by ·0 Comments

We’ve really expanded our board game collection and board game friends recently. This is very exciting to me.

Not a humongous fan of playing 7 Wonders expansions in real life so far but maybe we’ll get used to it.

Teraforming Mars with other Scott. His wife organized for us to play together. She didn’t even come, haha. Fun game, a little overwhelming at first but didn’t take long to get the hang of it. I want to play again.

Agricola All Creatures Big and Small. The two player version of Agricola. Sorta fun, still nearly as stressful as the regular game.

Azul has been a hit with everyone we’ve played with. Seth almost beat us! Now every week at family dinner he asks me if I brought “the fun Spanish game”. PS don’t worry, at least he chooses low carb beer.

Sagrada has also been a hit. I bought it without knowing anything about it other than people like it. It’s similar to Azul. I’m slightly concerned that it will be a bit slow to play with more than 2 players though as some people (aka me) get AP (analysis paralysis) and take 5ever to make a decision some times. We played approx 85 games last week while camping.

King of Tokyo with our new game frands. Unfortunately someone (aka me) had one of the dice in her cross stitch stuff so we accidentally played with 5 dice instead of 6 and the game majorly dragged.

All the 2 player games! For camping. The ones in the plastic cases are Carcassonne and Agricola All Creatures Big and Small. I would now add Sagrada too.

A very profitable castle/token/cloister combo.

We’ve always played that The edge of the table is the edge of the world, unless you want to hold the piece up with your hand for the rest of the game, which if it’s close to the end of the game might be worth it. While camping I built this extension with my Kindle. I think it was ingenious but Rosemarie thinks it’s cheating. Thoughts?

by ·1 Comment

Our trip to Wilsons Prom last year was fun, but too short, so this year we booked a longer stay. Unfortunately I injured myself right before the trip. I irritated my left SI joint and couldn’t walk uphill. My physio taped my butt in a hug, and thankfully it got a bit better every day, so we were able to do more and more stuff every day, but yeah… not ideal.

We stopped at Gurneys Cider on the way down. Same place we went last year but they’ve added a bunch of new ciders, plus the foraged ones taste different every year. I enjoyed my flight a lot. Still have a few bottles in the fridge.

We did a lot of evening walks. Started off with this flat one at sunset, and worked our way up to climbing half way up Mt Bishop completely in the dark. I wanted to see owls and stuff. We didn’t have that much luck except kangaroos (including this one who wanted to follow Scott home).

Of course we saw wombats in the campground as usual though. They make me giggle every time.

Watching the sunset from a look out. So pretty.

The campground was sooooooo noisy at night. I was very happy when everyone left on Sunday morning. If we go back again I don’t want to go on the weekend at all, even if school holidays are over.

But we were happy that the outdoor cinema was open on Saturday night! We watched Bohemian Rhapsody. I enjoyed it.

My new favourite camping food: bibimbap! Just bring a cast iron pan, some cooked rice, mince beef, stir fry veg, gochujang, and eggs and you’ve got a really delicious dinner. Love that crispy rice.

We played A LOT of games while I was still crippled. I beat Scott at everything. :D Carcassonne, 7 Wonders Duel, Agricola All Creatures Big and Small, Azul, etc. etc.

Scott on the beach near our campsite.

We did a bit of swimming. It wasn’t super warm out so it took me ages to get in the water, but once I did it was alright. We had a lot of fun body surfing. Scott wishes he got a video of me doing a front flip while trying to surf on the inflatable pizza. Maybe he can draw a cartoon of it. That surprisingly didn’t hurt my back at all.

PS what kind of skull is that?? It was pretty big!

Finally my back/hips were back to normal so we hiked up Mt Bishop, and around the Lilly Pilly circuit (which was where I was trying to go that night we accidentally walked up the mountain). I liked the Mt Bishop hike a lot more than Mt Oberon because it was more like a trail instead of a road, through very nice forest. We saw a bush kangaroo and plenty of birds and a “brown lizardy thing” as I was mocked for saying on Instagram.

Now that we’ve really done Wilsons Prom, where should we go next summer??

by ·0 Comments

I think I’ve written before about how once a month Scott organises something for us to do. I was really looking forward to the January activity… ATVing! We’d been wanting to go ATVing again, ever since our 50:50 fun/stressful experience in Oregon.

My coworker Rhys came along as well. I love yes people.

I didn’t take many pictures. :/

We started off by taking the scenic route to Gippsland via Tarra-Bulga National Park. It was a nice drive along the ridge of the hills. We did a little hike to a suspension bridge and tried to find lyre birds. We didn’t see any but we called every bird sound we heard a lyre bird, because how could you say it isn’t, haha.

We continued on to the coast and ate some extremely mediocre fish and chip shop food for lunch. Why did my fish burger have like 18 pieces of beetroot but no kinds of sauce whatsoever? So dry.

Do you like my pants bathing suit?? Best purchase I made in 2019 so far.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky but it was soooo windy at the beach it didn’t feel very hot at all. We still decided to swim. The water was incredibly warm so we actually stayed in for a while, but once we got out of the water we pretty much had to leave the beach right away.

We stopped in Sale for dinner supplies and then checked into our cabin. Drinks and games ensued. We played Upwords and Azul and Carcassonne.

The cabin was quite remote and the sky was still completely cloudless so I was really looking forward to some top notch stargazing. Unfortunately the brightest fullest moon I have ever seen in my life was rising exactly as it got dark. Pity. It was so bright I swear you could have read a book by moonlight.

Finally the next day was ATV time! Unfortunately it was way too slow and not that exciting. We wanted xxxxxxxxxtreme and we got zzzzzz.

Most of the time we were driving on paths around paddocks at 10 km/hr. Maybe if it had rained recently and there was more mud that would have been fun? But it was dry AF.

Eventually the dude brought us to a race track on his property and we got to drive as fast as we wanted for a while. I had a lot of fun because I had the best ATV. Scott and Rhys had some fun but still weren’t able to go super fast, and Rhys’s ATV was pulling to the right the whole time which wasn’t easy.

So yeah… ATVing was ok but not great. It’s always nice to get out and do an activity but we all wished it had been a little more exciting.

by ·0 Comments

Mama’s Mojito made with Vietnamese mint

Smokey Eggplant and Vietnamese Salt and Pepper Squid. The eggplant was super smooth and sticky and yummy. The squid was nice and tender.

Crispy Fried Soft Shell Crab with papaya salad and prawn crackers. My first soft shell crab! I liked it! Makes you feel like a real apex predator when you’re biting right through a crab. I didn’t like the papaya salad as much as I usually like Thai papaya salad. It didn’t have very much sauce, and I’m not sure it actually had any papaya? It seemed like it was mostly made out of apple or pear.

Mama's Buoi Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

by ·0 Comments

This place has been on my To Eat list for a long time but they don’t take reservations and always have lines. We went around 6PM on Australia Day and waited about 15 minutes for a table, which is better than usual I think. They have a bar area at the back where you can start drinking while you wait.

Salmon Nori Taco (grilled salmon belly, sushi rice, spicy napa cabbage, Japanese mayo, chilli oil) and a Sanchez Does Kyoto Japanese marg (tequila, yuzu, agave)

They are most famous for this taco. And it was actually really good. The deep fried nori makes a surprisingly good taco shell. The whole thing was pretty hefty with tons of great flavour and texture. I would definitely like to have another one sometime. I love salmon so much.

Tofu Bao (beetroot bao, tempura tofu, carrot remoulade, creamy spicy sauce, picked coriander). A nice fluffy soft bao with tasty crunchy fillings.

Pork Belly Pancake (48-hour miso glazed pork belly, sesame slaw). Sorry for terrible photo. It was different than what I expected and I forgot to take a picture until after I’d already ripped it in half to share with Scott. I don’t recommend trying to share this one.

The pork belly tasted kind of like peking duck. Delicious. Too small.

Scott enjoyed it.

House Hand Roll. Can’t remember what this had in it, but it was yummy and well made.

David Chang’s Ramen Gnocchi (wagyu bolognese, ramen potato gnocchi, salted buffalo ricotta). This was the one dish we were disappointed with. It was just so boring and soft. This dish definitely need a crunch element. It was just soft gnocchi with rich bolognese that had no defining texture, covered in soft cheese. It was also overly salty.

Pumpkin Toast (white chocolate and pumpkin ganache, honeycomb, yoghurt sorbet, spiced pumpkin ice cream). I don’t know why they call this “toast”. It was more like a blondie. Every part of this dessert was delicious. It was fun to try various elements together in different combinations. i loved the ganaches especially.

Mr. Miyagi Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato