the previous post about the trip over here, was the amazing little video Kai made of the trip over. He used a DJI gimbal and combined with his editing on Da Vinci Resolve, he has created a fantastic first effort – I am sure over the next few months he will get even better! Anyway here it is in case you dont see it on the previous post,

Our life hear revolves around the tides, they are huge, the springs are 8m down to nearly 0m and we can only access the shore when the tide is over 2.7m as the access to the dinghy pontoon at the Dinah Beach Cruising Yacht Association where we are moored, dries out below that level and in fact its mud for about 100m out at low tide! So Sal’s ventures to the various Darwin Festival events and medical appointments as required, need careful planning. In some cases she stays over at friends if its not practical to get back to the boat.

We also have had many day sails around the beautiful Darwin harbour, with various friends. We tend to head out in the afternoon, sail around for a few hours in the lovely sea breeze, before ending up under the city centre, below the Esplanade, as the sun sets and the sun sparkles on the city buildings, and I cook a BBQ for dinner and we finish off back on the mooring after dark.

Luckily Lance & Cheryl were here for the first week or so, this meant they were first to come out for a sail – and the only friends to have joined us on two trips as they joined us for a week or so on the voyage home from Brisbane when we bought Lumiel. We also enjoyed a night at the Deckchair Cinema with them and brunch at the Roma Bar.

The dinners tended to be BBQ gulf Tiger Prawns as they were so nice and easily available at Mr Barra, I just BBQ’d them with no marinade, then served with caramelised limes, dipping sauces and fresh salad or mango salsa. (once the mangoes were available at the markets!

We also got thru quite a list of jobs on the boat, I guess living on her full time there is the advantage of noticing all the little things that need doing, and having the time to actually do them. We took advantage of being in Darwin to get one major job done, which was to put new front windows in the saloon. I will post some photos of this job in the next post, as they are not due to be re-installed until later this week.

Another fun weekend was getting together with Don & Belinda, and their friend Matt. We went to an amazing party with them in a massive property on Freshwater Drive in Rapid Creek. It was like a Hollywood movie set, 2 bands playing, food catered and a margarita machine in the kitchen! The grounds were stunning with 2 huge African Mahogany trees and incredible professional lighting thru all the gardens. We also had a fantastic sail with them that weekend.

The next weekend was Putty, Sarah & Casey for a beautiful sail, perfect conditions and we went right up inside the shoals off Fanny Bay before heading over to Cox Peninsula and back to Darwin for the now famous dinner! Stir Fried Squid and Veggies was the special of the day.

We followed that up with a night at the awards for the NATSIAAs on the grounds of the Darwin Museum & Art Gallery, with Kade and Annie, and then a sail with them the next day. Once again, perfect sailing conditions and dinner with the sunset.

We also had a wonderful evening with our friends Chris & Biddy from Melbourne, we decided to go to their apartment on the Esplanade and cook, rather than going out somewhere for dinner, we had some beautiful Cape Grim Scotch Fillet that I cooked with baby potatoes and dill and a green salad that Sal prepared. Again, I was a bit slack with the pics!

Then we had a sail was with Suresh, his son Harrish and a friend of theirs, Kevin from Sweden with his daughter & son. Nikki stayed at home with Kevin’s wife & Mum and Sal was off doing something festival related! I was very slack on the photos for this sail!

I think the last weekend we got out for a sail was with Marco, Deb, Amalia & Sammy. True to his form with me, Sammy caught a nice fish! A spotted mackerel he got on the trolling line while we were sailing. It was just another magic NT dry season sail on Darwin Harbour, I keep saying it, but its truly so good and consistent.

Kai came back and joined us for a few days and it was nice to catch up given how long it will be before we see him again, he was a great help with cleaning the tinny – because its not anti fouled it pretty quickly grew a thick coating of weed and barnacles, we borrowed Putty’s water blaster and sat it on the careening poles at the Dinah Beach club. It amazing to see how quickly the tide goes out, from the first pic to the last is less than 40 minutes!

We have loved the hospitality of the Dinah Beach Cruising Yacht Association while we have been here, and the best thing about it is the restaurant, Ton’s Bistro. Ton was a chef at the Sailing Club and decided to go out on his own, he took up the lease on the kitchen at Dinah Beach and is smashing it out of the park. The best kept secret in Darwin as we keep telling everyone! The food has been outstanding, and if you are in Darwin make sure you come down and try it.

Well, thats a very rushed update on our stay in Darwin, I am sure I have missed many of our adventures, so here are a couple of foody pics from on board!

 Posted by at 5:10 pm



2020

 2019, 2020, foodie stuff, friends, us  6 Responses »
May 172020
 

IMG_6397a

well its been eleventy months since i updated the blog, more than a year in fact. what a whirlwind of a year, sal was diagnosed with, treated for and recovered from breast cancer, kai started playing rugby union and ended up representing the NT, playing two years above his age group, we all went down to melbourne for a relly run and sal & kai went on to tassie as well.

sal and i spent over a month living in darwin while she had radiation treatment.

livo & katie came up in feb and we had our annual week pilgrimage to bawaka fishing and camping.

kai started a school based apprenticeship in carpentry with a local construction company., sadly one of my fathers passed away, bob matches, the epitome of a gentleman, left us in march.

then kai’s beloved rugby coach passed away suddenly leaving another huge hole in his life. snogga had been an absolute legend in our town, not just for his tireless work with rugby but also with the surf club, and as captain of the fire services.

of course we have also had our world changed forever by the impact of cover-19 – we got off lightly here with no cases, but the impacts of lockdown have kept sal working from home for a couple of months and stopped our travel plans for this year.

i have created a movie slideshow of the last year or so, and I will try to post more often going forward!

 Posted by at 1:56 pm



GFC19

 2019, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  No Responses »
Mar 182019
 
gfc-20

miller island

so this weekend past was the Gove Women’s Fishing Competition, and as many will know, I refuse to be on the same boat as a group of competitive fishers, especially if one of them is my wife! sal teamed up with her friend deb and her husband, marco, took on the role of skipper for them.

my compromise was to offer to bring the big boat so they could stay out on the water on saturday night, to that end sal & i launched on friday afternoon and spent the night at the granites enjoying a few beers, a nice steak and a glass or two of red.

sal was picked up by deb & marco at 6:30 on saturday morning and they headed out fishing, we agreed to meet up at breakfast island for lunch, so i made my way up there, and anchored up to enjoy a morning swimming and relaxing while the girls fished!

after lunch the fishers headed off and i cleaned up and then headed off to the dinner and overnight rendevous, the north side of wigram island. we enjoyed a dinner of fish tacos and spent a very comfortable night anchored in behind a sand spit and a couple of islands. we had a rain squall in the morning as we made coffees which lasted an hour or so and delayed the start to fishing slightly.

sunday morning the girls decided to fish the north side of wigram and around miller island so i steamed over to miller island and set up for lunch, we had a haloumi and chorizo salad with a cold beer for good luck!

after lunch i set sail for home and the girls headed off to fish attack shoal and the bromby islands before making their way back to the ramp at the end of the comp. while the girls probably wont win any prizes, as they didnt really get amongst as many big fish as they would have liked, they had a great time and a lot of fun, and from my perspective we had a lovely weekend away and it was very relaxing for me!

we did about 90nm in dhamuku, and 9 hrs of motoring, we used 144l of fuel for 1.6l per nm and 16l per hour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

sabbatical

 2019, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  10 Responses »
Feb 242019
 
new tinny

new tinny

i was pondering what to title this blog post and settled on ‘sabbatical’ because the main point of the post is to describe our bienniel retreat at bawaka when my old mate brian livingstone makes his way back to nhulun from queensland for 10 days catchup, holiday, fishing and adventuring.

last time he brought his daughter and this time it was his brother, dave, who came with him. as dave butterworth is always part of this bienniel bludge, we had to rename him barry to save confusion.

so dave, brian, myself and barry had a few days in town before heading out to bawaka, this allowed for some great nights at rick’s bar and grill, including a memorable night when timmy djawa burarrwanga joined us with his nephew. dadaynga. he was heading off to sydney at short notice so was unable to join us at bawaka for the cultural education segment of the retreat, so dinner at the grill was the best we could do. he played my djalu stick, and even did the healing yidaki on dave’s chest which is always a powerful introduction to NE arnhem land! (unfortunately the torrential downpour drowns out the yidaki somewhat!)

as you will notice above, we have a new tinny, she is an absolute ripper and has already done quite a few hours! its a blue fin wrangler, 4.75m, running a 60HP yamaha. Its a plate boat, 4mm sides and bottom, widened gunnels, extra handrails and a pod. its beautifully built, comfortable, roomy, strong, quiet and very easily driven. As sad as it was to lose the old tinny, this is a definite step up.

so some food porn to kick the photos off, (remember, click on the”i” if you want to see the captions.)

 

sal, kai and I had taken a load of gear and dry stores down in the troopy the weekend before, so we stocked the boats up with fuel, fresh food, barry’s coffee machine and other essentials of rough living. we then launched at yirrkala and set off for the hour or so run down to bawaka.

our days were much the same, up around 6:30 to stoke the fire and fire up the coffee machine for a couple of rounds of lattes, barry the barista pulled great shots all week, although I only brought 1kg of my beans and we had to eake it out towards the end of the week! we would then have a hearty breakfast, we had things like mushrooms, eggplant and yellow capsicum stew with bacon and poached egg; omelettes; chilli beans with bacon, egg and pita bread; halloumi, chorizo and mint and others i have forgotten!

after breakfast it was off to chase jack and barra in the creeks and on the rocky headlands. we usually put in a good 3 or 4 hours fishing and also exploring the creek systems to try to unlock the secret to fishing them. we spent mornings in the wonga river, mosquito creek and holly’s inlet as well as exploring most of the coastline of port bradshaw.

then it was back to bawaka for lunch, i had taken a couple of kilos of pulled slow cooked, smoked beef, so wraps with salad and the pulled beef was a staple, we also did amazing fish tacos a couple of times with lime & chilli mayo, pan fried coral trout or jack, jalapenos, onion and lashings of vietnamese mint.

after lunch we either went offshore for a troll or bottom bounce, or did some more exploring of the inshore waters. sometimes we squeezed in a nanna nap and we usually got up to lonely beach for a swim.

dinner was everything from steaks grilled over the fire, whole coral trout wrapped in paperbark and grilled on the fire; whole red emporer wrapped in foil and grilled on the fire; spagetti bolognese; pan fried mangrove jack fillets with kumera chips and I think the fish tacos got a run one night too.

then it was sit around the fire talking about the sort of things 4 philosophers stranded on a tropical island talk about before heading inside to a very deep nights sleep!

on friday sal and kai drove down in the troopy to spend the weekend with us, on saturday sal, barry, brian and dave headed out on barry’s boat down to the 3 hummocks and dudley shoal to try their hand at some bottom fishing, kai and I had a day on the tinny do some hunting and a bit of work round the camp.

aaron, rohan and their partners came down for the weekend also, to provide some cultural education in timmy’s absense. on sunday we took them out hunting on the tinny, first we went looking for turtle to harpoon, but although we did find a big one, my boat driving skills were not up to the task and we lost him before rohan could get a harpoon in it. it was pretty hilarious, rohan screaming instructions from the bow of the boat in yolngu matha, aaron translating into english – and me finally doing what was required about 30 seconds earlier!!

after failing to harpoon a turtle our efforts turned to stingray, kai joined the boys in wading through the croc infested shallows spearing stingray, he got 4 and was taught the correct way to remove the barbs after spearing. its bloody hard work, the water is at least knee deep, its often walking through deep sticky mud and you cover a lot of distance. dave and i would get in as close as we could in the tinny and drop them off, then we would move maybe 500m or more along the mangroves in the deeper water and wait for them to get abreast of us and then motor in as close as we could so they could walk out with their catch and get back in the boat.

monday we spent a day exploring the upper reaches of the creek that extends out of holly’s inlet, it was a successful day from the fishing point of view with plenty of jack caught, but it came close to disaster on several, consequential fronts. firstly, after following the incoming tide upstream as far as we could go, we fished the falling tide back down, but I had made an error with not watching the depths closely enough on the way up and retracing our course we ran out of water. it looked like we were going to be stuck for the whole of the falling tide and half of the rising tide before we would be able to get out. luckily brian found a path with just enough water for us to get back out into the deeper channel again.

then a complication arose from a dead battery on the electric trolling motor, this had necessitated my bodgy wiring of the minn kota to the main starting battery and when we went to start the main motor again we discovered we had a flat starting battery as well. luckily after pulling the cover off the motor and fabricating a starter rope from some trolling line, i was able to pull start the engine.

things always come in 3’s dont they?! not long after this the motor spluttered and cut out and refused to start. we were still 5 miles upstream from dhanaya, the community at the mouth of the inlet, no one knew we were up there anyway, the electric motor would flatten the battery long before we covered the 5 miles, the outgoing tide would move us downstream – but it also had no chance of taking us 5 miles – and then when it turned it would push us upstream again!

without going into all the details, and the discussions about what we should do, we finally got the motor running again, the fuel line had a small split and it had started sucking air. it was as a reminder of how isolated you can be in this part of the world, we really had only one option if had been unable to get it going again – we would have had to set off the epirb.

our last full day was spent exploring the upper reaches of the wonga river, this was a real surprise to all of us, it was stunningly beautiful, the fresh water was pushing right down the river towards the mouth and the banks were covered with rain forest, paper barks, gum trees and steep rocky banks. there were frequent rock bars to navigate  and it was more reminicsent of the katherine gorge than an arnhem land creek.

our week was at an end, it just remained to pack everything up and steam home. it was a very special time, aside from the obvious point that staying in a tropical paradise like this where you have a proper bed, running water, solar battery power for fridges and freezers as well as access to amazing fishing and exploring is pretty amazing; not to mention the opportunity to engage in traditional hunting and food preparation with yolngu, and spend time with a few really special friends and share part of it with my lovely family…..there is something special about spending a week in the bush with no phone service, no internet, no tv…a week with out all that ‘noise’ and distraction really focusses your mind and its a really powerful force for mental health IMO. It was hard to leave and all of us were a bit displaced for a couple of days when we got home. its taken me 4 days before I could approach writing about it. I spent the first 24 hours refusing to open the laptop or turn the tv on to try to hang on to the quiet magic.

anyway, there are a few more random photos, brian made djawa a steel sign for bawaka with the anchor and stingray symbol from their flag design, we will have to wait until he is back to work out where to hang it, but its waiting for him at bawaka. our plan is to make it an annual retreat, 2 years is too long between gigs!

thanks to djawa and family for your welcoming and generous access to bawaka, thanks to brian, dave, and dave for making the adventure so fulfilling, entertaining and bloody funny.

bawa-27crop

 

 Posted by at 8:21 pm  Tagged with:



friends and gates

 2018, friends, us  9 Responses »
Sep 152018
 
FullSizeRender 28

kai with a nice Bawaka muddieon his spear

recently timmy mentioned he wanted to put a gate in at bawaka to try to stop unwanted visitors when no one is at the community and dave and I told him we would sort something out. in the end timmy suggested we relocate an old gate that he made about 10 years ago, that was installed at a creek crossing on the way to mosquito creek.

the removal of the gate proved to be quite an exercise on its own, timmy and i went out to mosquito creek and spent a few hours digging out the old gate post which was very securely concreted into the ground. we eventually manged to get it free with a combination of digging and brute force with the land cruiser!

dave and i then went back a few days later with a battery grinder and cut the gate off the old post and bought it home, we then sourced some pipe for gate posts and welded new hinges on the post with the help of our resident boiler maker, deano. we also made some running repairs to the old gate.

last weekend we took the new gate down to bawaka and dug new holes for the hinge and lock post and then concreted them in, it all went much quicker than we expected and only took a couple of hours all up, leaving us plenty of time for fishing and hunting!

we had thought it would just basically be a working party so sal decided to stay home, but as it turned out it was a very social weekend, timmy came down with his wife rita, his son, daughter in law and grandkids, he had also arranged for a family touring the NT from victoria to do a day tour to bawaka.

the royal family are from macedon in victoria, every year they take their 3 kids out of school for a term and go on an extended camping adventure somewhere in australia! aaron runs a plumbing business and his wife dannille is a special needs teacher. they have 2 boys, saxon & thor and a girl, mali. they are a lovely family and we really enjoyed our short time together – although i get the strong feeling we will see them again up this way!

after a great day at bawaka they unfortunatley had to return to nhulunbuy rather than staying the night with us at bawaka, we had caught a good haul of muddies during the day, so i invited them to dinner at rick’s bar & grill on the sunday night when we would be back home so they could enjoy a feast of crab!

old friends surprised us all by turning up as well, eddy & donna mulhulland and their son, reece with his wife and baby son all came down for the weekend as well, so it was a great night of catching up over the weekend. so it ended up beng a fantastic social weekend with both old and new friends!

one thing i know, bawaka never disappoints and always surprises!

 

rugby

 foodie stuff, friends, Singapore, us  1 Response »
Apr 302018
 
myself, sal & dave in our darwin crocs jerseys

myself, sal & dave in our darwin crocs jerseys

well what a weekend, we came to watch the singapore 7’s, with the optimistic hope that the aussies might make the quarter finals – as it turned out they won all their pool games against scotland, wales & spain, then won the quarter final against the all blacks to get into the semi final against england who had looked one of the form teams of the tournament.

the aussies did incredibly well considering it was the new coaches first tournament and many of our best players were out injured, they did us proud against england, managing to get a solid win – and as we were surrounded by english fans it was all the sweeter!

the final against fiji was always going to be a massive ask, fiji have been the best 7s side in the world for some time and they are just so big, fast, agile and frankly scary that we really feared it would be a whitewash – but the boys put up an amazing show, coming from behind by 10 points to take the lead right at the end of the game, then the ref called a knock on against australia that no one else in the ground saw and fiji broke away to score a winning try after full time. a typical end to end try of power and flair and so often the way the mighty fijians overcome all takers to win tournaments!

we had an absolute ball, to end up watching our team in all the games including the grand final was beyond any expectations and was just icing on the cake of a great festival atmosphere. its a stunning stadium, cool and comfortable, as clean as you expect in singapore, great seats – we were right beside the players race, in the centre of the ground, about 10 rows back – fans from all over the world as well as a good turn out from locals and some fantastic rugby on show.

we were able to continue our foody fun as well, we had a leisurely breakfast each morning before heading to the games late morning and then slipped out for a bite of dinner before coming back in for the final sessions. plenty of tiger beer was also consumed so we will need a de-tox when we get home! friday night before the games we had a meal at guan hoe soon, a renowned nonya restaurant, you can see the amazing dishes below, (click on ‘i’ for captions). I had a great chat with the chef/owner Yap Chee Kuee who started the restaurant in 1953!

we head home wednesday morning so we will have a lazy last couple of days and just continue to gorge ourselves on the wonderful food! its been a wonderful experience, great fun doing it with someone who has enjoyed every aspect as much as us – dave has made the trip a special time. we have had so many laughs, fantastic food, fabulous footy, amazing apartment, train rides everywhere on one of the best train systems in the world, lots of beer, walks all through the backstreets of singapore, just a wonderful short holiday!

singapore2

 2018, foodie stuff, friends, Singapore, us  5 Responses »
Apr 262018
 
sing182 5

gardens by the bay from the 57th floor

its been a busy couple of days – train, walk, eat, train, home, nanna nap, rince & repeat. yesterdays highlight was a trip to the top of the marina bay sands casino complex, its 57 floors to the top so there is quite a view! it has an infinity pool that is simply mindblowing, but only hotel guests have access. we went up for cocktails at spargo bar & restaurant. we enjoyed a very expensive and not particularly good mojito, but to be honest you would pay the price just for the view without the drink!

after the luxury and glamour of the marina bay sands we popped back to little india and the tekka centre and demolished a meal of tandoori chicken, lamb masala, dahl, spinach and paneer, chapatis and naan all washed down with a cold tiger beer

 

this morning we headed into china town for that classic singaporean chinese breakfast, Char Kway Teow, the amazing mix of fried noodles, little clams, crunchy pork crackling, spicy chili sauce and various other secret ingredients. Its the dish Anthony Bourdain described as the world’s tastiest and most unhealthy breakfast! we ordered ours from the stall of CKT master, Ng Chin Chye’s stall at the Hong Lim Food Centre, “Outram Park Fried Kway Teoh Mee” and i sat and ate it at on the verandah where Anthony ate his in his episode of Parts Unknown on Singapore. Sal and Dave ordered Prawn Mee from another stall and it also rated very highly both for presentation and taste!

after a breakfast like that it was back home for a mid morning nap!

to see more photos of the inside of the apartment click on the “view photos” button on the website, here

 

 

 Posted by at 1:58 pm  Tagged with:



singapore

 2018, foodie stuff, friends, Singapore, us  6 Responses »
Apr 252018
 
sing18 14

over nyindakay

wow, just 24 hours and it already feels like we have been here for days! we certainly packed in a huge amount on day 1. we flew out of nhulunbuy monday afternoon and spent the evening in darwin, a few beers on the wharf and a long meal at the hanuman, we started with their famous oysters, poached in a clay dish with lime, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, coriander, palm sugar and kaffir lime leaves. then we just ordered an entree at a time and shared it between the 3 of us – that helped fill the evening out until we had to be at the airport at 11:30pm for the flight to singapore.

we had a pleasant enough flight over, its just under 5 hours so not too long, landing at changi at around 5am local time. once again we were pleasantly reminded of the efficiency and ease of travel through points other than australia. straight through immigration with no queue (and friendly staff), no customs checks, and job done. we grabbed sim cards for our phones and ezilink cards for the amazing public transport in singapore and then jumped on the MRT train into the city.

we had 3 changes, each one we got off one train, walked to the correct platform and got straight into the next train just as it was ready to leave. we were downtown in about the same time as it would take in a cab. in australia you would still be waiting to get thru immigration at the airport!

our quaint little shop house apartment is about 2 minutes walk from the farrer park station in the little india area of singapore, we let ouselves in and left our bags in the lobby as it was too early to check in and then headed out to find a bite to eat in the local area. we found a small indian place around the corner and had a murtabark with dahl and a cup of tea for breakfast. a perfect start to the day.

we wandered through some of the maze of streets in little india before heading back to the apartment and getting the key so we could unpack our stuff, have a shower to freshen up and do a bit of ‘nesting’. at lunchtime we headed out with the idea of finding a close by coffee shop and roastery i had read of. it was well hidden but after finally locating the building i got a quick tour of the roastery with the master roaster before we went into the cafe for one of their coffees and a croissant. the croissant was very good is what i would say about the coffee.

then sal said she wanted to check out a few food stalls she had noticed on the opposite street corner, she said that the bbq duck & pork stall was sending her the right olfactory and optical messaging so we ordered a plate of duck, pork and rice for lunch. it came with a fantastic spicy sambal and was the best chinese bbq duck i can remember having – and we have tried a few over the years!

it was a real find, completely off the radar, out of context because it was in little india, and obviously highly renowned with the locals, a closer look revealed a list of hawker food prizes he had won and copies of newspaper articles about the stall.

we stocked up on a few bits and pieces for the apartment on the way home, milk for morning coffees, mineral water, beer, you know, the essentials.

after that high we came back for a nanna nap in the apartment before an afternoon beer to build our strength before heading out again. we caught the MRT down to clarke quay to have a look around, we did a walk round the old fort canning complex there which was quite interesting and lots of big trees and greenery. then we had a wander through the foody area there, but it was not our scene at all. its a very well done international food venue, like any other, anywhere in the world, lots of flash restaurants and bars, clever design and architecture, outdoor seating, and generally nice looking food. but the point is you could be anywhere in the world, its full of tourists and a few upwardly mobile locals all paying probably 10 times the price for the privilege of eating and drinking in the trendy precinct.

we had heard about an indonesian padang restaurant on the other side of the river that had a reputation for great rendang so we wandered over to have a look at that, but it didnt pass our instinct tests, so we got back on the MRT and headed down to china town. again walking down through the main strip of china town, its just wall to wall places to eat, but still a majority of patrons are tourists and while the dishes looked well prepared and tasty as well, its still not the sort of experience we look for – and its still tourist pricing.

so we kept walking until we got down to the Maxwell Hawkers Market, this is the home of tian tian hainanese chicken rice, the first hawker stall in the world to win a Michelin star. it wasnt open, but i noticed that one stall had a queue of about 20 people lined up to order, it was also a stall that specialised in hainanese chicken rice. we decided on continuing the idea of ordering 1 dish each at a time, sharing it and then the next person ordering one and so on.

so i queued up for about 20 minutes to get us the chicken rice. the wait was well worth it, chicken was on point, tender, moist, tasty poached chicken, garnished with fried garlic, drizzled with a bit of soy based sauce, a bowl of simple chicken broth, some bokchoy (poached in the pot of stock), and rice that has been cooked in the chicken broth with pandan, garlic and ginger. you also get a little bowl of chilli sauce and one with a fresh ginger sauce.

dave got us a yummy muslim dish that was a chicken curry on a bed of scrumptious spiced rice that was full of fresh tumeric, cummin and lots of other unidentified spices. Sal’s contribution didnt match her find for lunch! A shark dish with steamed vegies that was not so good.

then it was back on the mrt to head home for a nightcap before bed, and to reflect on an action packed first day!

this morning we were heading out for breakfast and as we were leaving met a girl, alex, who had just arrived from austin, texas and was staying in one of the other apartments, she ended up coming out for breakfast with us, we headed down to the tekka hawkers market at the other end of little india and found some parat and curry for breakfast before coming back for a siesta.

sing18 7

parat & curry for breakfast!

easter

 2018, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  9 Responses »
Apr 032018
 
easter-37

coming across malay roads

easter is usually crap weather regardless of location – whether you are camping in tassie, fishing in esperance, hiking in the daintree or boating in arnhem land, it typically pisses down for most of the 4 days. this easter though held a different promise, the dregs of cyclone bloody nora had slipped away, and with it the thunder storms and rain. the forecast was exceptional – clear weather with very light variable winds.

we had planned a trip away in the boat before discovering how good the weather was going to be, dave had his 4 days off exactly lining up with the easter break and so it was going to be the four of us heading off – but unfortunately the weekend before easter, sal’s dad finally succumbed to his battle with mesothelioma and so she had to fly down to the gold coast. so it was left to dave, kai & I to make the most of the promising conditions!

we headed up to the wessel islands friday morning, we left the boat club about 9:30 and by midday we were anchored in an unnamed bay south of raragala bay on raragala island, its one of our favourite anchorages. the trip was uneventful with the promised calm conditions allowing us to make good time up to cape wilberforce and then across to the passage between wigram and cotton island before crossing donington sound to the wessel islands.

we spent our days exploring the beaches and bays along the southern side of raragala island, fishing the open waters for tuna and mackerel and the rocky shelves of raragala bay for mangrove jack. we climbed up waterfalls to discover spring fed streams at the top and amazing views across the water, we swam in waterholes – including our favourite one at the base of a waterfall that is large, deep and shaded by trees. kai was in first when we arrived and yelled out to dave that there was a big water monitor in the pool, before climbing up the waterfall. dave went to get in to the pool and discovered the “water monitor” was a 1.5m salt water croc!! kai had actually nearly landed on top of it when he jumped in!

 

we tried to get it to ‘move on’ but it just moved into the deepest part of the pool and lay there quietly so we decided to share the pool with it and hope that it didnt get agitated and nip us!! it must have decided the company was unwanted because every other time we went there for a swim there was no sign of the croc!

of course there was some cold beers, good wine and yummy food eaten over the 4 days, we watched sunsets, moon rises and gazed at the tapestry of stars. i took the vintage atomic coffee machine so the mornings were started with decent coffee which makes everything better! kai had a ball, caught some good fish, used his new snorkelling gear for the first time and enjoyed the calm weather! we missed sal, but there will be many other trips with her.

we also came across an amazing scene in raragala bay, we were attracted by obvious activity with heavy splashing on the surface of the water, expecting a school of tuna we headed over in the tinny to discover a school of bait being rounded up and chomped by a huge school of sharks varying in length up to about 3m! there were also some tuna and GT’s amongst the carnage! we hooked a couple of nice GTs off the edge of the school on our light barra gear.

the same activity was happening the next day whe we went back and I got some video footage, the bait fish decided to try to hide underneath the tinny and as we motored off the school of sharks followed us like the pied piper!

another unlucky fish was spotted floating between the big boat and the tinny tied up alongside, we thought it was a trevally at first, but as it moved we realised it was a big sea mullet. i grapped a spear out of the tinny and had the easiest shot ever to get a fish that size! as you can see from the photo he had been attacked by a shark or something so thats probably why he was lazing around the boat.

we headed home on monday and if possible it was even flatter than the previous 3 days! i took photos off the side of the boat and the reflection looks like a mirror the water was so flat – and we were travelling at 16kts! all in all a fabulous and relaxing trip.

a video perspective of the reflections and the flat ocean,

 

we did 7.5hrs and 100nm, used 225l of diesel, so 30l per hour and 2.25l per nm.

shootin’

 2017, friends, us  3 Responses »
Dec 162017
 
archers

archers

the arnhem gun club held an open day today, and so i took kai & his mate leroy out to try their hand at archery, pistol shooting and trap shooting. the archery range was our first stop and the boys had great fun with the compound bows. kai also had a crack at andrew’s high end, adult, compound bow – but he was unable to load it!!

next we moved on to the pistols and shot a range of pistols from a .22 calibre revolver, a 9mm glok, a range of .38 calibre semi automatic handguns and finally a .45 monster!

leroy was the dead eye in the smaller calibre, getting a couple of bulls eyes in his first round, we all shot well in the mid range calibres and i cleaned up on the .45 – knocking over 4 targets with my 10 shots.

finally we head to the shotgun range and the traps, kai was an absolute natural knocking down 5 clays with his first 10 shots ever with a shotgun, leroy got a couple and i came in last – i think i was distracted by the view across the range to the beaches and ocean! (well thats my excuse!)

all in all a great afternoon, i managed to bring both boys home without any bullet wounds or arrows hanging out so mission accomplished! only problem is somone wants a shotgun for xmas now!!

 

leesi and jay

 2017, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  6 Responses »
Dec 112017
 
truant-14

heading north

we have been promising our dear friends leesi and jeremy a weekend away on the big boat since they arrived to help run the art centre a couple of months ago, they visit arnhem land 3 or 4 times a year and its always a battle between their work committments and trying to find sufficient opportunities for social obligations!

we decided this weekend was the last chance as they leave just after xmas and sal is away next week, so we headed out on saturday, leaving kai at home to hold the fort!

we headed up to truant island and the weather was very pleasant with a light breeze and blue skies, we caught a nice mackerel at barricade shoal just before arriving, so that was quickly filleted and thrown on the bbq for lunch!

after afternoon swims and relaxation we broke out the italian prosecco and fine cheeses! dinner was some skippy fillets I had marinated in redwine with bay leaves, juniper berries and garlic with a garden salad.

after dinner we were mesmerised by an amazing show of phosphorescence in the water and the moonless, star filled sky above.

we had a comfortable night and woke to a glorious day on sunday, the breeze dropped right out and after coffees from the glamping caravel we whipped up a breakfast of chorizo, halloumi, cherry tomatoes and greens from our garden topped with soft boiled eggs.

we had a very smooth and pleasant trip back to gove on sunday, and it nicely finished off a fantastic weekend with great company, fine food, cold beer, good wine and lots of laying around doing bugger all! we also caught 2 more nice mackerel at last chance shoal on the way home!

it was fantastic to have a weekend away with leesi and jeremy and be away from work and just hang out, i think they also enjoyed it!

on the more mundane side of things, the boat ran well, nothing new seemed to need fixing! ….until we were nearly home when the dreaded fuel problem from the last few trips raised its ugly head. i really thought I had fixed it by rectifying the fuel tank breather issue i found, but it wasnt the cause of the random loss of power.

today i cleaned the boat up and then stripped the fuel lines with the idea of replacing them to eliminate another possible cause of the issue, dave popped around and i was showing him when he noticed something that looked to be stuck in the fuel line – we got some tweezers and he pulled out a long piece of plastic strip, so I am certain we have now found the culprit! hopefully there is no more in the fuel tank!

we didnt tow the tinny this time so the fuel economy is a bit better, total of 7.6 hrs and 85nm travelled using 148L for 19.5L/h or 1.74L/nm

 Posted by at 8:26 pm  Tagged with:



ides of march 2

 2017, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  5 Responses »
Mar 192017
 
march-32

coral trout

after our big trip down to dudley island on saturday we spent most of the rest of our time at bawaka fishing the reefs outside port bradshaw in dave’s boat, and fishing the rockbars in the bay in mine. this led to a steady stream of quality table fish with red emporer, mackerel, coral trout, barrumundi cod and mangrove jack making up the main species caught.

on sunday i also took timmy, djaka, yarrangu, russell & kai across the bay in my boat to hunt maranydjalk (sting ray) and djindjalma (mud crab) – which led to a great feast that night! maranydjalk is one of our favourite seafoods when prepared the yolngu way and it was fantastic for dave, brian and caitie to be able to see the preparation and then discover the amazing taste of this delicacy of arnhem land.

of course no trip like this will be without its dramas, and my poor old leaky, battered and bashed tinny was the most likely candidate. so it proved to be when on the first day i tried to select reverse and the gear cable popped out thru its sheath and made reverse unselectable and likely to leave the boat inoperable as it got worse. having a diesel fitter, a mechanical fitter and an electrician…..made little difference! but bush mechanics 101 came to the rescue and we cut some lengths of fencing wire, bent them to the curve of the cable and taped them to the cable before finishing with cable ties. the repair did the trick and the bodged up cable will probably still be in the boat next time brian comes up!! Special thanks to caitie also, without her expertise with the ‘magic smoke’ we would have had no coffee machine, fans or lights due to some faults with the solar system.

march-50

bush mechanics

as usual with us food was a highlight of the week, but when mixed with the abundant wildlife, stunning environment, cultural wealth, brilliant weather and damn fine company it was truly an unforgettable week and one that we will all continue to reflect on and remember with much fondness.

So thanks firstly to timmy and the family for welcoming us to bawaka and treating us to a unique experience in this piece of paradise, thanks to brian and caitie for being the catalyst for this adventure, as well as being fabulous company and finally thanks to my best mate dave for all his help in making this trip a success.

I will finish up with one of my favourite images from the week, taken as we were presented with our plate of maranydjalk!

march-38

 

 

 

 

ides of march

 2017, coffee, fishing, foodie stuff, friends, us  No Responses »
Mar 172017
 

march-7

my old mate, brian livingstone (livo), used to live here and relocated his family to yepoon in queensland some years ago. he pops back every couple of years for some fishing and to inflict serious and lasting damage on our livers. this time he brought his daughter caitie and settled in for 2 weeks. they stayed with my mate dave ‘butts’ butterworth – which helped prevent early onset cirrosis in my case.

brian also brought a wonderful present for me up on the plane, it was a total surprise, but i suspect dave was also involved! I was actually overwhelmed a bit, its a magnificent gift and will take pride of place at rick’s bar & grill.

march-51

our original plan had been to charter a boat for a few days and do a barra fishing trip, but it proved to be so expensive that we bought a small mercedes each instead and decided to spend 6 days camped down at paradise, a.k.a bawaka, we took both dave’s and my boats down and sal drove the troopy down.

we asked timmy to come down too, so we could get him out on the boats and also have him create a cultural education experience for our visitors. he came down on the friday and spent the weekend with us, also bringing djakapurra and yarrangu as well as djaka’s son russell who is a year older than kai.

march

caitie, sal, brian & dave

we had a few days in town before heading out, and brian, dave and I actually did a run down to bawaka to take some of the gear down and make sure all was ready for our visit. as usual the days were started at rick’s bar & grill with coffees and usually ended there with dinner!

friday morning we launched the boats at yirrkala and set off for bawaka while sal headed down by road, it was a perfect morning with glass off conditions and flat seas, i only stopped for about 45 seconds to catch a large mackeral for dinner!

the most exciting thing on the first night was the appearance of wititj, or the olive python as he frightened the life out of russell by slithering across the sand towards him as he sat beside the camp fire after dinner! it was well over 3m long and one of the biggest I have seen, after a bit of fumbling in the dark I managed to pick him up and relocate him into the swamp – well away from our beds!

as you can see our effort at camping more properly falls into the category of glamping – proven by the fact that we lugged dave’s espresso machine out there so we could have a proper start to the day with freshly roasted coffee from arnhem roastery!

saturday we decided the weather was perfect for a run down the coast towards the group of islands known as the three hummocks. timmy was very keen to visit an island which he is named after, he told me it was deadly island – which I couldnt find on the map, but as it turned out i had misheard him and it was actually dudley island! the yolngu name of the island is murrmurrgu, and timmy had never been there so it was a very emotional trip for him.

we followed the coast down and trolled around any likely looking islands or rocks and got a nice range of fish, and some unwanted ones like sal’s shark!

we stopped at one of the three hummocks for lunch, it was actually 2 islands joined by an amazing sand spit, and it wouldn’t have been hard to stop there for the rest of the day! it was totally protected by the other islands around it in every direction, the water was crystal clear and the sand was soft and clean.

when we arrived at murrmurrgu we discovered an even better beach if possible, it plunged straight down into deep water and was just an idyllic location, it was beautiful to see how emotionally affected timmy was by the chance to visit his island – and that alone made the whole week worthwhile just to be able to take him there. I dont think any of us will forget the experience for a long time.

that will do for part 1, i will try to put together a part 2 post later this weekend.

i did record a little video of timmy talking about his experience in visiting his namesake island for the first time,

 Older Entries