Since blogging last I have been busy moving in, purchasing used furniture and outfitting the house to make it livable for the next year. That is all pretty much done now so to celebrate my first month in Australia I made another "ethnic" American dinner for my friends Mike and Haike.

I wanted to make a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner for the 4th of July (which would have been the 5th here), but I had not counted on the general inavailability of turkeys in this country. Apparently turkeys are only eaten for Christmas Dinner and not all the time so you cannot just go to a market and buy one. I ordered one special from the Belgrave butcher and even though I ordered a week early they couldn't get one until the 4th in the afternoon...so that changed the timetable and I picked Saturday since it was my one month anniversary in Australia.

When I picked up my Turkey on Thursday it weighed in at a whopping 3.76 Kilos or a little over 8 lbs. It looked like a large chicken. It cost $64.00 so it was the smallest, most expensive turkey ever! The upside is that it would cook in only about three hours so I did not have to start early to make it.

The menu for Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner was:

Turkey with Southern Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing
Mashed Potatos and Homemade Turkey Giblet Gravy
Green Bean Cassarole
Cranberry Sauce
Dinner Rolls
Dessert-
Scratch Made Pumpkin Pies with Vanilla Ice Cream

Since they do not have canned pumpkin here either I had to steam fresh pumpkin and make a puree and drain the excess water to get the Pumpkin part. That was fun and made a really great flavor so I think I will always do this.

The 7th was also Mike's Mother's birthday so his Mom and Dad came to dinner and we celebrated that too. It was a very special, fun dinner and Haike contributed some delicious wine. And even though the turkey was small there were leftovers for other dinners and sandwiches.

So, to get back to the begining of the post...I will leave Melbourne on the 20th by bus to Brisbane and I am booking a sleeper on the Sunlander Express leaving Brisbane on Sunday, 22 July arriving 31 hours later in Cairns. I will start booking rooms and other stuff now that I have a timetable to work with spending 5-7 days in Cairns and on the coast camping before setting out on The Ride.

I have a riding plan that a private tour group uses with mileages and overnight stops and activities for each day and I will use it as a guide. If you would like to see it I can send it to your email in a PDF so let me know in comments here or please email me!

It looks like I will spend 30-35 days on the road, maybe longer if I take multiple rest days in one place because I like it. The route takes me East out of Cairns and then South and East to Mount Issa then North to Darwin.

From Darwin I will take The Ghan outback train to Alice Springs and a bus to The Rock in Uluru. After that I will take the train from Alice Springs to Adelaide and either take a bus from there or have Carl meet me for a road trip.

So more before leaving and then more from the road soon.

Thanks for reading! Pics of the Little Turkey added as well.

written by  Mike_Veine on July 10, 2012 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: Mike's Magical Mystery Tour
Send a Compliment

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Hi Brother, hope all is well. Sounds like you are having a great time. Please send me the guide for your trip, that will be interesting. Stay safe, love you and miss you.

Your sis. xoxoxo

written by  Kris Martin on July 10, 2012

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that’s good, thanks for sharing,.. I think this is great blog

written by  essay24 on January 26, 2015

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