Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Pork Bellies and a lost sunset at Port Campbell



I am a sucker for sunsets and a picture perfect sunset of the Twelve Apostle that I saw on the internet set me off on another sunset trail but this time it was to Port Campbell.
After more than 4 hours of driving from Marysville and a stopover at Geelong, we finally arrived at Port Campbell. The sky was overcast with dark, gloomy clouds that trailed us all the way from GeeLong. It was drizzling since GeeLong and I had hoped that it would change at Port Campbell. But it didn't and when we reached the Best Western Motel at Port Campbell, I sighed and commented to the receptionist that it didn’t look like I’m getting my sunset here. He laughed out loud and cheekily told me that it will be the same tomorrow.
Well, what about penguin watching ?? Sure he said, if you don’t mind being cold and wet. As Ray and Annie haven’t been to Port Campbell, they were at first game to penguin watching until we went to the Twelve Apostle. The wind was typical of the day – strong, unforgiving and of course, more drizzle and freesing cold for a late spring day.
The Twelve Apostle was of course no longer twelve but the sight of the mighty rocks and the high waves crashing against the rocks was still worth the drive. And once all the picture taking was over ,it dawned on us that we were spending a night at a quiet and almost dead town with no penguin watching or any nice night walk because of the strong wind and cold weather condition. But we were in Australia and so far the food and wine have not failed us.

We walked into the Waves (I think that’s the name) early as the last shop shooed us out before I could even pick up a single souvenir. The restaurant was highly recommended in some of the internet sites and I had in mind to tuck into a nicely grilled barramundi but Annie beat me to it so I picked something else instead (should have used my seniority card.....) . Whatever I had, it was forgettable . Annie’s barramundi turned out good as expected and I’m throwing her daggers in my head. Ray’s fish didnt turned out good as well. But the treat for the day really was the pork belly. Crisply grilled with a marination to die for , it made our day. I argued with Ray, that the cook probably used Chinese soy/black sauce as Australians had adopted quite a fair bit of Chinese style cooking and dared him to check if the chef was Chinese but he chickened out as usual. Chinese, Australian, Arab or whatever - it made us happy enough for that day despite the missed sunset and penguin watching

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