Time for a quick brew?

I was home alone for a few nights last week, so thought I would make the most of it and get some more beer on. I'm still playing with saison yeast so I tweaked my earlier recipes to give a little more wheat for mouthfeel, plus I used only amarillo hops to try to accentuate the citrus.

I mashed for an hour, boiled for an hour, cooled the wort, pitched the yeast and by 8.30pm I was cleaning up...pretty happy with that.

Snapper Rocks

Liz works for Camp Quality, an organisation that arranges events for kids with cancer, and last weekend she was running a 'surf camp' down at the famous Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta. It was an early start, with us out of the door at 6am and arriving on site at 7.30.

My plan was to get us down there as safely as possible and then find a comfortable tree to doze off underneath. Then go for a ride, maybe go for a swim or a bodyboard or maybe just stay under my tree reading a book. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and it rained continually and consistently all morning, so I had to content myselt with wandering around in a leaky gore-tex trying to find coffee shops to lurk in.

We weren't the only ones suffering. There was a kids surf lifesavers competition on the beach just around the headland

This is a really big thing in Australia - all the local surf lifesaving clubs have a 'gromit' section for their under 16s and the competition between them is fierce. The competitions are mainly based around running, swimming & surf skis, skis being bouyant surfboard-type boards with a cutout section for kneeling on whilst paddling with the arms. You can see a line stretching out mid-picture here Despite the rain, the water looked very clear and inviting

I'm not the best of swimmers, but figured with that many lifesavers around I was probably pretty safe. However I'm ashamed to say that I didn't venture in all day - in fact after the event was over we looked at the drizzle and headed straight back to Brisbane. At least some of the locals were enjoying the rainMost importantly the surf event was a success - the surf school still ran its lesson, pro-surfer Jeremy Flores turned up to sign autographs and 30 kids had a great morning.

Melbourne

My flight didn't leave until late afternoon the next day so I thought I'd take a wander around Melbourne - a beautiful city with an architecture very different to that of Brisbane. In some ways it's reminiscent of Manchester - not surprisingly, as it was built at around the same time. This is the old Melbourne Gaol, just opposite the room I was staying in. This is where Ned Kelly was hanged, supposedly his last words as he was lead to the gallows were 'Such is life' and this phrase lives on in a thousand bogan tattoos.

Flinders St Station, on mainly deserted streets (well, it was only around 10am)
For some reason my bike hire was valid for the whole weekend so I amused myself for a bit by trying to get pictures of me riding next to trams
and then I found out that the 'Moomba festival' was on that weekend. This included a 'Birdman of Melbourne' competition where hopefull souls hurl themselves off of a platform in the Yarra.This guy's heading for a painful bellyflop

and this lady put her faith in some black balloons
Further up the river was a water-skiing contest - I'd like to pretend that this guy just had a massive change of heart when he saw the ramp, but sadly I was only there for the slalom competition and not the ski-jumping
although I did catch a bit of BMX action at the skatepark - some of these kids were incredible
My time in Melbourne was coming to an end all too soon so after some fantastic chinese food and a couple of craft beers I had one last ride, returned my helmet and got the bus out to the airport. My timings were a little out so I was lucky to make the flight home with about 15 mins to spare.

All in all an awesome weekend, I just need some time to recover now.

Hawkwind

The mighty Hawkwind played in Melbourne last weekend, so I thought I'd treat myself to a weekend away and flew down to see them. I was also keen to check out Melbournes new city bike scheme and compare it to its Brisbane equivalent.

I managed to get a 'budget' flight to Avalon airport, 'the second Melbourne airport', on Friday night. It's actually in Geelong, a good hours cab ride & $100 from Melbourne CBD, so that's not something I will be doing again. Still, I got to have a good chat with the cabbie.

On Saturday I went out for breakfast and remembered that Melbourne is different to Brisbane - people just don't get up early. At 9am the city was deserted. I was lucky enough to find a place offering Mexican breakfasts and my bacon, green chilli & olive breakfast burrito hit the spot. The sauce is a green habanero hot sauce.

Suitably refreshed I headed down to the tourist information centre to get my bike access sorted out. The tourist info people weren't much help and suggested I get a 'proper' bike from a bike hire company, but I persevered. The process is easy - you swipe your credit card and for a fee of $2.50 you can then take out a bike from one of the bike stations for upto half an hour for no additional charge. Once you dock a bike you have to wait 5 minutes or so before you can get another one out. There are stations all over the city, but unfortunately none down by the seaside. And oddly there are no take-away maps showing you the location of the bike stations - you need to get a city map and mark it up based on the maps they have at the bike station.

They've also addressed the problem of compulsary bike helmets - you can buy a helmet for $5 at a 7-11 or at a helmet vending machine

Once you're done with it, return it for a $3 refund. Easy.
The bikes themselves are a little more basic than the Brisbane bikes, but just as good. Or just as bad, as my bike snob mates would probably prefer :)
I had a great time pedalling around the various Melbourne sites in what was beautiful weather - 29 degrees & not a cloud in the skyEventually I returned to the lowly status of pedestrian and accidentally walked down from Toorak to St Kilda - I was looking for a bike shop on a specific street and it later turned out that it had closed down. Still, it was a nice day for a walk so I just kept on going and worked up a thirst. St Kilda is home to what is now one of my favourite pubs - 'The Taphouse' - on the junction of Chapel St & Carlisle St. They have a rotating menu of 20 beers on tap, including (on my visit) two separate Saisons. Above is a pint of Mornington Peninsula Saison, a lovely brew. Sadly this is not available in Queensland, but if my Saison ends up anything like that I'll be a happy man.
After a few beers the New Scientist I was reading stopped making much sense so I thought it was time to leave. I wandered through St Kilda enjoying the sights
I also noticed this dude, rocking courier style on a full downhill bike. With barends.
Time was pressing on so I went back to my room to freshen up, and after a quick and not entirely intentional nap I made it out to the gig venue. It was a bit of a wierd place - a teeny bopper club after 10pm, so the support band started at 6.30pm and Hawkwind at 7.40pm. It was a good gig - not great, and not as good as I've seen them in the past, but it was still well worth the visit. Dancers, guitar solos, wibbly wobbly synthesisers, strobe lights, synth breaks on a guitar-synth and lots of smoke - everything that a space rock band should have. No pictures unfortunately as I'd forgotton my camera.

To be honest I was secretly glad that it finished early - after a long day I was exhausted....