On the wine trail in Orange - Lolli Redini

Making the most of a recent well deserved holiday my wife and I headed embarked on a tour of some of New South Wales wine regions. Having already covered the Hunter, Southern Highlands and Canberra region this time we decided to tour Orange and Mudgee, which are a couple of places a bit more off the beaten track.

Enjoying the view across
 Lake Canobolas

Orange itself is a beautiful location, in the shadow (well,  as much as a mountain of 1400m can cast a shadow) of Mount Canobolas there are a number of cooler climate vineyards which can grow a wide variety of grapes due to the variance in height, as there are vineyards in the surrounding area sitting between 600 and 1200 m in altitude, Orange are very proud of the fact that to be a wine of Orange the grapes have to be from vineyards which are between these heights, nothing from below 600m is allowed to have Orange on the label.

View from the top of
Mount Canobolas

While we were there we booked into a wine tour with Chase, an American (don’t hold it against him) who is now doing minibus tours for small (intimate) groups in the area, I have to admit this was probably one of the better commercial tours I have been on as the low numbers of people (although he can take 11 people he prefers to operate for smaller groups of 6 or 8) get a very personal experience on the cellar door which is a million miles away from the 45 person bus load things that you get in the hunter. As a shameless plug for his new business you can find out more about him here http://www.orangewinestours.com.au, I would definitely recommend it as the best way to get around and still enjoy a drink as cycling around the many hills on narrow roads in Orange seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

As well as some excellent wine (we finished the wine tour slightly merry and with a case of 12 bottles from various vineyards in the back of the bus) there is also a lot of good eating in Orange with a number of their restaurant making the good food guide. On our first night we dropped in to Lolli Redini(http://www.lolliredini.com.au/), which if you mention it to any of the locals will immediately illicit a response of "it’s great, you have to have the soufflé".

The Cheese Souffle

This led to me conquering one of my main fears when it comes to ordering dinner, which is ordering the same thing as someone at my table. This fear grows the fewer people I am dining with, so I pretty much never order the same thing as my wife, however I was glad that, aided by the wonderous nerve calming effects of a glass of local wine, I was able to mutter the words "I’ll have the soufflé too, please".

This turned out to be the best decision I had made in quite some time, the Twice Cooked Gruyere Soufflé was probably one of the most enjoyable things I have eaten since coming to Sydney, it was everything a soufflé should be, light, beautifully textured and incredibly tasty, surrounded by a cheese sauce and topped with spring onions to break through the creaminess. I have to admit that from the picture I took it is no looker, however in real life I thought it was quite attractive. Lolli’s do an interesting pairing of wines with their food, all of which is from the local vineyards and with the soufflé they had put a sparkling wine (interestingly the waitress warned me it was sparkling as if this would somehow put me off ordering it!?! My wife was given no such caution, perhaps the men in country towns think it is not manly to be seen with a glass of bubbles! I think reading that back it may not be manly to call it a glass of bubbles, but I think that drinking it is perfectly masculine..)

Hereford Brisket

After the soufflé (how many times can I mention it) the rest of the meal rather pales by comparison, which is unfortunate as my main of beef brisket was very good, and I am a great believer in their general policy of showing off the best of the regions produce, both with the meat and also the matching wine which they suggest. The food was excellently cooked (My wifes Pork Belly apparently had excellent crackling) and also well presented, they also do a very fine truffle mash which we had as a side, although it could be considered to be slightly unnecessary as the portion sizes were, what could only be described as generous.

Pork Belly

Price wise it is not exactly cheap (certainly for the area) with two courses coming in at 68 dollars, but compared to Sydney I would class it as excellent value (although compared to Sydney I think most places are excellent value but I digress).

We chose to finish with the cheese platter as our dessert and were helpfully informed by the waitress that this was also massive and that a platter each was completely unnecessary, this was great advice as we struggle to finish even one of them between us.

  

Adjusting to life Sydneyside: first impressions of eating in Sydney

So after 6 months, unemployed, homeless and travelling around the world eating and drinking in some of the best restaurants we have finally arrived in Australia to settle down for a bit.

This is the main reason that this blog has taken a bit of a hiatus, because since we left China life has been a bit of a whirlwind. We've gotten married (again), found jobs, found a place to live and started settling into life in Sydney. 

Now we have bought everything we need to complete our new place, including an amazing fridge which at some point I may write an ode to on this blog because, in terms of my ideal kitchen, it is definitely close to being everything I have ever dreamed of (sad or what!!). I am hoping that from now on my weekends are going to be less taken up wandering aimlessly around Ikea remembering the words of Tyler Durden in fight club, so I am hoping to have a bit of time to write a few pieces for the blog again.

Shanghai Surprise: Mr and Mrs Bund

Our final stop on the world tour was the excellent city of Shanghai. This was a lot more like we imagined China would be like, it is a far cry from the more historical feel of Bejing and Xian and a lot more like Blade Runner with smog frequently hiding the tops of the many high rise buildings, most of which are covered with neon lights, although there are currently no flying cars circling them.

Shanghai at first glace looks like any other big city in the world, with fancy new buildings and high rises springing up all over the city. Apparently at one point around 10 years ago there where more large cranes in Shanghai than in the rest of the world put together.

Bejing - great chinese food, but Maccy D's is the recommended breakfast.

Welcome to Bejing ... hold on, where are all the tall buildings? For some reason I was expecting a high rise or two, I am stood in the centre of Bejing and there is nothing taller than 4 or 5 stories. Part of this may be the smog which is circling overhead, obscuring my view and meaning that taking photographs is a little tricky, but I am fairly certain that most of the reason is apparently nothing in the centre of Bejing can overlook the forbidden city, which is where the Emperors used to reside.

The second thing I noticed is that although the hotel has wifi it does not have access to facebook or instagram, the Great Firewall of China appears to have seen to that. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a total disaster, I am not addicted to facebook (honest) but I do like to be able to boast to all my friends about how nice the places I have been are and how great all of the food I have been eating is.

Viajante, great food in unlikely places

A dark corner of the east end of London is a strange place to find one of London's most interesting  restaurants. Claiming to serve a (very) modern take on Portuguese cuisine Viajante, fittingly for us after our recent excursions, meaning "the traveller", is based in the old Tower Hamlets town hall. The frontage is very impressive and the dining room is quite grand although the chairs do look like they may be ex council stock. The main menu choices you have are whether you want 6 or 9 courses (we obviously went for the more is better plan) however you have no real indication of what the courses are. Once that is sorted the only thing that remains is to decide if you want a matching wine (much better value than buying it by the bottle) then you should sit back relax and enjoy a crazy culinary adventure.

Dinner by Heston? I bet he'll serve snails again!

There is no such thing as a sure thing in life, but you can usually bank on a couple of things at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant, 1) there are going to be snails 2) there is probably going to be a lot of dry ice and 3) I am going to really enjoy my meal there.

Our trip to Dinner by Heston (which shortly after my trip appeared at number 7 on the world's top 50 restaurant list) was a lunch time visit to celebrate our return to London and also the arrival of my soon to be in-laws in London. We booked in on one of the very reasonable lunchtime set menu deals which includes 3 courses for 36 pounds.

The rise and rise of the great British Gastropub

If you're British and you've not been down to your local pub  for a few years chances are it has changed a bit. Since the tightening of drink driving laws pubs have been starting to die out in smaller villages where people used to drive for the beer and the roadside pubs who in there heyday were a stopping point for a refresher on an afternoon jaunt are now all extinct.

The villages near the place where I grew up, on the edge of the Peak District, near Alton Towers are no exception, pubs that used to serve walkers a couple of beers as they trekked through the peaks or Alton Towers guests a swift half while the traffic died down are pretty much gone. In many places the locals were also staying staying at home and drinking cheap booze from the supermarket rather than walking to the pub to get a pint.

6 Days in beautiful Buenos Aires, living it up.

From the moment we set foot in South America I think we had both been looking forward to our last stop, Buenos Aires, quite a lot of the travellers we have bumped into on our way round have told us how great it is although I should counter this by saying that several other people told us it was their least favourite place in South America.

The city itself is fairly modern, especially in the centro area where many of the government buildings and shopping streets reside. At times the buildings could be anywhere in Europe and many of the buildings with their grey slate roof tops would not be out of place in the center of Paris.

Best and worst of South America

Now that we are safely back in the UK I thought I should do a little Q and A with myself, thinking about our time in South America to get an idea of what we both enjoyed and what we would probably do differently if we were doing it again. I got the idea for most of the questions from the things that people have asked since I got back.

1) What was the biggest surprise?
The prices. We were lead to believe that we could survive for 50 quid a day between us but because we chose to shun tourist menus and also because of our fairly hectic schedule, which saw us either travelling or visiting another tourist site, I think we spent close to double that.

Private dining at devils point, Uruguay

The longer you are on the road for the more blasé you become. We've tried hard not to make too many errors on our trip but our arrival at Punto del Diablo, after a 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo, indicated that the plan we came up with while we were hungover in Colombia about 3 weeks ago, may have not been made with access to as much information as we needed.

The first minor issue we were aware of, it is now Autumn here, we noticed it in Buenos Aires, and certainly in Montevideo (where we got caught in a couple of massive downpours) but it was even more apparent in Punto del Diablo as it was cool, cloudy and the wind was gusting strongly. This change in the climate had lead to a more major issue, the tourist season was over. This was starkly indicated to us as we disembarked the bus by a number of the restaurants in the centre of the fishing village being boarded up for the winter!

Buenos Aires, where dollars are king

We arrived at our final stop in South America, Buenos Aires, after a short ferry crossing from Colonia de Sacremento in Uruguay. Watching the city come into view on the far side of the river was definitely a mixed emotions thing, I am not going to miss the endless packing and unpacking but the day to day experiencing new things is definitely going to be a loss.

On the advice of several people we have spoken to on the road we arrived carrying dollars. I was a bit confused/worried about this as no one mentioned this when we were in Mendoza or Salta, and also because if we withdraw dollars we pay an exchange fee and then (in sane parts of the modern world) you pay another fee when you convert the dollars into whatever currency you are using.

Colonia de Sacremento.

The last stop on our brief Uruguayan excursion was Colonia de Sacramento. This is a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the Rio Plata which was originally set up by the Portuguese to smuggle things into Buenos Aires. It's main function has changed a bit since then but people still flood across from buenos aires on a regular basis with Several ferries a day crossing the river.


Colonia is now more of a holiday location with many people from Montevideo and Buenos Aires owning the beautiful river front properties. The other reason the Argentinians were apparently flocking there was because in Uruguay you can withdraw dollars, which is now impossible across the river (driving the exchange rate sky high) the downside being that the queues at the cash points are usually long and people tend to spend at least 10 minutes in the booth (we waited an hour in a queue of 5 people!). At the time this seemed pretty crazy but for reasons I will cover in my next blog it now makes sense.

Montevideo, it's a long way from Iguassu

So, we're in Uruguay! No idea why, I guess we fancied another couple of passport stamps and trying out a different mode of transport.

Whoever said it was better to travel than arrive has never tried getting to Montevideo from Iguassu. It was not a great deal of fun, it involved an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires (which arrived at 6:30am) followed by a ferry the following morning at 9.

Now had we been less panicky travellers we could have tried to get from the bus station to the ferry port on the same day, but our tickets indicated that we should be at the dock 2 hours before departure as that is when boarding starts.

Iguassu and the moon on a stick (ok maybe everything but the moon!)

After Rio we flew (I know what you are thinking about budget but this was less than 80 US dollars each) to our second and final brazilian stop, foz do iguaçu or the iguassu falls.

The falls sit near the Paraguayan, argentinian and brazilian border with the latter two countries sharing the falls (80% are on Argentinian land and 20% are on Brazilian turf)

They are massive, to see them properly takes at least a day and a half, and we were told that you have to view them from both sides, on the Argentinian side you get really up close and personal with the falls, there is also a solid 8 or 9 km walk to see all of the separate waterfalls where as in Brasil you can see pretty much the whole falls from one vantage point. On both sides you are going to get wet, if you take a speed boat to get a closer look (i would recommend it) you are going to get completely drenched so take a spare set of clothes or stuff that dries quickly (at least you dear reader are forewarned, we just got soaked and had to live with it).

On the tourist trail in Rio

As our time in Rio was short we decided to spend one day on an organised tour which covered most of the major tourist attractions. We spent 150 real each (a budget blowing 50 pounds) to go to see "Christ the redeemer", Santa Teressa, the tiled Selaron steps and sugar loaf mountain (or rather Rio from sugar loaf mountain) over the course of an afternoon. Entry to Christ and the sugar loaf comes to around 75 real and this was covered in the price so the other 75 went on a tour guide and the minibus which drove us around all day.

Whether this expense was necessary or not is debatable as the bus service in Rio (once you get the hang of it) is excellent and at a set price of 3 real a trip, not particularly expensive. I doubt you could cover all 4 things in 1 day on public transport though.

The biggest problem with deciding to do a tour is that you only get a set period of time at each of the places and both sugar loaf and Christ are susceptible to being ruined by cloud.

When my baby smiles at me...

I go to Rio, de Janeiro (if, like me, this means nothing to you watch this you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCYxTg6svXg ). When my fiancée started singing this at me while in the immigration queue at Rio airport I though he was doing a really bad job of singing something I should recognise but actually she was doing a fairly decent impression of the guy on the piano in that video (good luck getting it out of your head, it has stayed with me for days)

Our arrival in Rio was a mixed emotions kinda thing, we were sad to be leaving Colombia and also sad because we only have 4 weeks left of our trip, however the prospect of seeing Rio was something we were looking forward to, despite the fact that it is one of the more costly destinations we planned on visiting.

We chose to stay for 4 nights in the Bohemian Santa Terresa district, which is set in the hillside overlooking the Centro business district, the lively Lapa area which is where much of the partying takes place at the weekend an Rio's funky modern concrete cathederal (which lights up with all sorts of neon colours ay night). Sadly although we arrived on a Saturday because the flight was an overnight one from Colombia we only got 2 hours sleep on the plane and so failed to make the most of the Lapa nightlife, although we did make it as far as Nuevo Chapela, a Lapa restaurant focusing on traditional Brazilian dishes.

Crepes, waffles and the final days in Colombia

We really have loved Colombia. The cities have had a very modernised, more developed feel than much of South America, for me one of the few downsides was the fact that on the northern coast a hot water tap is seen as unnecessary. Now I accept that the temperature is 35 degrees pretty much every day, but stepping into a freezing shower, although refreshing, isn't something I want to be forced into. It is not as if a big black tank on the roof (let alone a couple of simple solar panels) would not be hot in seconds.

This one pretty minor gripe aside the northern coast has a great outdoorsy feel, as I said in a previous blog lots of the squares and streets fill up at night with people eating and drinking, most restaurants also have outdoor seating areas which get pretty crowded at night.

Playa Blanca and the meaning of everything

Cartagena is one of the few places in South America I think I could probably spend a year or two living in. The city has a nice friendly vibe despite the fact it is a bit touristy. In the evenings several of the squares fill up with people drinking store bought beers and vendors selling all sorts of food (everything from kebabs and burrito wraps to sweet coconut cake dessert) and drinks to save you walking back to the beer shops.

There are also a number of guys in the streets who have cousins or an uncle in the Uk, Australia, America or wherever you are from, who will get you "everything" you could want. This ranges from helping you organise trips, finding restaurants, arranging massages, selling you drugs and organising a prostitute (I only know this because one guy felt the need to explain what "everything" was despite me telling him I understood what he was implying). Obviously you will pay a heavy premium for such services which we found out when our friend Mike used one of these guys book his trip to Playa Blanca beach he paid 10000 pesos more than we did for the same trip!

Playa Blanca is on one of the Rosario islands and the boat out there should be 30000, with an extra 12000 pesos required or entry to the national park. You can also pay another 10000 to have lunch included although this is not strictly necessary as everywhere there offers you lunch for that price once you arrive (it is not a reservation required kinda place)

The beautiful Cartagena

The first thing you notice about Cartagena is the beautiful streets, everywhere you turn in the old town could be a postcard. We really enjoyed walking round every street soaking in the atmosphere.

If, like us, you have been somewhere even slightly off the beaten track (like Taganga) the second thing you'll notice is the price. Everything is pretty much twice the price here (1.5 times the price in Bogota). This is because tourism has hit the area. Toronto is only a 5 hour flight away and America is even closer so several hotels in the upmarket beachfront Bocagrande area cater for the week long, all inclusive, crowd. We, on the other hand, were staying in the more wallet friendly backpacker district around Media Luna street (which is also the red light district!)

So this isn't the most unspoilt part of Colombia in tourism terms, but this has some advantages. The tourist cash means that most of the colonial architecture is well maintained in the old city and there is a good selection of museums (although some of these are mainly in Spanish).

Taganga - the advantage of getting to know somewhere

After the amazing Galapagos snorkelling experience that we both thoroughly enjoyed we thought that, with our impending move to Australia, learning to scuba dive would be something we'd both like to do. With this in mind one of the cheapest places in the world to get an open water qualification is Taganga, near Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast.

We booked in and then read in the Lonely Planet that the food here was not great, this was a slight disappointment but there were plenty of other attractions in the area to keep us occupied, including the beautiful Tayrona national park which you can walk in (camping overnight if you want), as well as diving in the sea on its coast line. We spent a great day in Tayrona, walking in the jungle and on the beaches, the scenery is very dramatic and impressive, however when we were there it was a touch over cast and a bit cold to swim on the great beaches (be careful some of the beaches have strong currents and are not suitable for swimming, these are clearly marked!)