Daylesford, Victoria

We head to Daylesford over the weekend, it was a 1.5 hrs drive from Melbourne, and we are lucky to have a sunny and cool weather on that day. I will be writing more on Daylesford over the next posts. We made our first stop at Daylesford Sunday market. Btw, there's also heritage train ride on weekend at the market as well.

It is a huge outdoor market and what really caught our attention is the row of big yellow leaves trees. And stall owners just camp their stalls right below these giant trees. You need to be careful if it is on a wet day, as there will be no shelter to hide, so bring along rain coat or umbrella.

Lots of stalls selling fresh vegetables, food and produce. (And also lots of stalls selling junks too). The vegetables certainly look very fresh and surely is good enough to be use to whip out some great dishes.

We bought some handmade soaps from one stall, but you can get a better deal if you walk further into the market. There's two other stalls selling soap as well. And the best deal probably you can get is 3 for $5.50 or 1 for $2.

Honey freeks can go to O'Tooles honey stall, they say is probably the best honey you can find in the state.

Anyone for a coffee or tea?

Daylesford is also famous for their local freshly made sourdough. This stall here, we saw long queues of people lining up for it. We didn't try it, but I managed to taste local sourdough at a cafe for lunch (more on that on my next post).

Have you heard about lime butter? It is definitely new to me.

Next we head off for lunch at The Convent Gallery. More about that tomorrow ...

Daylesford Sunday Market

Midland Highway,  Daylesford Victoria 3460 Australia

Ph: 03 5348 3503

Buddha's Day Event at Fed Square

On 15th and 16th May 2010, we celebrated Buddha's Day at Federation Square, Melbourne. We actually volunteered ourselves to help up in one of the information booth. Although at the end of the day, we also ended up selling cyclamen flowers for our temple. But we had a terrific time, and felt really good that we can actually play a part in this meaningful event.

Buddha's Day and Multicultural Festival incorporates the traditions of Buddhist ceremonies and celebrations including the "Bathing of the Buddha", daily Dharma ceremonies, the Wishing Bell and traditional incense offerings, a vegetarian culinary tour of Asia alongside the Yarra on the River Terrace, cultural demonstrations and insights, music, art and craft and community service groups.

Extract from http://www.buddhaday.org.au/

While taking a break from my duties, I decided to walk around taking some shots via my mobile phone's camera (forgot to bring my camera). Here I saw lines of queues of people wanting to bath the Buddha. I decided to take some shots and also close ups.

Close up on Buddha statue. Unfortunately we didn't take part in the queue. 

Got caught up by the look of the vibrant colours, and managed to capture some rays of sunlight shinning down onto the Buddha statue. There's plenty of vegetarian cuisine food stalls down at side of Yarra river but we didn't take any snaps of it. Did try out some of the food ... Not too bad.

We have various activities and talks in the BMW auditorium hall as well. But I only managed to sit in for this CH'AN tea ceremony. We were taught on meditation and teacher also shared some Buddhism teachings on living life. One teaching I find it really useful is telling people not to spend too much time and energy worrying on things that didn't happen and start living and enjoying the present. At the end of the ceremony we tasted some tea (although I am more of coffee drinker). The tea leaves actually comes from Taiwan Alishan mountain. 

Lastly we have Lion dance performed by our temple volunteers as well. Overall it was really an enjoyable day. Sometimes we think to ourselves, we are blessed to be able to volunteer ourselves for such meaningful event and to enjoy every moment of it. 

My Grilled Crab

Today I liked to write a post on my grilled crab recipe which I have made some time back.

Here's the ingredients we will need:
- 2 large crabs
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons of good olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of minced ginger
- some bruised red chilli without seeds
- 1 tablespoon of finely chopped coriander
- 1-2 chopped tomato

To prepare the crabs, bring to boil a large pot of water. Put the crabs, one at a time, head first into the boliling water. Let it boil and then simmer it for 5 minutes. Remove crabs from the water. To clean the crabs, pull of triangular tab from belly. Lift off the shell. Clean entrails and gills from crab, wash then drain.

Next we make our special sauce mix. Mix and stir white wine vinegar, olive oil, ginger, chilli, coraindar and tomato into a bowl.

Place the crabs on a preheated grill. Cooked with the lid closed, brushing them with our sauce mix occasionally. Turn the crabs over after 5 mins and apply mix. Leave it in the grill for another 5mins. Crabs are done when the meat in the leg is opaque.

Place on serving dish and spoon remaining mixture over crabs. You may grill some sweet corns to go along with this dish. And of course some wine to go along.

Lake Elizabeth, Otways, Great Ocean Road

We done this trip back in April 2009 during our tour to Great Ocean Road (GOR). We signed up for a Platypus canoe tour at Lake Elizabeth and need to be at the town of Forrest by 5.30am.

Lake Elizabeth, hidden deep in the Otways near the township of Forrest, is an inspiring sight with heavily timbered flanks and calm waters punctuated by the trunks of dead trees, drowned when the valley was flooded.

The lake was created more than 50 years ago when record rainfall sent thousands of tonnes of rock and earth tumbling into the East Barwon River, damming the river and forming a lake in a remote forested valley.

We started our drive at 4.30am from Apollo Bay, and it took us an hour before we reach our meeting place. The drive can be a little challenging as the roads are dark and winding. We are supposed to meet our guide at the front of a small general merchandise store in small town of Forrest.

From Forrest we drove another 10-15mins before starting our walk (around 30 mins) to the lake through Otways forest, with its towering trees and dense fern glades. By the time we got to the lake, the sun is about to rise and the scene of the lake was really captivating (with all the fogs and dead tree trunks). I was lucky to be able to capture the peaceful mood with this shot. Lighting was low and therefore holding the camera firmly was really required.

We prepared our canoe and set off ... Catching glimpse of platypus coming out of their bed for food. We even had breakfast on our canoe and enjoying this untouched nature site.

The whole tour lasted 3-4hrs. The platypus photos are provided by Bruce, our tour guide. Good on you Bruce! We highly recommend you do this tour in your next visit to GOR.


Otway Eco Tours
10 Blundy St Forrest VIC 3236 
Ph: 03 5236 6345 
bruce.jackson@aapt.net.au
http://platypustours.net.au

Outpost Fine Estate

This is a cafe located in South Yarra, Melbourne. We decided to go there to try out their brekky and famous coffee made from St Ali beans (http://www.stali.com.au/). Ambience was great and cafe has a open kitchen concept which you can actually see the chef at work. It was pretty crowded and therefore service was quite slow.

I ordered Siphon coffee which is highly recommended. Strong aroma and taste. They have another cold coffee which is also on their star menu, and usually takes a day to produced (plus leaving the coffee overnight in fridge). Maybe I will try it another time.

We ordered French toast with Istra Daylesford smoked bacon, maple syrup and caramelized walnuts

and Outpost Bircher with labna, poached fruit and toasted almonds.

Outpost Fine Estate
9 Yarra St, South Yarra
Ph: 9827 8588
Monday to Friday 7am – 5pm
Weekends 8am – 4pm
http://outpostcafe.com.au/