Hanging With The Natives

June 9th, 2022

I wanted to see a macropod, so it was off to Blackbutt I walked!

The last few times I visited, legions of mosquitos descended on me and drained me to within millilitres of death! Today however, the skies were free of the evil blighters. Even better, the car park was almost empty as well and I felt like I had the place to myself.

I ran into this phasianidae preening himself between some trees. He became interested in me when I started snapping shots but I think it’s because he mistook my phone for a snack! I ran away when he got too close 🙂

I saw these pelodryadidae’s hanging in a tank in the nocturnal house. There was a bunch of them chilling together, and they didn’t care a whit for my attention. They were quite large, and to be honest a little creepy in the dark!

The two phascolarctidae were sleeping as they do, forming almost perfect furry balls on their tree perches. I watched them for a while, looking for signs of life, but saw nothing. They may have been fake, for all I could tell!

The vombatidae on the other hand was most definitely alive! He was scurrying around looking for sweet potatoes (I saw the keeper hide one behind a plant) and seemed quite happy in the cool air. I took this photo from above and he looks smaller than he was, which was about a metre long!

But what about the macropods? The sole reason (not really) I visited Blackbutt! Did I see any?

The answer is that yes I did, quite a few in fact, although always from a distance. I also saw two having a funny slap-fight, which I found very cute and amusing.

Afterwards I continued walking to the mall for lunch, and then back home. It was a leisurely five hour walk, and a nice way to relax after the madness of the city.

The Quadruple Chicken Challenge!

June 8th, 2022

Headed back to Newcastle from Sydney today, and not much else happened, so now is a good time to review the chicken tenders from all four Australian fast food chicken joints!

I’m very pleased to say I have a special guest co-reviewer, who we will call Sue. Together we tried and reviewed the tenders (only) from each place. No sauce, no chicken burgers, no fried chicken: just tenders. No restaurant serves them individually, so we always had to buy a set meal to get tenders, and although we ate the fries we didn’t let them cloud our tender opinions.

So which place makes the best tender? Let’s see…

When we ordered a chicken tender meal from Henny Penny in addition to chips and a drink, the above is what we got. Our first thought was we had been given spicy tenders by mistake so Sue hopped in to exchange them and was told this was the only type they sold. Despite looking incredibly unappetizing we steeled ourselves and gave them a try. Here’s what we thought (all comments were written immediately after we ate them):

Me: Henny Penny should be ashamed to serve this greasy trash to anyone. It was too spicy for me, tasted only of disease, and was so unpleasant I hope the company goes out of business as a result: 0/10
Sue: Tasted like a vat of oil sprinkled with paprika. It’s now coated my mouth and the essence of vulgarity will be with me for the rest of the day. Nothing but phosphoric acid will dissolve this filth: 1/10

Yikes! If anything we over-rated these, since the appalling aftertaste of grease lingered and these were well below the others. Truly tenders from the pits of hell.

Next was Red Rooster which I feel is a chicken joint that most people ignore. Weirdly, even though they were on the menu, the drive-in girl said she couldn’t sell us tenders since they were needed for the chicken burgers! We pressed, she discovered she was wrong and we ended up with the above. Our thoughts:

Me: The tenders looked good, especially the batter, and the crisp upon first bite was encouraging. But all I could taste was grease and the more I chewed the more squirted out. Not a good tender at all: 4/10
Sue: These chicken pieces were moist and tasty even though a little too salty, but the batter was thin and not nearly robust enough to hold in the copious amounts of grease they contained. I ate them all but was covered in grease afterwards. I’ll never eat these again. Once is definitely enough: 1/10

While not as odious as the Henny Penny abominations, these were still more like grease tenders than a satisfying chicken product. With half the chickens tasted, things are looking grim!

Oporto never disappoints with its burgers (single fillet Otropo no Mayo is my standard order) but I’d never tried their chicken tenders. $11 later, and we were served up (with chips and a drink) what you see above.

Me: Absolutely incredible! The chicken was the thinnest and dryest I’ve ever eaten and the very light batter was crispy and delicious with a strong taste of citrus. This was blissful; a perfect tender: 10/10
Sue: I felt like I was going to get cancer from the acrylamide. It was just tasteless: 4/10

An interesting disagreement from the two of us. It’s hard for me to imagine a better tender but for Sue it’s not much better than a Red Rooster greasebomb! I guess she has a thing against those acrylamides?

And last but not least, we tried KFC. When anyone thinks of a chicken joint they probably think of KFC, so you’d expect they’d know what they’re doing. So how were their tenders…

Me: Chicken was a bit too juicy for my taste, but the batter was exceptional and very crispy. I didn’t mind the salt at all. This was a great tender that I’d eat again: 8/10
Sue: This was moist and tender with a crispy and salty better; I enjoyed the first bite but the salty aftertaste was too much: 8/10

Sue’s words read harsher than her thoughts, since there’s no question this was her favourite.

The verdict: Looking at the average scores, KFC is the winner with 8, Oporto is second (7) and the other two are well behind at 2.5 (Red Rooster) and 0.5 (Henny Penny). I conclude that if you’re after Oz chicken tenders head to KFC, unless you’re me in which case you should rush to the local Oporto 🙂

The Day I Lost A Part Of Myself

June 7th, 2022

Shop, shop, shop today. That’s what we did. Suffice to say money was spent and items purchased and there’s more stuff heading home tomorrow than we came with. Most of the spending was mum of course, and she had fun doing it 🙂

I found my way into a few of my favourite Sydney haunts and picked up an item here or there (mostly postcards), and even managed to find a few new shops I hadn’t seen before. It was a long and tiring day of running around the CBD, and by the time room service delivered a giant portion of fish and chips for dinner we both tucked in!

Afterwards I was exhausted and ready for a bath and flopping around… but then I thought maybe I should go see some more of Vivid. Next week I’m planning on seeing the best stuff down at the Quay, but I wanted to see what Darling Harbour had to offer so I braved the cold night air and headed out again after dinner.

I’m not sure if I saw everything down at the Harbour, but I saw a half-dozen or so installations and they were all quite fancy and pretty.

The photos hardly do them justice since they’re all animated, and many have sound elements as well or are even interactive.

The fountains in the central part of Darling Harbour are a real crowd pleaser and incorporate music and laser effects and the water jets shoot very high. There were hundreds of people watching these from all sides. I can’t imagine how busy this would be on a weekend!

I’m super knackered now. Good thing I’ve still got almost two weeks of vacation to relax!

Back To Sydney

June 6th, 2022

We traveled to Sydney today, via a hired car. The trip was luxurious and delivered us right to our hotel.

We’re staying in the one just in front of the tower (in the above pic) and overlooking the park. Our rooms are quite fancy and have park views, and we’ll be very comfortable the two nights we’re staying.

First we stopped by the cathedral, where mum lit the traditional candle.

Outside I snapped this quick shot of what I think might be a statue of Gandalf…?

And then we got down to the purpose of our trip: shopping. Mum hasn’t been in Sydney for years and I’m here to navigate, help her shop and take care of the food situation. We filled several hours today easily, and I don’t doubt tomorrow will be nonstop as well!

Oh and the Vivid Festival has begun. It’s mostly at night since it’s light based, so I’ll be leaving it until I return to Sydney once again before I travel home. However today I stumbled upon one installation, the Rainbow Room, which is a mirrored room full of lights near Chinatown. A friendly girl shut me in (alone) long enough for me to snap a few trippy photos 🙂

Odds & Ends

June 5th, 2022

Lazy day today, mostly taking care of some tasks to assist mum and preparing for our trip to Sydney tomorrow.

I found the time for a walk later in the day, to the antique shops near mums. There are fewer now than there used to be, but they’ve become somewhat extraordinary in terms of the weird ephemera they contain, such as a giant display of cassette albums in one of them.

And if prerecorded music isn’t your thing, they also had a load of blank cassettes!

If cassettes are too modern for you, the other store had a large collection of phonograph cylinders! These weren’t priced so I don’t even know if they are for sale, but it was amazing to see so many together.

The same store had this lovely display of uranium glass. It was illuminated with a black light, and phosphoresces due to the presence of uranium in the glass (which means it is slightly radioactive).

I considered buying one, but even the smaller pieces are expensive and would be difficult to transport.

I feel these stores hide treasures that I need to find. I’ll probably return when I have a little more time 🙂