65 & 66. Forming a cycle group and Bobbin Head Cycle.

In order to get a bit of social action going amongst the people that I work with I started a cycle group called the “Respiratory Cyclists”. Bad pun I know but it served a good purpose. It meant that the people at work who were interested in cycling could band together once or twice a week and have a social cycle together which mean they were was an element of security and support around a ride.

Our first cycle saw 5 folk from work hit the Bobbin Head road at 10am. As well as me there was a consultant, 2 nurses and a wardsman. We met at Turramurra station and boosted onto Bobbin Head Rd and cruised on the 4km downhill to Bobbin Head. What a rush. Averaging about 55km/h, we were at the bottom in about 10mins. We took some time to explore the area and walk the boardwalk at the bottom and see the local wildlife which consisted of a while bunch of crabs that chewed the mud.

The we back up we crazy. Road bikes just do not have enough gears in my humble opinion and I spent 20 mins busting a gut just to get to the top. I was so happy reaching the top especially since I made it without stopping although I ran out of gears about half way up and if the road had got steeper I would have been in real trouble.

When we reached the top we cruised down hill to Waitara and stopped into the Blue Gum pub where a few cool beers made the uphill worth while. Hopefully the next few weeks will have more people involved and a bunch of harder longer cycles. Watch this space.

63 & 64. Carlton Cold Filtered and DAB Beer

Carlton Cold Filtered
Smoothness 5
Cost 2
Piss-Factor 4
Aftertaste 3
Coolness 2



DAB
Smoothness 2
Cost 3
Piss-factor 3
Aftertaste 4
Coolness 2

It was Aly and Elizabeth’s last night with us and we opted for takeaway Thai as our last meal. Aly and I hit the bottle shop to purchase some last supper drinks but we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel as I’ve managed to sample most of the beers in out local off-licence.

We picked up these two thinking they would be good curry-beers and the Carlton was – it cooled the flames of my Thai curry very easily. The DAB, however, was a German beer that went down like liquid cactus and had a totally rank aftertaste. The bottle also had that uninspired Eastern European design that made me feel like I was signing up to the SS every time I took a gulp.

61. Lemon Weisser (and technically 62. Drinking from a Stein)

Smoothness 4
Cost 5
Piss Factor 3
Aftertaste 4
Coolness 5

What an amazing beer. Aly had arranged to meet his mother’s cousin (whom he’d never met before) at the German Beer Halle in the Rocks. I tagged along and we had a drink before Iain (the cousin) arrived.

The beer menu there is pretty good but the best thing about it is the fact that the drinks come in 300ml, 500ml and heavenly 1 litre steins. When I was a student we had a stein in the flat but it was used to hold turpentine and paintbrushes when we were decorating.

The beer itself is wicked - a bit like a lager tops but using a wiess beer instead of a lager. A definite winner and the only beer so far to get a 5 for coolness (although that’s really because of the stein – otherwise it would still be a 4).

59 and 60. Tyrrell’s Wines Pinot Noir and Massaman Thai Curry

I was having trouble thinking of what to make for dinner. Since leaving home we’ve had difficulty cooking. I don’t mean that we’ve been unable to stick some things in a pot and turn the heat on. I just mean that we’ve been uninspired to cook anything decent.

About 5 minutes walk from the flat is a great shop called Paradise Market and they have all sorts of fresh fruit and exotic vegetables and a whole host of ingredients from around the world. I went there for some inspiration and after about 15 minutes I’d a basket full of fresh prawns, lemongrass, spring onions, courgettes, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and brown rice. I also picked up a jar of massaman curry paste which is a thai-style curry that I’ve never tasted before. It took a while but I managed to knock together the prawn massaman curry and it was great.

Beside the Paradise Market is a huge wine merchants and I stopped in there to pick up some vino. Earlier in the day I’d been reading about all the vineyards in the Hunter Valley and when I saw this bottle of Tyrrell’s, which is one of the vineyards I plan to visit, I grabbed a bottle. As always with the Aussie reds here another exceptional drink. However, as I was walking out the shop I noticed that they were doing a special of 6 bottles of own-brand red for $11.98 which is less than $2 per bottle. I think I might buy a box of that for the sake of saving pennies but that’ll be the end of writing about new wines for a while.

58. Bluetongue Alcoholic Gingerbeer

Smoothness 4
Cost 3
Piss-factor 3
Aftertaste 4
Coolness 3

My relationship with alcohol has changed a great deal since leaving the UK. I’m sure from reading all these posts it looks like all I’m doing is spending my days off drinking loads of beer and wine. Actually the amount I’m drinking is far less than back home and I’ve done no binging since I got here. On average I think I must drink about 15 units per week TOPS.

This ginger beer has been a bit of a find as it doesn’t really taste alcoholic and is totally refreshing. The strong aftertaste is one of original ginger beer not hops and it reminds me of the ginger wine that my Grandmother used to let us drink at Christmas time. Very enjoyable.

57. Nepalese Food

I’ve never really thought about Nepal having a national food style but to say thanks for letting them stay with us Aly and Elizabeth insisted in taking us out for dinner and we ended up at a local Nepalese restaurant called “Mustang”.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I wasn’t disappointed when we got the menu. Everything looked delicious and we ended up getting a set meal option that came with several starters and several main courses. It was all fantastic. A sort of subtle version of Indian food but a more rustic and exceptionally palatable. It’s likely that this restaurant is going to become one of our favourites for the duration of our trip.

56. It’s Good Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

It had been about 8 weeks since we left home and with the exception of our work colleagues we really didn’t know anyone in the Sydney area. What a welcome change it was then when we got an email from a friend of mine saying that him and his wife (who were on a post-marriage world tour) were going to swinging by Sydney for a few days and wanted to meet up.

Of course we invited them to stay with us and we were looking forward to the company. More to the point it was going to be nice chatting to people who didn’t keep asking “Where abouts in Ireland are you from?” I know I don’t have that strong a Scottish accent but I definitely don’t sound Irish!

Aly and Elizabeth arrived on a Friday evening just as I was getting back from work. They had flown in from New Zealand so jet lag wasn’t a problem and we decided to go for an Indian at one of the near by restaurants. As always the place was BYOB so we picked up a bottle of the above Cab Sauv. It was a bit of a gimmick wine as it had a funky label and it was also fairly cheap however it still tasted really good and had enough flavour to deal with the spicy chicken dish I’d ordered.

55. Wolf Blass Eaglehawk Cuvee Brut

What do you do when it’s Valentine’s Day and you’ve got no money. Well first you complain and bicker about how the whole thing is a load of commercialist crap and then you moan about things like why isn’t there an equivalent day for men (cause let’s face it – Valentine’s Day is for the chicks). But eventually you relent and come up with some way to make your other half happy that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

So what did I do? Well I’m afraid it’s not all that romantic but first I went to the local art store and picked up some pens and coloured card from the discount section and made a wee homemade card for Isla. Then I went to the supermarket and got (a very small amount of) strawberries, marshmallows, peaches, cherries. I also picked up the cheapest cream and a small jar of Coles own chocolate spread.

I melted the spread in a makeshift bain marie and added some cream then cut up the fruit. Isla got home just in time and we overindulged in chocolate covered goodies. The whole lot had cost me less than $10 (which is about £4). So I had a few bucks left over to get some fizz in.

Another good thing about Australia is that some of the wines that are expensive back home are relatively cheap here. Therefore I was able to pick up a bottle of Wolf Blass fizz for under ten bucks that would normally be over £10 back home. Awesome.

54. Blue Tongue Premium Lager

Smoothness 3
Cost 4
Piss-Factor 3
Aftertaste 2 (3 once it warms up a bit)
Coolness 4

There is one reason why Tuesdays in Sydney are better than other week days – Cheapie Tuesdays! It’s the day of the week that the cinemas have discounted prices for tickets. We went to the Chatswood Cinema to see Stranger Than Fiction which turned out to be brilliantly watchable.

It was an early showing so when it finished we thought a little drink on the way home was in order. There were no pubs in the vicinity and as most beers are about $6 – $7 a schooner we took a small detour to the bottle shop and got a sixer of Blue Tongue.

It has a totally cool label (although I’ve been bashing labels recently) and the packaging is strangely aesthetic. However it tastes a bit like Becks and that’s one of my most hated beers. This problem is solved by keeping the beer cold – the evil Beckness of it doesn’t rear its head till it warms up. I still think that it’s a totally cool beer but it does lose one point of coolness because I cut my hand on the bottle top as it’s the only beer I’ve drank here that’s not a screw top. Well I know better next time.

53. The Longest Mile

When I was in primary school we learnt to swim at the local swimming pool called the Hector McNeil Swimming Baths. From it’s concept that pool was doomed. It was closed a few years after it opened by the council as it wasn’t making any money – for the most bizarre reason ever.

You see someone made a ridiculous error when they were building the pool; they forgot to put a walkway between the adult pool and the children’s pool and didn’t realise till the building was almost complete. Instead of starting over, the idiots decided to reduce the length of the big pool by one metre. So instead of a 25metre pool they had made the world’s first 24 metre pool.

That meant that the Hector McNeil couldn’t hold any race meets or swim galas since the pool was too short. It also meant that when ever we went there and tried to get “swim badges” we always ended up swimming random numbers of lengths. The most I ever swam was 1500m which was stupidly 62.5 lengths (instead of the normal 60) and I got a cheesy badge which my Mum sewed onto my swimming trunks. I remember being really pleased although I’m sure I miss-counted (perhaps on purpose) and probably didn’t swim the whole distance.

During the rest of my time at school I was more concerned with eating all the pies and by the time I reached university I was focusing most of my energies into seeing how much booze a single human being could consume. This gave me a spectacular beer gut, moobs (that’s man-boobs for those not in the know) and a real aversion to being anywhere near a pool (all you chubsters out there know where I’m coming from). The result being that I’d not really been swimming much in the last 20 years.

However, since moving to Sydney I’d swam 30 or 40 lengths in the apartment’s 25m lap pool about 3 times a week and today thought I might should see if I could actually swim that distance – and I could. When I got to the 60 lap mark I decided to rebel against the metric system and did the extra 4-and-a-bit laps that took the distance to one mile. It wasn’t a particularly fast time at 37 minutes but I like to think that’s due to me being not very aqua-dynamic as opposed to my piss-poor technique!

52. Brookland Valley “Verse 1” Shiraz 2005

Isla got a job. Hooray!

She’d been doing a bit of temping at the English-as-a-foreign-language school while covering someone was on paternity leave but that had come to an end. Luckily one of the agencies she had given her CV to phoned her the day she became unemployed to offer her a 6 month admin job with the Channel 9 TV Station. How cool was that?

OK, so she wasn’t (yet) being asked to be the new anchor-woman for Channel 9 News ala Ron Burgundy, but still it was quite impressive saying that you worked for a TV station even if you were just the tea girl (which she wasn't).

Regardless of what the job was going to be like it still merited a bit of a celebration so we had some Thai food at the sterile but always reliable Thai Express and then picked up a bottle of Brookland Red on the way home.

Basically it tasted the same as every other red we’ve drank since arriving here; big, fruity and full of alcohol. Very palatable despite that but I think we need to start looking at grapes other than Merlot, Cab Sauv and Shiraz.

51. Cascade Blonde

Smoothness 3
Cost 3
Piss-Factor 4
Aftertaste 4
Coolness 3

We were still watching the pennies but we had 2 discount vouchers for the Greater Union Cinema on George St and decided to go and see “the Last King of Scotland”. However, we got the times totally wrong and had about 45 minutes to kill so we bought the tickets and went looking for something to do with the spare time.

Just down the street we came across the 3 Wise Monkeys bar and it bloody started raining again so we went inside and spent the money we’d just saved on a couple of drinks.

The Blonde was just OK. Nothing really that special but I gave it 3 for coolness and 4 for piss-factor (instead of lower scores) because IT CAME IN PINTS!!!! I realise this has nothing to do with the actual drink but I’ve not had a single pint since I left home as everything comes in schooners with are about 2/3 of a pint. It was nice to have a proper glass for a change so I felt the scores were merited.

50. Orange Mocha Frappuccino! (well just a Mocha Frappuccino)

50. Orange Mocha Frappuccino! (well just a Mocha Frappuccino)

This is the line at the start of one of my favourite scenes in the movie Zoolander.

There had recently been a few rain storms raging through Sydney which were being welcomed by the locals due to the on-going drought and subsequent water restrictions. While the Sydney-siders were happy to see the rain, I was not. I’d spent 30-odd years in a rain plagued country and until recently had been enjoying the reliability of the Australian sun.

Once again I was walking through the city centre when another deluge began. I jumped into an already busy Starbucks and when the shower showed no sign of relenting I decided to get something to make me feel better. As I read down the extensive list of coffees I saw a mocha frappuccino! I didn’t realise that they actually existed but alas there was no orange version so I had to settle for the basic version.

For those of you who haven’t seen Zoolander then this means nothing to you but suffice it to say that Derek and his model buddies drink this to make Derek feel better when he’s depressed. It certainly worked for me.

I have since found out that the orange one exists but it’s called the Mocha Valencia and I don’t know if any of the branches here sell it but I shall endevour to find out and report back.

49. Mars Bar Cheesecake

We were trying to be good. Australia was supposed to be the beginning of our new leaner, lighter, fitter lifestyle. However, every time we walked through the Rocks we were constantly tempted by the cheesecakes that sat in the window of the quaint Rocks Café.

I figured that we had a few more passes left in us before we caved but I was wrong. We happened to be walking past on a particularly overcast day and suddenly the heavens opened in a much needed drought quenching down pour. There were only two options open to us. The first was to get soaked while making a bid for a mall or train station; the second was to duck into the nearest shop and hope it wasn’t already full of sheltering tourists.

Unfortunately for us the first place we ducked into was the Rocks Café which had a couple of empty seats and there in the glass cabinets tempting us was their selection of cheesecakes. You think that being from Scotland we wouldn’t mind a bit of rain but instead of opting for a potential drenching we found ourselves trapped by a wall of layer upon layer of delicious, mouth watering desserts.

With no will power left we asked for a menu but the waitress said “We don’t have a menu for the cakes as we change them every day”. That made us want them even more so we ordered a two slices. Isla had the blueberry cheesecake and I had the Mars Bar cheesecake. I didn’t quite know what to expect with my choice but when it arrived it truly did look like someone had baked slices of Mars Bar into a chocolate cheese cake. It was amazing and our good intentions had been completely destroyed by these delicious gastronomic delights. To top it off, the portions were massive and by my last forkful I was feeling that I’d eaten a whole cake.

48. Tooheys Extra Dry Platinum

Smoothness 3
Cost 3
Piss-factor 5
Aftertaste 3
Coolness 1

We are already into February and although I knew that we’d be slowing down with the challenge I didn’t think that it would be happening so soon. Over the last 3 weeks I’ve settled into work and now I’m behaving like I would do at home. When I’m at work I can’t do anything new and when I’m not at work I find myself on the internet, or reading or chilling with a beer.

I decided that this wasn’t good as the whole point of the 365 Challenge was to make me maximise my time here. As with most things, I’d gotten off to a good start and now I’m struggling to get any further. I’ve only reached 48 and we’ve been away from home for 42 days. If things slow down any further then I’m never going to get to 365.

So I’ve got 2 choices. The first is to get my ass in gear and start using my days off more productively, the second is to drink more beer and wine. Today I decided to do both. I went out to the shops and bought loads of coloured pens then came home (via the bottle shop) to make an A2 chart that I’ve stuck on the fridge. The chart is bit of a mind map of things that we want to do while we are out here. It means that we can stick things down on it whenever we think of something new to do and then tick them off when they have been done.

As for the beer, well I don’t know why I bought this stuff. It’s relatively easy to drink but it’s 6.5% and after 2 I was already feeling it. Mind you I am a one-can-Dan these days so that’s no surprise. None-the-less it gets a 5 for Piss Factor as it’s so strong and so easy to drink. It was not cool though as it has labels (which I’ve decided are pointless) instead of embossing, and it’s made by the ubiquitous Tooheys company and since leaving home I’ve come to the realisation that being drunk is bad and this beer did it’s best to get me to change my mind so it only gets a 1 for coolness.

47. My First Pay Cheque

Finances had been tight for the last few weeks and we had been living off pasta and pesto almost every day. Doing most things in Sydney cost some amount of money so we’d been spending lots of nights in the flat and we’d even been reduced to renting free DVDs from the local library for free. Unfortunately, the library’s collection wasn’t exactly up to date. I think that the most modern DVD we saw was the original version of “Flight of the Phoenix”.

I had $397 in the bank and I know that you are all saying “that’s plenty of cash. Surely they could get by on that?” Normally we would have nor problem surviving on that amount of money for a few weeks but the rent was due and that cost $380. That left $17 to last us till pay day. This was compounded by the fact that the ATMs in Australia only let you take out a minimum of $20. That mean I would have to go into the bank to get out the $17, however, dealing with a teller cost $2 which takes the total down to $15.

Things were not going well from a financial point of view but far and away the single worse thing was that my flat in the UK still wasn’t rented which meant I was also covering a mortgage there as well as our bills here. So I’m sure you can imagine my delight when my first Australian pay went into my bank account.

I was desperate to go out and buy loads of tasty food and wine and some other things that we needed for the flat but instead I paid the rent and bought some more cheap pasta since it was going to be at least another month before we were completely liquid again.

46. Balmoral and Edwards Beaches

We were skint. Neither of us had been paid since arriving here and so when we had a day off together we had to find something to do that cost nothing. I had previously asked all the staff at work what there was to do in Sydney that didn’t cost any money and was constantly met with same answer; “go to the beach”.

It was a Sunday and the sun was shining and it was likely that Manly Beach and Bondi Beach would be packed so we had a look at the map and decided to go to Edwards and Balmoral Beaches. They are located 10 minutes down the hill from where Military Rd becomes Spit Rd in North Mosman and the two beaches are separated by a rocky outcrop that juts out into the ocean forming a fantastic viewing point.

15 minutes on the bus saw us at the top of the street that leads down to the 2 beaches. For any of you that have been in the West End of Glasgow this street can only be described as a larger, longer, steeper version of Gardener Street of near San Franciscan proportions. It took about 10 minutes to walk down the hill and what greeted us were two beautiful beaches that were surprisingly quiet.

Dividing Edwards and Balmoral beach was the aptly named Rocky Point which was littered with spacious grassy knolls and comfortable stone platforms that were being used by several sun-seekers to catch some rays. However, there were plenty trees up on the point providing natural shade so we decided to spend the afternoon there.

Lying in the sun reading our books made us feel like tourists again and when we got stuck into the little picnic it felt even more like a proper day out at the beach. After a few hours we headed back home but had the gravity defying hill to contest with first.

Actually it wasn’t too bad and before we knew it we were at the top. Besides it was a small price to pay to have found not one but two beautiful beaches, especially since they were so quite and peaceful. Personally, I felt that there was very little that the more famous local beaches had to offer over these two.

45. Carlton Dry

Smoothness 4
Cost 2
Piss-Factor 4
Aftertaste 2
Coolness 2

The TV in Australia is pretty crap. Not many people have cable and most just have the terrestrial TV. Instead of calling it “Council TV” like we do at home they call it “Povo-TV” and they refer to the TV guide for those channels as the “Povo-pages”.

As such you often find yourself desperately flicking through the channels looking for something decent to watch and since there is usually nothing on, you end up watching various shopping shows.

One particularly boring day found us engrossed in an infomercial for a new sit-up device called “The Bean”. I’m not usually one for actually buying these kind of things but firstly the price was reasonably cheap and secondly there was not one but two shops in the area that sold them. We took it as a sign and purchased this inflatable miracle.

As soon as we got it home, I blew it up and did a few sessions on it. Quite easy actually and no pain in the back. Also, if it ends up gathering dust we can use it as a rocking chair as it’s so comfortable.

Anyway, after trying to get rid of my beer gut I felt I deserved some beer so I went our and got some Carlton Dry. We still haven’t been paid yet so it was one of the cheapest beers in the shop. However, it wasn’t bad. Really smooth with very little aftertaste. It’s got an average alcohol content but it’s so cheap that it would be a good selection for a night on the piss, hence the high Piss-Factor.