Nature 101 + Random Stuff

I went for a leisurely bike ride this morning because...well...I just wanted to ride my bike. So after waking up at about 8am and not being able to sleep anymore I decided to go get bike sweaty and headed off on the Stumpy for some Adrenalin action. There were quite a few other people riding (as usual) and a lot of walkers/joggers as well, which always makes for "fun" as the trails are not that wide. I heard about the "Off the normal route" trails from some of the bike-heads at work so decided to give some a try. It was good fun but FAR too many really steep climbs that seemed to lead to more steep climbs. The saving grace was that even though these climbs were an absolute bitch and I wished the bike actually had about 5 more granny gears, the reward for reaching the top is that on the way back it's all downhill blitzing, dodging wildlife and trying to get the speedo over 45km/h without swallowing a tree. Anyway I was out for about 3.5 hours and did the respectable distance of 52km, which consisted of a lot of little tracks in the bush and some paved eastlink connector trails.

Rest Spot on the way back. I'm being sun smart and standing in the shade.

End of the offroad downhill trail which connects to the Eastlink bike trail. I came down the gravely trail from above.

Pit Stop Serenity.

Nature and high Tech bike weaponry.

Pics or it didn't happen :)
51.4Km which is 52Km in my book :P

Some other snippets I found while uploading the biking pics reminded me of some events that transpired while on holidays. These were worthy of mentioning here because one is just amazing and the other is ...well...it involves food and Rachel so it must be pretty good by first principles.

The first pic was this, on my last night in Adelaide over Christmas/new years before coming back to Melbourne I took Rachel out for dinner to say thanks for the accommodation/goodwill etc. We went to some Italian cafe/restaurant in Gawler who's name doesn't just escape me, but I think was completely wiped from my memory by this:

Bethany 2002 Vintage Shiraz Cabernet

Now, anyone that's ever talked to me about wine would know how little I know about the stuff and how I refer to all wine as 'tasting the same...like dish water....or tofu...or tofu cooked in dishwater". I grew up in the Barossa Valley and just didn't "get" what all the wine fuss is about. I never understood why people got so obsessed with this liquid when all the wines I had ever tasted reminded me of bathwater. Safe to say I was not a passenger on the wine train. However, as both of us knew little about the subtleties of wine appreciation we decided that "more expensive = better" so went with a $35 bottle and that was it. The amazing thing was that even though I was saying to myself internally "This is going to taste crap and you won't enjoy it and you'd better get a beer as well!" the wine actually tasted nice...like..REAL nice. I couldn't stop drinking it in fact ... and neither could Rachel. By the end of the meal I think we were both fairly well plastered. Both of us reckon that the waiter had spiked the bottle with vodka when we weren't watching because that one bottle nearly had us professing undying love for complete strangers and contemplating karaoke. This was a new first for me though as prior to this wine was my drink of choice usually only at weddings ....when all the other forms of alcohol had run out..... and was used exclusively as my "Ok, Mikey you've obviously had far too much to drink as you're now drinking WINE!!!! ... and chatting up the bridesmaids." drunkenness barometer.

Well, because we ordered red wine at this dinner we ordered our food to compliment it in absolutely no way what so ever. We chose seafood ... to which our waiter scoffed as "apparently" red wine and seafood don't go together....Rachel and I are however prone to pushing ideals and boundaries into the "weird and unorthodox".

(crappy pic quality due to my phone in very low light)

Our chosen meal was an Italian Seafood Platter and was, in a word, AWESOME. In several words..It was the finest meal of seafood I think i've ever had. It consisted of Prosciutto wrapped awesome Scallops, Garlic steamed awesome Mussels, Awesome Salmon fillets in Awesome sauce, Garlic Prawns with some crunchy awesome bread topping . Smoked salmon with some sort of drizzled awesome sauce on it. The meal got the "Thumbs up" from Rachel as well and as that is the only truly accurate "scale" I know of ,and trust, it was obviously a great choice for food.

Another pic that was on my phone was this one:

42 - 30

That's right...after my team finishing 2008 off with a win against the top team to go 2 - 9 for the current season. We came out all guns blazing in the first game for 2009 to CRUSH our opponents (the 2nd place team) 42-30. So now we are 3 -9. We rock. Hard to believe that we are on the bottom of the ladder?!?!?!