Easter Sunday was remarkably misty when I headed to church, and after the service the sun had come out and everything was symbolically bright and full of hope. He is risen; He is risen, indeed. Hallelujah.
Friends came round in the evening for roast lamb and daft games. General Philosopher likes cats, but Calamity Sue doesn't, and General Philosopher likes Calamity Sue more than he likes cats, so he is welcome to come round and cuddle Chester, who tolerates it.
On another walk to another new place, I marched up Mt Painter for the first time with Him Outdoors. The views from the top are pure bush capital.
To reward ourselves we popped into Bentspoke for a pint of Big Nut, as you do.
Sharing a weekend off is a luxury, especially when it is still warm and sunny outdoors, so we took off to see the sea, and drove to Merimbula for a couple of days. Walking beside the tidal Back Lake in the early morning was a sheer and simple pleasure.
We followed it up with healthy breakfast at The Waterfront Cafe.
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| Seahorse Statue by Michael Meszaros |
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| Toasted seed and nut granola muelsi with acai and blueberry sorbet, yoghurt pannacotta, strawberry coulis and banana |
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| Chilli scrambled eggs with pickled Queensland spanner crab, green papaya, sriracha chilli sauce and toasted cashews |
Thus fortified, we set out to walk the 10km along the beach to Pambula. lining the seafront at Merimbula are these fabulous metal sculptures of pelicans made by Richard Moffat from discarded bits of rusting metal and placed atop poles driven into the water's edge. Richard Moffat is the sculptor of Nest III perched on Dairy Farmer's Hill at the National Arboretum, which I have always admired, so I enjoyed encountering some more of his work.
I had forgotten to bring the suncream but it was very overcast and so I (foolishly) didn't bother to buy and apply any. That was a mistake, but the walk along the squeaky sand beach was beautiful and the water lapping over my feet was most invigorating.
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| Pambula Beach |
We turned inland through the coastal forest until we hit Pambula...
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| Ben Boyd National Park |
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| Eagle sculpture by Richard Moffat |
...and Longstocking Nano Brewery.
It really is a small operation, but it does fine ales and oysters. They make 50,000 litres of beer a year and all of it on site. As they were very busy, there were no tasting paddles available, so we got settled in and drank our way through (most of) the range anyway.
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| Longstocking Fatty Arbuckle and Calypso Orange Weisse |
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| A dozen Broadwater Oysters |
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| Enjoying oysters with Longstocking Pale Ale and Bohemian Lager |
Him Outdoors tried the oysters, but he didn't really like them (hurrah; more for me!) and had a cheese platter instead - which I shared, obviously.
The complex, Oaklands Barn, also has a cafe, an art gallery and a couple of other shops such as a gift shop, a pantry and a garden centre. The brewery deck overlooks the barn where there are a couple of animals, who we went to visit.
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| Him Outdoors can't resist a horse collar |
We took the short route home (along the road) but still ended up walking about 26km. We were exhausted when we got back to the motel, so had a quick shower and went out for dinner and drinks - as you do.
Dulcie's Cottage is a beautiful building with a boring beer menu, but they were holding a mini hops festival in the beer garden, so we partook of some beers made with the latest batch of Ryefield Hops from Bemboka. This is a very new outfit and we appear to have stumbled across their first harvest event. Wet hopped beers can only be made at harvest time (February/ March) as the fresh hops should be brewed within 48 hours of picking. Several breweries have made wet hop ales with them, including Bentspoke, Modus and The Club (collaborating with Rogue Wave).
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