Brissy

Around Brisbane and surfing in palm beach which is just great!

Journey continues: Takeoff!

Finally !!!**88**!! long days of specified work towards second year visa are gone!! That means I am free to go and do whatever I want, whenever I want, and theoretically eligible to apply for extension, but that is going to take place in the far future. Those days included lots of hard work, long, I mean Very long days, blood and sweat. However, in retrospect, it has been tremendous experience what I possibly will never face again (hopefully!:). On saturday I packed up Pulsar and nailed the pedal out of the farm, this time for good.

My route went through famous waterfall road which has good amount of lookouts. There are woollomombi waterfalls, which are 2nd highest in Australia and Ebor falls for example. Even without them the landscape along the way is worth driving.

Coffs Harbour is well known for its big yellow landmark, Big Banana. It also boasts with great range of beaches and variety of activities such as skydiving and whalewatching. For accommodation there is vast amount to choose from starting from backpacker's to campsites to multiple star hotels. Shopping Plaza offers everything you need and even more: it's first time I've seen yoghurtland! Within an hour drive there are additional activities for those who have seen it all, for example, Rainforest Centre in Dorrigo which is a must.

I settled down in propably the best-known backpacker's Hoey Moey. One night during the current season is 30$ which I consider high for a backpacker, but amenities include free bodyboards, fishing equipments, courtesy bus and help with finding work so it's up to you.

Grounded ice with syrup, absolutely tasty!

Lookout at the oxley highway with keys of freedom in my hand. Love it.

Morning routine, last day

Easyfast dinner and what you didn't know about ingredients in Australia

Harvest time can be very busy and does not necessarily leave much time to think what to have for lunch or dinner. Usually it is ham and cheese sandwhich with a leaf of lettuce and slice of a cucumber or tomato. I had this also for a while until I got fed up with it and decided to have something else. These two dishes are invented in couple of minutes by just looking at current resources available but both of them turned  out very well. The way I prepared these is merely result of the idea of cooking faster.

                                                                       Pork stew
The amount of each ingredient depends on you. I used as much as I needed =)

You need:

• Potatoes 

•  Diced meat 

•  Onion 

•  Diced vegetables
•  Tomato sauce

The cheapest possible B&G frozy vegs and dolmio!

Add water in a pot/pan just above the potatoes (estimate) and leave it to warm up as you slice potatoes. Add the sliced potatoes into the boiling water. After the water has reduced to about half, add diced meat and keep boiling until almost all water have steamed out and start frying.

As the water level reduce and all the pieces of meat are not red anymore, add cut onion and later on the vegs. Finally pour in your sauce. Add salt to taste. 

For additional luxury you can add grated cheese

This is basically the same concept.  Just replace potatoes with spaghetti and leave sauce off. I added champignons also. Only imagination is the limit!

Water crackers, cheddar with sweet chili sauce, devon, cucumber and lettuce makes very tasty, fast and cheap snack.

I usually pkeep an eye on the ingredients ad what they are made of in terms of sweeteners and colours. If you are one of those who pay attention to these details too and travel to Australia, you might find it very surprising how many product contains ingredients which are prohibited in the EU. For example, Azo dye group which was prohibited many years ago in EU seems to be used in varous produtcts such as candies/lollies, drinks and cordials, chewing gums, dairy products such as yoghurt and so on. Unfortunately in many of my former favourite cordial producer Cottees ae azo dyes and it says clearly in the ingredients: "colours: TARTRAZINE (102) and some brilliant blue FCF". Propably does not kill me, but I have made a decision to avoid these if possible. 

In the sweeteners section I often encounter sucralose. To my knowledge it is prohibited in some contries in EU and classified as sme ind of poison. Again, does ot seemm to be as lethal as local brown snakes but if i have another option, I rather leave sucralose at the store.

With 13 hours behind, 8 : 30pm with roos jumping around somewhere in the dark.

Picture splash

I balance my too text-based blog with couple of pictures. They tell more than thousand words, don't they?

Pakollinen peilikuvaus | Compulsory mirror picturing

Handy postcard

7 pm, ~12 hours behind

Still smiling. No time to shave beard though :o

My future home for about 1,5 months. Nissan "Bullseye" Pulsar

Chaser bin conrol panel. Fortunately I need only 4 of those switches and levers =)

Gilgandra sport yard. Trucks bring the grain to the huge silos in the background.

Roommates. We have an agreement that they eat flies and I don't kill them. Quite useful guys after all.

Writing blog with B&G lunch. Hint: If you plan on buying B&G triple chocs as a substitute of timtams, I highly disagree although they're cheaper. Believe me, it's not worth that.