Ever since our adventure out to the Italian Festival last year, I'd been pestering T to go back out to Leichhardt for an Italian meal. It's not that there aren't Italian restaurants around us in the city, but I really believed that the food would just be so much more Italian out in the area known for settling Italian immigrants.
So on Friday, I managed to talk him into taking the 25 minute bus ride out to Norton Street, the center for restaurants and businesses in Leichhardt. More specifically, we went out to the Italian Forum, a little area that's designed to look like a Mediterranean piazza. It's tucked away back off the main street, and you walk though a little corridor of shops and cafes to get back to it.
Winter is clearly not top season for the Italian Forum. Several of the places didn't even open that night, but we had a few places to choose from. We went for the one that had soccer playing on the big screen (surprise!) and sat outside on the edge of the plaza under the heaters.
Our food was kind of a letdown. I'd been pretty sure that I was about to eat the best Italian food of my life, but it was not to be. Toby said it was because we were in a "touristy" area, but it was so deserted I'm not sure about that. My counter was that we'll just need to go back and find a different restaurant more off the beaten path, more authentic, and more what we were hoping for. And maybe more in the summertime!
Until we got to Canberra, we didn't realize how much great food we would encounter! But like lots of the places we've visited in Australia, there was tons of great local food and produce. There weren't an overwhelming number of vego options, but we found some great food at each place we visited.
Our first night in Canberra we grabbed a a small bite at A. Baker. It was a great restaurant right next door to our hotel. We got a bottle of local wine from the Canberra region and and a cheese board with three cheeses: two from Barossa Valley and one from Tasmania.
There was some other food on the menu that looked really good, but our leisurely wine and cheese dinner really filled us up. Plus after our long day of work and driving, we were kind of tired. So we passed on the intriguing homemade rag pasta dish and the peanut butter semifreddo. Next time!
Our other dinner on this trip was at Mezzalira, an Italian restaurant about at 10 minute walk from our hotel. A friend at work recommended doing the 5 course tasting menu, so we did. And we were so happy that we went for it! A happy surprise was the focaccia we started with: it was straight from the oven and so so good. We could have eaten that all night and been happy!
But our other courses were amazing too. We paired local wines with each dish, and each surprise course was so much fun!
I think we both loved the tortellini the most. Next time we're in Canberra, we'll go back just to eat that and the focaccia! =) Our other standout meal was our breakfast on Sunday before we left for our truffle hunt. Also near our hotel was Močan & Green Grout, a small little cafe/bicycle shop. The restaurant has a small open kitchen, so it felt like we were hanging out at someone's house.
The restaurant was as cool outside as it was inside.
And we had great food too: local eggs, mushrooms, goat cheese, and some bread from A. Baker.
Needless to say, even though there might not be as many food options in Canberra as we're used to in Sydney, all of our food experiences were great and really rounded out our trip!
One of the main reasons that I was so set on making the trip to Canberra was because last winter I'd read about the truffle hunts that are held on local farms. I found out about it too late last year, so I marked it on the calendar and as soon as spots were open, I signed us up for one!
There are several farms near Canberra that offer public truffle hunts, and I chose Turalla Truffles because the dogs looked the cutest at that farm. The trufferies in Australia use dogs instead of pigs for truffle hunting; our farmer guide, Damian, told us that's because pigs will eat all the truffles and dogs won't!
Damian, our truffle hunting farmer
The farm was about 40 minutes outside Canberra. It was a really beautiful drive out to the farm country, and we followed very country directions. (Like looking for a green cattle grate and other such landmarks.) It brought back happy memories of being home!
The trufferie is located on Damian's family farm. His wife and teenage daughter helped out with the day, wrangling dogs and sharing information about their farm life. The hunt itself was pretty casual: the group met at the dirt road entrance to the farm, and Damian asked all the people that didn't have "city cars" to help ferry the rest of us back across the field to the trufferie. We rode with Damian's wife and the two truffle dogs, Eight and Three Spot. We were friends immediately!
Damian and the family use the family Jack Russell Terriers as their truffle dogs rather than getting professionally trained dogs. Damian has trained them to indicate the smell of truffles with a paw on the ground when he asks "Where's the truffle?" He said it was pretty easy to train them, but it did seem that Eight did pretty much what she wanted with no regard for him! Three Spot was a really good dog, though, and he helped find lots of truffles during the day!
The truffle hunt itself was just under 2 hours long. We dipped the soles of our shoes in a solution before we went in the trufferie to prevent bringing in any fungi. Then we basically followed Damian and Three Spot from tree to tree as they worked on finding some truffles.
It was a lot of work for Damian. At each tree where Three Spot indicated, Damian would dig with his hands and smell the dirt constantly. He could tell by the aroma in the dirt if he was digging closer or farther away from a truffle. Since we were early in the season, a lot of the truffles he located were too early to be harvested. But he and Three Spot did find some good ones! Here is Toby holding the bulk of the harvest (one in hand and a few in the bag): about $1000 in truffles!
Even though there was a lot of standing around while Damian dug in the dirt, it was a fascinating couple of hours. Damian was really interesting, shared tons of information about truffles, and had a great sense of humor!
At the end of the hunt, Damian had harvested enough truffles to fill an order for a chef in Canberra, sell some at the markets the next weekend, and sell some to the group! A pretty good day for Damian!
We closed out the hunt with some truffle tastings. Damian's wife set up a table in the field and we had brie with truffles, bread with truffle butter, truffle-infused olive oil, and truffle-infused vodka. I skipped on the vodka because it sounded pretty revolting to me, but Toby said it was OK.
Our outdoor tasting was a perfect end to our day on the farm. We were happily reminded of home in many ways, and in many others, it was a unique, fascinating experience. And I'm pretty sure for the rest of our lives when we eat truffles, Damian, Three Spot, and our beautiful day at the trufferie will be in our minds!
Canberra (which is pronounced Can-brah) is an interesting city. It was a planned city, so it's very symmetrical and organized to look at from the air (or from Capital Hill where Parliament House is located). It's like Washington, DC in that the district is the capital of the country (the ACT = Australian Capital Territory).
Canberra became the capital in 1908 when Sydney and Melbourne couldn't agree on which one of them got to be the capital. So Australia decided that neither of them got to and plunked down the capital in the middle of nowhere!
Even though it's somewhat isolated, the city has a lot going for it: there are tons of art galleries, museums, and other cultural centers around the city. Most of them are along the lake that splits the city, and you could easily spend a whole week visiting all of them. That wasn't really in our plan though: we wanted to get a feel for the city and see as much as possible.
Regardless of how nicely the city is laid out, it is not very walkable. I am pretty sure that every person that I'd talked to about our trip told me that the city is very sprawling, there was no real public transport, and that we should plan to use a car. In typical Burwinkle style, I assumed that these weaklings didn't understand my love for walking and seeing the sights. I also assumed that there would be plenty of little cafes and cute shops in between our hotel and all the places I wanted to see. Unfortunately, both of these assumptions were very wrong. We discovered the hard way that all the green spaces on the map mean exactly that: lots of space to walk through and not much else!
These pictures sum up a lot of our view from the day: things far in the distance that we were trying to walk to!
We started the day with a walk up to Parliament House. It was across the bridge from our hotel and on top of a hill. It ended up taking us about an hour to walk there from the hotel, so we decided to have lunch in the cafe there. (We hadn't seen a single other restaurant on our walk there!) We also decided to go through the metal detector so we could explore the inside of the building, too.
After Parliament House, we walked back down toward the lake to check out the galleries and museums around it. There was plenty to see and a fair amount of walking through vast green spaces to get from one place to another!
Our other "big" stop for the day was the Australia War Memorial. We saved it for the last stop of the day because it was on the other side of the lake and an all-day meandering stroll from Parliament House.
We also saved it for the end of the day because each day at 5 PM, a Last Post memorial service is held at the memorial. People lay wreaths at the pool, a piper plays the Last Post (which I think is the equivalent to Taps), and a service member reads a short story about an Australian veteran. A friend from work had recommended that we try to catch the service and I'm so glad we did. It was truly moving (especially for the fact of how many people came to the service on a Saturday evening, given that it wasn't even a holiday or special observance day). It was a very poignant end to our day in Canberra and we left the memorial feeling extremely grateful for the lives that we lead.
In the far distance you can see Parliament House up on the hill - it felt just as far as it looks!
And after the memorial service was over, I called a cab to take us back to the hotel. This Burwinkle was done walking for the day! =)
T and I snuck out of work early on Friday and made the three hour drive to the nation's capital, Canberra.
From what we could see before the sun set, it was a lovely drive down through farm country.
And we arrived in time to find a good dinner of local wine and cheese at A. Baker, right near our hotel.
We didn't keep a late night though, because the next morning was the activity that T had been looking forward to since we'd started talking about the trip: a drive out to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex!
The CDSCC is about 30-40 minutes outside Canberra and it's one of three NASA deep space communication stations in the world. It's in a no-fly, no-radio, no-device area that's surrounded by hills to help shield it from any interference. It is tucked away outside the city, pretty much surrounded by nothing. We crossed farmland, a mountain range, and a one lane bridge; eventually we saw the sight we were waiting for!
Luckily I brought my adult camera, because cell phones had to stay off!
T stood in wonder for a long while before we eventually headed into the visitors center.
The visitors center is fairly small; the main purpose of the facility is for the 90+ scientists and physicists that work on-site to coordinate and research the data being transmitted. But there were the usual space museum-type displays.
One really unique thing was the viewing area which showed which spacecraft each satellite dish at the facility was currently communicating with.
The big dish in the background of that picture was collecting and transmitting data from a satellite studying the sun during the time we were there. It was moving constantly, but of course too slowly for us to tell. We also learned that it is the largest antenna dish in the Southern Hemisphere.
The other really interesting antenna was Deep Space Station 46, which was used in the Apollo Mission and recorded the TV images of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It was originally in a different complex in Australia but has now been retired and moved to the CDSCC for visitors to see.
Deep Space Station 46
Behind the main buildings at the facility were many other antenna dishes, as well as construction sites for new amtennas that will start operation in the next few years. Exciting stuff!
It was a super fun morning and incredibly interesting! I'm pretty sure T would have stayed there the whole weekend if he'd could!
This was the first weekend of the Winter Festival at Darling Harbour. It was cold, gray, and a little rainy, but I convinced T to go with me. First we put on our activity game faces.
This is an optical illusion, because one of us is actually really excited.
The Winter Festival flags were up in Darling Harbour, as well as an "iceburg" in the middle of the harbour, just to complete the winter effect!
The best part was in Tumbalong Park: it was a full-on winter scene with a winter tunnel and an ice skating rink!
The little penguins at the skating rink were so cute - the little kids skated around with them for balance.
There were also a few cute little snack places, and a "winter lodge" tent. And the Lindt cafe sponsored a zorb ball in the Harbour that you could run around in!
It started raining and got really cold, which made it feel like winter. But it also wrapped up our little adventure for the day. It was still really fun and it was a taste of winter back home!
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