Oot and Aboot in Canada Eh! – Day One

It was so nice to be done with flying.

We slept on our last flight.
I know because at one point I turned to hubby and said

“Hey, you’re snoring! I know because your snores woke me up”

It’s forecast to be a lovely 13 degrees celsius here today. The sun is out so it’s not as bad as it sounds.

I wanted to go to the liquor store to see how alcohol is priced here and so I asked “Is there a Bottle-O near here?”
I can’t describe the looks I got. I guess they don’t use that term here.
I did end up going to a Liquor Mart and found a Coonawarra favourite there. They had a few South Aussie wines in fact!

The plan today started with picking up our rental car.

We scored big time because they didn’t have the mid range car hubby ordered and asked if we minded having a Cadillac XT5 instead.

Well! No, we didn’t mind!!

Once we had the car we drove out into the country to see family.
The thing about Manitoba is that it’s flat. I mean flatter than flat. No up, no down, just level straight. No mountains in the distance, no gentle slopes to drive up and down, just flat, flat.
But sometimes the scenery did look pretty.

 

The town we went to was pretty cute! Lovely streets to walk down and they have the largest smoking pipe AND a gaol.

 

And while with family I even held, for approximately 1.2 seconds, a bearded dragon.

I was much more comfortable with this little one who made me allowed me to pet and cuddle her for quite some time.

Love seeing everything in two languages here.

Oh and we made a Tim Hortons stop.

Two in fact, and both times didn’t get sweets but a couple of sandwiches. Who does that?

 

 

Tonight we were treated to a Comedy Show!

 

We had dinner there before the show and ordered what happened to be the biggest tray of nachos I have ever seen in my life!! The pictures don’t do justice to the size.

We didn’t know the comedian, but he ended up being so funny!!

Dean Jenkinson.

He was talking about Karma and how he believes in it. So he knows, when he’s been really nasty to someone, they must have deserved it.

I would definitely recommend seeing him if he’s ever your way!

Still trying to get used to this chilly spring but I’m told warmer days are coming. For now, good night and bonne nuit.

I do, I do, I do, I do – Day Two

Hubby says I’m having too much fun at his expense in these blogs and he’s probably right, but he has the option to risk his own life and create his own blog where he talks about the strange things I do if he likes.

So he got me “hard at work” as he puts it, at 5.30am and on my computer, writing. Morning face. Don’t ask me why I was writing at that time, I have no idea. My sleep schedule is all messed up.

Whenever we travel, no matter if it’s for one or two days or one or two weeks, when we arrive at our accommodation, he will take everything out of his suitcase and put it away in the drawers and cupboards
I prefer to leave everything in the suitcase so that I know I won’t forget anything when it’s time to leave.
Just another one of our maddening cute differences.

We had breakfast at this cute place on the water. I think it was called Cargo. Just about every place we’ve been to in Melbourne has had wait staff from other countries.
And mostly they’ve all been so nice and eager to help.

I really felt like scrambled eggs on toast and hubby was getting a full breakfast, but he got me to order some bacon on the side because he wanted more but didn’t want the staff to think he was a gutz. Ha ha. I say, embrace the gutz! But I ordered it for him.

The food was so good!!!

I love walking through this area. The water makes things so peaceful and compared to the rest of the CBD, there’s not a lot of people around.

What do you think of the colour on these buildings? I’m still not sure if I like it or not.

We walked to DFO and you would not believe the amount of things we bought!!! I mean talk about efficient shopping!! Hubby is 6’7″ and finds it hard finding pants that are long enough but we found some nice ones for him at a good price and I got some Kayano’s for a fantastic price; not to mention the rest.

It was starting to warm up and we decided to walk along the river knowing we’d eventually get to Federation Square where ACMI (The Australian Centre for the Moving Image) is.

I noticed that just about every restaurant/bar along there is offering some sort of Aperol cocktail!!

How could we not give into temptation. We stopped for a drink and a rest and enjoyed the view from our table.

Caught a glimpse of the MCG on the way to ACMI

We also saw the horse drawn carts and carriages. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Also noticed the signs (there were many around the place) that some people had left

The ACMI was just as amazing as I remembered!!!

Oh look there’s me! (above)

 I was trying not to hurry hubby along. All I really wanted to see again was the Matrix thing.

Hubby and I had fun creating some videos.

Apparently they are getting rid of this so if you want to try it, you have to get there before April 19!

Check out our clips below..

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to walk to the MCG to see if there was the off chance that we might be in time for a tour. I’ve always wanted to do that.

Turns out the tours go for three hours and it just wasn’t right for us today.
The photos above are some I took along the way (it’s about a kilometre walk from Federation Square)
Love the Dennis Lillee statue. There were more but he was the only one I took a pic of.

We walked back into the CBD and down some cute lane ways. So much to see here.

We stopped at a place, I think it was called Schnit, on Elizabeth street. Hubby was a bit nervous I think but you know what, the food was sooooo good!!

In fact, after we sat down, I heard another customer telling the girl behind the counter how good the food was. It was such good value too. Very good pricing.

The pic on the left is my schnitzel which was actually a veggie one. It was so delicious and the fries were seasoned so well

Oh, and check out this little guy who decided to join us for a little while.

I’m not normally a bird lover but look at this cuteness!

We walked around some more, did a bit more shopping and made our way back to the apartment. I won’t bore you with pics of our purchases but we were both very happy!

It might be shocking to some, but we still hadn’t used the gym so we decided to go down there. Unfortunately it was full! There was one treadmill left so I got on it but hubby felt a bit out of sorts as the people who were in there seemed to all know each other and “held” their equipment by leaving clothes and water bottles by them.
It wasn’t comfortable so we didn’t stay long.

We were going to use the pool but that was full of people too. And later on, when we were walking outside, I realised that the pool which is on the ground floor, is totally visible from the outside! Not that it matters that much but it’s the kind of thing you’d want to know before disrobing.

We ended up at the same place as last night for dinner. I didn’t take pictures but I ordered the same salad and this time it was double the size!!!
We both ordered the same food but last night, we had to get some fries on the way home as we were still hungry, this time, we ordered a bit more food and it was just way too much.
Nice place.

Tomorrow we’ll be back home. We have an early flight tomorrow so I won’t be blogging.
Thanks for sharing this journey with us!

Until next time….

Perth Day Three

Sorry that this entry is coming after the fact but between the Wine Tour that we did today and travelling back home, this is the first chance I’ve had to write and upload.

Today, Friday the 5th of January as I write, is my birthday and not only is it my birthday, but it’s a milestone birthday too so I knew hubby was not going to say anything when I wanted to get up extra early to exercise.

The gym at this hotel is quite good and if you go early enough, there’s no one in there so I get the whole place to myself!
Perfect way to start a birthday!

We took our picture before heading out! (left)

The Wine Tour we were booked on started from Elizabeth Quay so we walked down there from our hotel and had a coffee at the Riverside Cafe. No champagne this morning though as I was anticipating a heavy alcohol day!

We met our friends and boarded our boat.

It was such a relaxing cruise down the river!

We had coffee and muffins to start off with but it wasn’t long before the wine tasting started.

Here is a picture of the wine’s we sampled on the right and a few from the cruise below.
I forgot to mention the tasting plate of local cheeses that were also provided. Each tray was for two people so it was quite a generous portion!

Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the first stop. I think it was next to Sandalwood Winery? Beautiful spot anyhow and they had the BEST cider here!! It tasted more like a sparkling white than a cider! Soooo delicious but unfortunately they don’t bottle it yet so we couldn’t buy any.

The food we had was also exceptional. Unfortunately I was too overwhelmed with the place to take pictures of the food but here are a few of our surroundings. By the way, the whole time we were there having lunch there was a line of people waiting to get in!

From here we travelled by coach to another winery.  This time I took a pic of the sign outside so I know it’s Windy Creek Winery. This was another gorgeous spot!!

I tried pretty much every wine they were offering and surprisingly for me, really loved the whites. I don’t normally drink a lot, if any, of white wine.

We were a nice group and by this time, were starting to talk to each other and were getting pretty happy! I took a few pics inside and out. So gorgeous here!

Hubby is not a wine drinker so I ended up having a few tastings on his behalf – not that you can tell by this selfie on the left…

You can imagine where this is going to lead can’t you?

Back on the coach now to our next spot.

As per the information from our driver, this tree had been struck by lightening, but continued to grow anyhow!

It was just outside our next stop and quite interesting to look at.

So now we’re at Twin Hill Wines and I’m feeling decidedly happy. Again, I liked the whites more than the reds (surprisingly) but not as much as our last stop. This is a family run winery though and the history behind it was quite interesting. They also provided a very tasty tasting plate for us!
Here are a few pics from our time here. By the way, the ladies behind the counter are mother and daughter.

Next stop was a brewery – Mash Brewing. They also provided us some nibbles and we were able to pick one beer from their list complimentary.

I’m not a beer drinker but it seemed like an interesting place.

I’m not sure you can read it but the pic on the right shows the beer choices we had.

We had one more stop to come and I was quite excited for this one! We were going to Margaret River Chocolate Company and were going to be sampling a few chocolate liqueurs also!

Here are a few pics. Luckily, hubby took them as I was not in any state to be taking photos at this point and was happy to be wandering around about the chocolate. We bought a few things to share later.

Not sure if you can see the interesting clocks bottom right. How cute are they!!!

The chocolate liqueurs ended up being a bit disappointing. We sampled four different kinds and they were all wine based. Although I like chocolate, I wasn’t tempted to buy any of them.

Our tour came to an end and we were dropped off back into Perth CBD.

We had dinner at East Village.

It looked like a really interesting place and the food wasn’t bad, but there was just something missing that I couldn’t put my finger on.

We ordered some wings to share, hubby got a burger and I had a Lamb Greek salad which was ok. The bread was probably the best thing about this. Still warm from the oven!

I had been jokingly saying I still wanted birthday cake and I wanted to see the city lights from Kings Park at night. Hubby, mostly always ready to please, began hatching a plan.

We went to the store and bought some cake. He also got some matches, candles and some sparklers. I still had no idea what he was going to do with these as we couldn’t light the sparklers in our hotel room could we?

I won’t bore you with the whole story but we never made it to Kings Park with one thing going wrong after another and eventually we just walked back to our hotel. Hubby still made it special for me by singing me happy birthday and lighting the candles on my cake!

Sadly our time in Perth was now pretty much over.

I do want to share one last treat before I finish this entry.

Hubby organised for us to fly back on the A330 in Business Class. Oh my!! Look at all this room!!! We could even lie our seats flat like a bed.
The bad thing about this is that you never want to travel any other way again!!!
Thank you Qantas and thanks for reading about our few days in Perth.