Wining, Dining and Reading*

*but not in that order.

DINING

Despite the fact that Christmas is days away, Victoria and the Southern Ocean continue to throw their worst weather at us. We have rain fall on most days and often have strong winds. A good day would be a shower in the morning, then some clearning in the afternoon. Sun is rare. But the cool temperatures (it continues to stay mostly in the 60s) means we can keep a good pace on biking.

So far we have biked about 470 miles. In all we've climbed more than 20,000 total vertical feet and have ridden for 70 hours (though that's not how long we've actually pedaled ... I just count from when we get on in the morning to when we get off in the afternoon).



The middle of last week we started hearing about a mammoth storm headed our way. We pedaled hard for two days to get to Colac, a decent sized city half way between Warrnambool and Geelong. I figured if we had to hole up for a few days riding a storm out we ought to do it in a town that has all the services we would need. Well, it was not a great town by Victoria's high standards, but even worse was that the campground, despite a nice pitch of green lawn, had no kitchen and not even a shelter. This would not do. It was too late to do anything about it the day we checked in but the next morning, as clouds darkened, wind rose and humidity shot up, we boarded a train for Geelong. In just one hour on the train we covered a good two days of biking.

The storm was a whopper indeed. Much of Victoria got in 36 hours the rainfall they normally see in an entire month. For us it was two days of drinking coffee in a camp kitchen and occasionally making sure our tent was not leaking (it wasn't).

For fun, I went to the grocery store.

I've been in charge of cooking dinner, and what a joy it has been. In no place else on Earth do you have the access to amazing foods as you do in Australia. It's doubly good since all we can think about sometimes is food (to paraphrase a famous line, we have enormous appetites but budgets the size of pinpricks). Even in tiny town general stores you get to choose from superfresh produce, great meats and inventive prepared foods.

Not only is it good, but it is local. At home, local generally means the food comes from somewhere in your state. Here everything, practically, comes from the state we are in, and much of it comes from within 100 miles.

Here are some highlights:

--Gold skin potatoes: slightly tastier and creamier than home's Yukon gold, with a gorgeous golden skin.

--Timboon honey: it's rare in Australia to get regular generic clover honey. Most honey comes from small independent producers and is categorized by what was blooming when it was harvested. Timboon was a small honey seller in the town of Timboon; we got gum beech honey.

--Beef from Tasmania: cuts are different here, but the quality is high and the price is low ... much cheaper than chicken.

--Sundowner apples: light red skinned, very firm, very sweet.

--Kangaroo: Laura was aghast the first time I bought kangaroo. It comes as a marinated loin and is a bit cheaper than most beefs. It is also lean and, according to the label, more ecofriendly as kangaroos won't overeat their pastures and emit less greenhouse gas than cows and sheep. It's tasty, too.

--Anything made from milk: Victoria at times seems to be a state devoted to dairy cows, and the sight of content cows belly deep in green grass is quite common. Producers here know their dairy, and we have quite the time sampling luscious yogurts, fresh milk, delightful creams and more.

--Indian food: Australia is mostly white, but there is a significant minority population in the cities, and no matter where you are you can get great premade curries and naans, and even fresh Japanese noodles.



WINING

I had my first Australian beer the other day -- J. Boag and Sons Premium Lager, from Tasmania (good) -- but it's hard to spend money on beer where there is so much wine around. Victoria has more than 500 wineries spread across some 20 protected wine regions. Most of the places we've been have been cool weather wine growing regions and produce mostly delicate whites and thin reds, though I did taste a shiraz from Scotchman Hill which was excellent (and out of our budget at about $15US). Many of these areas also produce olive oils, which are deep colored and cold pressed. Unfortunately, Australia has the same problem the US does when it comes to wine selling: the big grocery stores tend to sell the same few dozen bottles, and the local wine, even if it is just miles away, is nearly impossible to find.

Here is a rundown of what we've had:

Cleanskin South East Australia 2008 Shiraz Cabernet, 14%, $4 (all prices in US) -- cleanskin is a name given to any bottle without a label, which is something you frequently see here. This, sold by Safeway, had no producer listed. Fine.

Warburn Estate Gossips Cab-Shiraz 2008 Thorbagong New South Wales, 13.5%, $3, pretty bad.

Angrove Family Winemakers Butterfly Ridge 2008 Cab-Shiraz Renmark S. Aus. 14%, $6.50, not bad.

Snow Road Victoria Cab-Merlot 2006 Sam Miranda King Valley Oxley Victoria, 14%, $6, beautiful.

Armindale Estate Wines St. Andrews Imperial Reserve 2006 Cab-Shiraz South East Aus. 13.5%, $4, nice.

The Australian Vineyard Co. 2007 Merlot cleanskin South East Aus. 13.5%, $4, soso.

Littore Family Jindalee Estate Circle Collection 2007 Geelong Victoria Cab Sauv. 14.5%, $5.40, nice.

Littore Family Wines Silvergun Cab-Merlot 2007 Moorabool Victoria 14.5% $3, passable

READING

I can't remember what my last reading list update ended with, so I'm guessing here:

Henry James' Tropic of Cancer -- Extravagant and bitter.

George Orwell's 1984.

Marco Polo's The Travels (did not finish)

Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth -- great.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch -- good.

Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin -- why is this regarded as a 'classic'?

Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle -- magnificent.

We're back in Melbourne and off to Tasmania in the morning!