Not Sweating the Technique

I’m tucked in for our last night in the Adelaide Hills, and, even with a week behind us here, I’m sad to go.

On Wednesday night Ben’s Dad suggested we have lunch the next day, so we headed back into Stirling on Thursday, this posh community about 30 minutes from Ben’s parents’ place, where we’d spent the day before. To accommodate my dorky self, the family agreed to have lunch at LocaVore, a new-ish restaurant in Stirling that follows the “100-mile diet” plan whenever possible, and had SUPER yummy lunches all around. I had local salmon, smoked very near the farm, Ben had his second lot of bangers and mash, and the in-laws had the daily moussaka special that featured a “Manchego Cheese Crust.”

Which reminds me: Manchego cheese is basically the best cheese in the world. In my heart, it’s a picture-finish between smoked gouda, manchego, and, while basic, an English cheddar. Call me a simpleton, but, dammit, those cheeses rock.

Ben got to have sticky toffee fig pudding, his favorite dessert for all time, and thusly approved retroactively of my choice of restaurant, expanding my X-Men mutation beyond my ability to pick the best thing on the menu to picking the best place to have lunch. You can see why he married me, right?

We spent the afternoon pottering about Stirling, and then Ben and I had dinner with his former boss/mentor and his wife that have become dear friends. We had dinner at a local Indian place where we’d first met them five years ago, on my first trip to Australia. They have two lovely children who are doing interesting things with their young lives, including this cool thing in Australia called “Pedal Prix” where kids build and train to pedal-power small, Indy-like race cars. Cool, right? Anyway, I won’t list names here, because they the humble sorts of people who would be embarrassed by what I’m going to say, but they’ve mastered that ability to deserve your respect and admiration while still being totally relatable and fun, and we both agree that no trip to Australia is complete without time with this crew.

They also have a sulfur-crested cockatoo who is in love with Ben’s mentor and sometimes attacks his wife in a fit of jealousy.

Which reminds me: Ben’s maternal grandparents once lived in India and his grandfather, Peter, had a pet monkey there, who would sit on his shoulders while he did office work and eat crackers all day. The monkey hated Ben’s grandmother, Ann, and used to throw books at her when she would come into the office to see Peter.

Also, the above-mentioned cockatoo ovulates when she has enough quality time with Ben’s mentor. If I hadn’t read this in Barbara Kingsolver’s book last year, I would not believe this kind of stuff happens.

Which reminds me: I would not tolerate that sort of crap.

Yesterday we went in search of this yummy liqueur, Island Sting, that Suzanne had tried at LocaVore the day before. It’s made from this honey produced by bees on Kangaroo Island that are the only “pure” bees left in the world, meaning they’ve never mated with other, “lesser” bees. They come from the Ligurian region of Italy, but apparently got “polluted” there. Anyway, the liqueur: I love that vacations afford you the time to try something new and then search it out. We took about an hours’ drive through the Adelaide Hills and went to Gummeracha, a wine district, where we did a wine tasting at a local winery, had super yummy antipasto for lunch, and scored the liqueur and chocolates we’d set out for. On the way, we encountered these awesome red toad stools, a bunch of llamas, and, because we were with my mother-in-law, stopped on the roadside to check the pouch of a dead kangaroo to make sure there was no joey.

There was no joey. The dead kangaroo was a dudearoo.

As we left the winery, we saw a kangaroo hopping between the vines. She’s hard to see, but do you see her?

Last night we went to some neighbors/ friends of the in-laws, and had a nice evening talking, sharing yummy treats, and kicking an eight-year-olds ass at Uno, (me), despite the fact that he was a wicked cheater.

I also saw a spinafex (sp) hopping mouse, which they keep as pets at the house. He’s a zookeeper and she’s a Montessori school teacher, so they’re just fun to talk to. He whittles spoons for fun and got out his spoons to show me, and she talked with me about her latest class project of recycling paper into combustible paper bricks that you can burn in winter.

Today we spent the whole day with some of Ben’s best friends, Gill and her son Finlay, Tash, Krys and their son Josh, Pete and Kath, and had a long, chatty lunch. Last time we saw them, Tash and Krys were getting married, and Fin was only two, not yet talking. Josh was only a figment of his parents’ imagination.

Fin and Josh are gorgeous children, and, can I just say, children with Australian accents are adorable.

We’re on the road again tomorrow. Sad to say goodbye to South Australia and the people in it, but on to the friends in Hobart, Tasmania, and, while not as important as the friends, the deep-friend scallops that still have their gonads.

I give the gonads to Ben.

Love,
Robyn and Ben