Up and away!

XKCD #726

It's all official. We're heading to Canada and the USA in July/August this year! Gib and I are going to his best high school friend's wedding in, do some hiking, shopping, train trips, sight seeing, I'm going to present some of the awesome work I've been doing for my PhD to another lab doing similarly awesome work, attend a conference, visit friends and relatives. There is so much stuff that I need to get sorted before then. I have to learn how to make a Pavlova. So much data I need to analyse. So much freaking paperwork too. It's huge.

I sent Possum Magic to our friends in Washington, who have a young son, and they said they liked the book but had no idea what Pavlova was. I know how to eat them really well, but have no idea how to make them. That's going to need to be rectified before I go. Top priority.

But I'm looking forward to the holiday. Seeing my wonderful relatives. And fabric shopping.

Nightmare after pancake

I had my younger cousins stay overnight on the weekend, so naturally, being the awesome bigger cousin (in age, obviously not height...) that I am, I made a large stack of delicious pancakes for breakfast. In the process, I accidentally created this hilarious but rather scary looking pancake...

We thought the pancake looked very similar to Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas (even moreso after Gib "modelled" the pancake for us)....

Hope you guys all had a fun weekend too!

Easter baking and Easter hiking

We went to the Grampians this weekend with a few of our adventurous friends. The trip was fuelled largely by this amazingly sickly sweet but delicious Easter egg caramel slice (a.k.a. diabetes-in-a-block) that I had baked, and some discount Wispa bars that we picked up a big armful of in Coles. In the recipe, I only used half the quantity for sweetened condensed milk, and really, it was enough! The recipe says that it makes 15, but for us it made about 24... really sickly. Really easy to make, would highly recommend this recipe for any people with a sweet tooth out there.

We camped at Mt Stapylton campground and hiked along the campground track up to Mt Stapylton. Gib and I have hiked this one before, but I never made it to the peak. I was keen to do this walk as payback to Jocelyn taking us up the near vertical climb up Sugarloaf Peak at Cathedral Ranges a few weeks back. However, it turns out that my fear of heights has improved since the first time I did Mt Stapylton, so I managed to make it to the top this time and it wasn't nearly as bad as Sugarloaf! There were a few differences this time though: it was warmer and less windy so it felt less exposed, I had better shoes, and made the smart decision to leave my pack on one of the rock shelves below. The same ledge before the final peak that made me terrified the first time is still terrifying, but was manageable with the guidance of our good friends.

The following day we headed to the Southern Grampians to climb Mt Abrupt and do some off-the-track GeoCaching. We don't have any photos as yet because the memory card in the camera was full so our friends took the photos, but here is a photo of pretty much exactly what we saw. I think it offers one of the best views of the Grampians I have seen. That said, the view from the spot where our geocache was was equally spectacular, looking up towards the beautiful Mt Abrupt summit.

Image from here

For Easter Sunday (we arrived home from camping Saturday night, Jocelyn had to work - poo!) I baked some Koulourakia, Greek Easter biscuits. The recipe was great, easy to follow, and the result is delicious. My Greek work colleague tells me they store very well, however I don't think they're going to last very long around here.

Image from here

Hope you all had a happy Easter!