Playing hookey (part 1)
Sometimes it’s just nice to get away from work. Take last week for example. Along with the regulation ANZAC Day holiday we also took the Thursday and Friday off, giving us a five day super-weekend in which to fritter away our hard earned monies. And fritter we did.
On our first day off we wandered out to Healesville to check out the Sanctuary. We powered through the park on our own self-guided tour. Unfortunately we timed it just well enough to miss every hands-on show they had on that day. After a few hours of snapping photos and filling our brains with knowledge of Australiana we were both feeling hungry. We jumped in the car and drove the few hundred metres distance to Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander.
Really. You think we wouldn’t head into wine country and not stop off at a winery?
We ordered way too much food. Something that occurred to us after the second pizza was forced into what little space remained on the table. Thats not to say that we ordered ridiculous amounts of food. It was a smallish table.
Now the food. Oh yes, the food. With the well publicised explosion of good food outlets in the outers of Melbourne, we were always going to be in for a treat. Pies, chips and cans of coke are now a thing of the past. Say hello to mushroom pizzas, rice balls, and boutique soft drinks.
While sampling a few wines we mentioned this to the bar chick. She told us that yes, they now have this surplus of good food, backed up by a series of farmer’s markets, but they have no real fresh fish for the locals to purchase. It’s a luxury. I thought this was odd, given that Healesville sits on a main highway, only 70-odd kilometres from the city.
While the the population isn’t rioting in the streets over a lack of sea-bound delights, there’s certainly a niche that needs to be filled.
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June 4th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
That is a bit strange about the fish, a little way up the road at Buxton there is a trout and salmon farm. I can’t say about the trout, but the salmon was excellent.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
We’ll definitely be heading back that way one day, so we’ll be sure to check that farm out.