Five years and counting

G'day

Been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently, primarily because winter in Melbourne doesn't offer much in the way of diversions. That said, I did have a visit to the zoo the other weekend, and on the 21st May 2011 I completed five years at Lonely Planet so made sure the whole weekend was suitably fun. Am off to the Northern Territory this Saturday for a trip that will take me from Darwin in the far north to Alice Springs in the very centre - hopefully something blog-worthy will happen over those 10 days so come back soon for more.

Day at the zoo
Melbourne Zoo is, I think, the third or fourth oldest in the world (is there anything in Melbourne that is number ONE in the world? Everything's third this or fifth that). A lot of the enclosures are as progressive as possible in a zoo - but not all of them. Still, it was enjoyable, especially the chance to see more wombats.

A crocodile - they're going to much bigger and much more dangerous when I get to the Northern Territory

Sleeping wombat. Aww!

This bird is real and huge. Black cockie (not sure about the spelling)

An echidna. One of those odd 'only in Australia' animals.

Five Year Celebration
So five years ago when I started at LP I didn't think I'd last five months, let alone be singing karaoke in Melbourne sixty months later. But I was.

Total Eclipse of the Heart. Several notes were not reached.

Daylesford
And still suffering a little bit from drink/the sound of my own singing voice, I had a day-trip out to Victoria's premium spa town, Daylesford. Weather wasn't great but it's a lovely place with some interesting old buildings, some great places to eat, and shops with fantastic names (see immediately below).

Just to the left of the still-slightly-hungover Cliffy is a cafe/delicatessen of the same name.

Pudding in a lovely winebar with a lovely real fire. In the background is a creme brulee with a rather extravagant biscuity thing on top. In front is my brownie with Persian fairy floss (the fairy floss is that blue stuff that looks like something you'd find on the floor of a barber's shop after Papa Smurf had had a haircut)



Enormous bric-a-brac place in Daylesford with a wedding dress for the bride who has everything but taste. Despite its enormousness I still couldn't find a lampshade for my bathroom. Sigh.


G'bye for now. See you post Northern Territory.

The original Cliffy

Everyone for coffee

G'day

It's been a while since I put some miscellaneous Melbourne musings into this blog so I thought I'd dedicate this post to things Aussies/Melburnians love - coffee and TV.

As mentioned last time, I don't really get coffee. It doesn't taste that nice and it keeps you awake, but people here are obsessed with the stuff so a few words on it are only fitting. Apparently it was post-WWII Italian immigrants who brought quality coffee to Melbourne, and these days cafes across the city are busy from early morning right through the day giving the caffeine junkies their fix. For some it's a skinny soy decaf flat white. For others it has to be full fat milk and full caffeine coffee. Or you can even forget the milk completely and have an espresso. If you do have cow juice though then expect your coffee to have at least a milky fern shape carefully poured onto the surface. And if you're really lucky some places manage to pour your milk in the shape of a face. As far as I'm concerned though, they could pour a picture of the Last Supper on a coffee and it wouldn't make it any more appealing to me.

It's a coffee people. Drink it and get over it.

And so to reality TV. Britain more or less invented the thing but has seemingly got tired of it. Australia, on the other hand, doesn't just like their reality TV. Oh no. They love it, and love it so much that the shows are part of the nightly schedule and run for months. Some are similar to those in the rest of the world. Australia's Got Talent; X Factor and Dancing With The Stars (Strictly Come Dancing) for example. But others are uniquely Australian. Biggest Loser is a programme in which overweight people lose their flab for money. This year's winner lost half her body weight and gained $100,000. That's pretty incredible - though not as incredible as the number of commercial breaks during the finale. And then there's Bondi Rescue (lifeguards guarding lives on, you guessed it, Bondi Beach in Sydney) and Bondi Vet (a vet in, you guessed it, Bondi Beach in Sydney).

But the Mother of all Australian Reality Shows has to be Masterchef. Yes, this exists in the UK but the Aussie version is bigger and (arguably) better. It starts with 50 contestants who, over more weeks than the average person should really dedicate to a TV show, are whittled down to one. No culinary task is too lowly (last night they had to cut potatoes into chips) or too mind-numbingly dull (in one series they spent the whole hour-long episode having contestants taste a Thai chicken curry and then identify each of the 22 ingredients) but it's hugely popular and, despite the most annoying short, fat, bald guy since Mini Me being a presenter, quite addictive. Which means that I'm now going to stop typing this to go and watch it. So, as a friend's mother used to say when we'd outstayed our welcome at her house, 'everyone for coffee'.

The Good, the Bad and the Annoying Short, Fat, Bald Guy

G'bye.

Cliff