Tasty Tapenade

Driving back from Main Range on Easter weekend, Jon and I stopped at a farmer's market in some small town in the back of beyond. After strolling around a bit, we found a olive vendor that made everything under the sun from olives. Jon loves his olives and now our cupboards are stocked full of olive pastes, tapenade, stuffed olives and olive oil.



So, what's a girl to do with gallons of tapenade? I was flicking through an old copy of the The Notebook (very similar to Real Simple in the US) and found a great recipe for a tomato and tapenade galette. It's a take on a French dish with a puffed pastry base topped with layers of tapenade, feta cheese, tomatoes and oregano.

It was a hit with Jon; it was one of the few things that he gushed over and inhaled. I'm still not sold on olives, but I think with the stockhold we have in the house I am going to have to learn to love them.

Pulp Fiction

Jon has been on my back to start trying new foods. I am terrible at trying new foods and have a really limited pallette, so I really can't argue with him. So today while I was at the local fruit and veggie market I decided to find the most exotic fruit and give it a go.



The colors at the market are amazing and there is such an amazing selection of yummy, healthy produce. One fruit jumped off the shelves at me - the dragonfruit. It is grown in Southeast Asia and Central / South America harvested from a cactus plant. The outside is prickly and bright pink with a pulpy seed filled center. Supposedly very yummy with ice cream.

The verdict: It doesn't taste like much and kind of feels like eating paste.

As I told Jon, Rome wasn't built in a day. There is hope for me yet.

Beautiful Sunset

We had the most amazing sunset last night. The white exterior of our building was glowing pink - absolutely stunning.

Bread & Butter

In college, someone once joked that I could be "Betty Crocker by day, Betty Ford by night." Now, although that's not entirely accurate, I do every now and again get struck by the urge to bake something completely random from scratch.

I was hit by one of the moments of domestic goddess inspiration today that you get every so often. As I was making dinner, I decided that we needed (not wanted, really and truly needed) homemade focaccia bread to go along with dinner. Walking 200 meters to the bakery across the street to get bread made by someone else's hands simply wouldn't do.



Now, this is all quite funny because I have never baked bread in my life and I had no idea what I was doing. I dusted off the old Betty Crocker cookbook and gave it a go!

End result, it turned out pretty good for a first effort. Now to clean up the bloody mess in the kitchen.

High Distinction!

Yay! Grades were posted today from the last semester and I got a high distinction (the equivalent to a A+) in my first Aussie Uni class at Griffith.

Forest Flying

Our flight out of Prosperpine was in the late afternoon, so we decided to get a new perspective on the rainforest that we had been admiring from the ground. The B&B operator had told us that there was a British couple that strung up an enormous zip line on their property through the rainforest canopy.



"An added bonus," he continued on, "is that their property is home to some of the largest and most diverse bat populations around."



"You could have left off that last bit," I said with a smile.



We set off down the dirt roads and through the creek crossings and drove off into the forest into a place that no rental hatchback should go (thank goodness for zero liability insurance). At one point, it didn't look like there could possibly be people living out here, but we continued to follow this grown-over road and finally came to a farm gate. I knew we were in the right place when I got out of the car and stepped ankle deep in guano. We had arrived.



It was quite fascinating that people lived out here. The couple explained to us that they were completely self-sufficent off the grid due to their location. Quite often, the road gets washed out with big rain and they are "gorge-bound" for days at a time. All of their electricity runs off of a home made water wheel that is powered by the stream on their property and they operate their communications via satellite. Coming from suburbia, it blew my mind that people choose to live this way.



After harnessing up and hiking up the hill, we set off on the first zip line. It was amazing and the bats were surprisingly beautiful. We landed on a platform strung up in the trees to have a better look at the different types of bats and our guide gave us a little bat-ucation. I know more about fruit bats now than I care to!



The second zip line was a bit more precarious where you flew through the palm fronds. Then, it was over all too quickly. Like little kids, we wanted to go again and again, but it was time to go catch a flight back to reality.

It was a great end to our trip.

Into The Snake Pit

I have a non-rational fear of snakes that is only compounded by the fact that I am living on the continent with the most deadly, highly concentrated snake populations in the world. After the incident of the hissing snake in the rock pools at Carnarvorn Gorge, my feelings on swimming holes have changed drastically.



However, Jon just thinks I am insane and therefore feels it is his job to break me of said ludicrous fear.

We decided to hike out to the Aratulla Falls in Eugnella National Park, since according to our B&B host, it was one of the few trails still accessible that had not been washed out in recent flooding.



So, we set off in our rental car that had no business being off a paved road to cross flooded creeks on a dirt road, so I could face my fear. As we race along, Jon is beginning to believe that Dakar is in his future and I am envisioning an emergency room in mine.



Slim pickings or not, it was a beautiful hike through semi-tropical rainforest and it was a bonus that the trail was a fairly easy grade with a few spicy spots. Whenever we walk, Jon takes the lead with the promise that he will be our diligent snake spotter; he failed to do his job this time, tripping over the tail of a huge goana, scaring the crap out of the lizard, me and with the screech I let out, two hikers behind us.



After all the excitement, we arrived at the beautiful Aratulla Falls. Theoretically, it is a really nice place for a quick dip if you can over look its snake potential. Jon jumped right in and played for hours sliding between rocks as if they were waterslides. I finally eased my way in and had a quick paddle around until I heard the word leech, which sent me running for my sunny rock.



Baby steps, baby steps.