Okay, alright I haven’t blogged in a while but honestly it feels like groundhog day around here. I don’t really have much interesting news but I’ll do my best…….. Still totally on the work buzz and swinging between really hating it and laughing through it. Still though it isn’t for that much longer and then we’re back on the road, thank god because doing nothing is an absolute killer for me. I’ve been climbing the walls this week. I think I probably have Kate driven demented! So apologies to Kate and thanks missus for putting up with me 🙂 We’re leaving Darwin towards the end of November and flying to Cairns where our road trip all the way to Sydney begins. We’re renting a car and will drive about 2800 kilometres(!) in just under a month. We’re planning to roll into Sydney just before Christmas.

In the meantime, we try to come up with things to break up the weeks and the first was Kate’s 30th birthday.

We had good fun that night and followed it up on her actual birthday with a lovely dinner in a funky jazz club restaurant called Nirvana where I got to eat noodly, peanuty Pad Thai again – yum!! It had been in Thailand the last time I had it. We’re usually off on a sunday so we head out after work on saturday night and we’ve have some good nights, including one with Kate’s work crew.

We also headed to Katherine Gorge last week and it was just lovely. We went on a 2 hour cruise and got a swim in too which was great.

 Some of the scenery is just out of this world. Here’s something you don’t get to see every day….

 

Other than that there isn’t a whole lot else to report. I’m still working in the hotel restaurant cooking. I’m working with an executive chef from the Phillipines who is a great laugh and we have a lot of fun working together. The restaurant does “$5 dollar Friday” which means you can load up your plate all for the bargain price of $5. I tried to warn Janz that the “savages” (oh and they are believe me!!) come in their droves on a friday and basically decimate the place. I don’t think he took me seriously the first week but the second week he said “okay NOW I’m ready for the savages!!!” Honestly these people are lunatics. We serve buffet and have 8 options at any one time and they can clear it in ten minutes!!! We usually serve 28 trays of food or the equivalent of 400 normal sized dinners (to roughly 250 people!) on a friday!!!! Some people (and it’s the same culprits every week) try to come back for seconds even though you are meant to pay per plate. They also get pretty picky and say things like “and where’s the fish?” or “I’m going to get my money’s worth here” OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO GET YOUR MONEY’S WORTH – IT’S $5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In general though, I can’t get over how much they eat, we get people who eat a full hot breakfast, yogurt & fruit, pastries and then cereal and toast. Now I have a hefty appetite but dear god I could never eat all of that in one go!!! WHERE DO THEY PUT IT????? Probably in their pockets or something 🙂

So for the last few days we have this one particular woman in for lunch and I’ve NEVER seen so much food being consumed by one person in one sitting. Her plate was stacked really tall and then she puts napkins on her tray for her salad because it won’t fit on the plate. Honestly we’ve all been mesmerised by her. By the end of it she’s sweating and wiping her forehead. The first day Janz had a “tree” made out of a celery stick – as a garnish on the tray of food – and yes you guessed it, she ate it!!!! I took a picture of her plate today but she arrived late and must of been off form because this is only about two thirds of her usual portion. No kidding!!!

The plate is usually waaaay more stacked, it literally takes her ten minutes to load up! It’s been a very busy week with the “savages”, particularly for breakfast. On a separate note, we had Mark Cagney from TV3’s Ireland AM this week for breakfast, they must be filming a piece on the Northern Territory we reckon.

It’s fun cooking though for the most part, my latest obsession is the breakfast fruit platter, so if you ever wish to make a fruit turtle, this is how you do it. First get a watermelon or a turtle 🙂 , take off his skin and give him legs and a tail…..

Then put his head on and make him pretty….

Okay maybe he’s not massively turtle-like but use your imagination!!!!!!

Anyway I promised myself I wouldn’t write about work but there you go. I guess it’s pretty much all we do. The blogs will hopefully get somewhat more interesting when we get on the move again.

More photos as usual on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607874219426/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157608501167406/

P.S. I know I wrote way too much again, need to get back on the wagon 🙂