Wednesday 15^th February

Rave review follows…

Our Lakeside Café turned out to be a terrific find.  And how lucky we were to turn up there, serendipitously, on one of the few evenings of the year when it is open – Valentine’s Day!  Usually it is only open for lunch.  Word must have got around, because there was a steady stream of Romantic Couples, all dressed up, ready to enjoy their Lakeside Experience.

The set menu had lots of very tasty options, including a Seafood Tower of awe-inspiring size and splendour.  Fortunately, they were all sold out in advance, otherwise I am sure we would have ordered one – they were for sharing – and maybe we wouldn’t have been able to eat every single delicious mouthful… We watched as a few were sent back with the odd item uneaten.  We were greeted by our very pleasant host, Ray, and we enjoyed our complementary sparkling wine and carefully placed red rose.  (Sad to relate my red rose doesn’t like being on 2XS, it is wilting dramatically…never mind, it gave us great pleasure for a few hours.)  Pete had mushroom arancini with rocket and parmesan salad – no we didn’t know what arancini were but now we know they are fried risotto balls and very delicious.  I had peach, prosciutto, bocconcini and basil, which I liked very much – what’s not to like??  For our main courses Pete had an enormous tenderloin steak with mashed potatoes, port jus, mushroom something or another on top, and I, predictably, had Atlantic salmon with asparagus, peas, potatoes, beurre blanc, all perfectly cooked.  The lovely young waitress came out with two dessert plates and my eyes opened wide – TOO MUCH FOOD!!  Fortunately, only one of the plates was for us – they were special Valentine’s Day Sharing And Caring tasteplates.  Chocolate tart, a small and wonderful meringue with fruit salad, and a lemon tart thingy.  We staggered back to 2XS very full and happy…

In the morning when I was wandering back from the toilets – this free jetty offered all sorts of amenities as well as access to a lovely restaurant – I met up with Ray, on his way to work.  He had come to look at 2XS – he is a sailor, and has a Beneteau 43, in which he hopes to cruise to the Pacific Islands with his wife and 5 year old daughter, Vienna.  He had a cup of tea with us before going off to make coffee at the café and we had a lovely time laughing and swapping sailing stories.  His worst story involved being tipped right over on the wild and scary bar at Ballina, with an extremely nervous, not to say terrified, friend on board.  Yes they are still friends which attests to Ray’s sterling qualities as a human being – it must have been an awful experience.  Ray’s copy of Cruising the NSW Coast – the Alan Lucas sailingbible– is now three times its size, all swollen up with Ballina water.  Not only did Alan Lucas suffer – all of the electrics on the boat were blown and Ray had to sail back down the coast – no they didn’t get into Ballina – in the dark with no computerised chart, and an even more terrified-than-before friend trembling at his side.

(By the way – Murray’s Beach was gorgeous.  It is a new “community,” recently built, with architect designed houses, all very environmentally friendly and in keeping with the bush and the lake.  Whoever has developed it – Stockman’s, I think – has put in a lot of very pleasant infrastructure, to be enjoyed by the likes of us.  There is a rambling path along the waterfront, very nice for a short-ish bike ride, soft green grass down to the water’s edge, a discreet little kiosk and toilet block.  And – on the ladies’ toilet…a sign saying, Sorry, this amenity is closed due to vandalism.  Who??  Why???  WTF????  Sigh and sigh again…. Why would anyone ever vandalise a toilet, for heaven’s sake?  We all need a toilet from time to time!!!)

We left Murray’s Beach this morning and made our way to another free place to tie up – a big solid wharf in Belmont, on the Pacific Highway.  (Not sure where we were actually – some of the signs said Belmont, others said Lake Macquarie City.  Take your pick!) 

We rode our bikes up and down the streets and along the waterfront and bought some ginger beer and a new Dolphin torch in Coles.  We know how to live it up – we shared a 12” Subway roll near Coles, bought on Poor Old Pete’s seniors card so we got an eighty cent discount.  Wee hee!  Our shared roll was actually very nice, heaving with healthy salad items and a bit of melted cheese.

I went into the big newsagent nearby, looking for postcards.  “Oh well…we don’t really have any…only these…”  A nice girl led me to a shelf with a small pile of hopeless postcards.  One of them had a triptych of people playing didgeridoos and having a corroborree.  Not very typical of Belmont, I thought.  And the other one had a big red kangaroo and a jaunty message; Welcome to Ayer’s Rock!!  We are a long way from Ayer’s Rock – and how many years since it has been known as Uluru???  Hmmm…

On the wharf we were tied up next to a big yacht, Namadgi.  Some of the sailors came over to help us tie up and we were soon engrossed in conversation about sailing, about Tasmania.  Namadgi belongs to the Canberra Ocean Racing Club… The boat lives on Pittwater and a syndicate of 20 people take turns cruising up and down the coast and out to new Caledonia and Vanuatu.  Frank Lehman is a former Tasmanian, an old Hobart High boy from the 50s, and his friend Sam Hughes (known as Safety Sam) has been on the Sydney-Hobart Yacht race committee for many years.  The other denizens of Namadgi were: Bill, Judy, Margot and Beth.  They were very nice people, cheery and hospitable.  They invited us over to look at their boat and to have a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate tart before they rushed off to get under the 12.00 Swansea bridge opening.  Pete and I are always interested to look other boats.  Monohull yachts are nice, ofcourse but…they are so narrow, and so tippy, compared to a catamaran.  (Or catamerang, as Margot told me, with great amusement, as an acquaintance of theirs always says.)  One of them (I won’t say which one, she might not want her name in cyberspace in this context,) told me she is the only member of the crew ever to get seasick.  I asked how she copes.  “Oh,” she said, nonchalantly, “I just vomit into a bucket.  The others all eat and drink and laugh at me, and they empty the bucket for me.”

After our little jaunt around Belmont, we took 2XS for a lovely sail around the lake.  There was just a bit of breeze, so we were able to sail around with just the headsail up, no motors.  Bliss!  I took the opportunity to go and lie on the nets, with the headsail as a sunscreen.  It is surprising how little time I have spent in the nets, lovely though it is to do this.  If there are waves, you get very wet up there, and not in a good way.  And if there is a brisk wind it isn’t very pleasant.  And if the sails aren’t up – it is much too sunny.  Today it was just perfect.  I lay there very happily with a bottle of ginger beer and Stephen Fry talking about English grammar on my iPod.

In the late afternoon we cruised back into Belmont and tied up to yet another big sturdy jetty.  The shire of Lake Macquarie is very generous with all of the free moorings and lovely available jetties.  I think this one belongs to the Belmont 16’ Sailing Club, a huge affair on the shore of the lake.  Pete went in to ask if we could tie up, and he was told we were more than welcome.  There were several shows advertised – tomorrow night David Campbell is performing, and on Saturday – Ganggajang!  Too bad we are leaving and can’t go to either performance, I am sure it would be great fun to go there.

We have just had a chicken salad (I made a balsamic vinegar reduction for Pete, having swiftly googled the technique, because he liked the one he had at Lakeside Café so much) and we have watched My Kitchen Rules.  Oh the bitchiness!  Oh “Reality” TV!!

Tomorrow we will be in Broken Bay, nearly in Sydney.  Lovely days…how lucky are we.