After many weekends without a car, it was time to rent one for the grocery / Costco /beer store chores. We took the opportunity of having a car to head over to the Dandenong mountain range for a nice day hike.
We settled on a 6.7 kilometer loop hike that included Olinda Falls. The book we have stated it might be “muddy after rain” – that was an understatement. We parked the car and immediately descended into the ferns.
About 2 kilometers later we were at Olinda falls.
After the falls, we continued along Olinda creek. Then, in typical Australian fashion, we were met with poorly marked trail conditions and made a guess as far as which way to go. Luckily we chose wisely. See below, isn’t the trail obvious?
It was amazing to be so close to the city (~50km) yet so isolated and alone. Not many others out bushwalking on a blustery winter day.
With Sara’s leisure / hobo time winding down, she decided it was time to cash in the wonderful going away gift that her Book Club ladies gave her. Luckily, she decided to bring me along! We were headed to the CBD to eat at a Middle Eastern restaurant named Maha. So, we hopped onto a tram and rode into the city.
Tram ussie
First, we stopped at the Bull and Bear Pub for a few warm up drinks. The pub reminded Sara of the Regal Beagle of Three’s Company fame and I couldn’t disagree. After finishing a pint and a pot (8 oz), we headed over to Maha for our dinner. Note, I find it un-American that a pot of beer costs exactly half of what a pint costs. Where is my volume discount?
After some arriving at the storefront, which was down a small alley, Sara was able to figure out how to get in the door. I tried to go in the service entrance. They presented us with the below menu, which had 4 choices of what do for dinner. We chose the 4 course “Spice Journey Soufra”. Here’s the menu.
To quote Fletch, “If this were at all legible, you could read it.”The Maha sign outside
We opted to pair our food with some Lebanese beers and enjoyed them, my pale ale by 961 Beer was spiced using Lebanese spices and was very interesting. Sara got their Red ale.
The food was delightful and managed to fill me up and then some. I’ll leave you to read about the various things we ate by looking at their web site or squinting really hard and looking at the image above.
After our wonderous meal, we decided to talk a bit of a walk to shake off our food coma. I took Sara to the Crown Casino and we lost $3 playing the pokies (slots). I showed her the shocking number of roulette tables in this casino (literally at at least 50 and more than half of their table games). Sadly there are no craps tables here. On our way to the tram, we spotted a great possibility for our next date night – I know this much is TRUE.
