Pure Glow - Summer Juices

I really like how Pure Glow are releasing new juices, it definitely keeps things interesting. I thought I'd get one more in before Christmas and NY, and will probably try to do it again early in the new year because the summer juices are really nice.



Juice #1: 07 Meta Boost (alkaline water, lemon, activated charcoal, cayenne pepper), 67 kJ
Compares to Sunrise Elixir (lemon, cucumber, aloe vera, filtered water, 133kJ), and Blue Lagoon (alkaline water, cucumber, lemon, blue spirulina, 156 kJ). Although the colour of this juice is jet black which doesn't make it very appetising to look at, this is my favourite version of the first morning drink. It's much less acidic, although there's a bit of grittiness from the charcoal and it made my tongue look like I'd sucked on a pen. I couldn't taste the cayenne pepper at all, but I do like my chili so sometimes I can't taste really subtle amounts at all.

Juice #2: 02 Watermelon Crush (watermelon, cucumber, lime), 455 kJ
This one had no equivalent juice in the previous ranges, but I think it's pretty easy to imagine what it tastes like. Sweet, refreshing and easy to drink, and definitely tastes like summer.

Juice #3: 22 Verde Vibes (cos, kale, pineapple, coriander, lime, cucumber), 536 kJ
A familiar green juice, similar to  Green Guru (kale, cos, cucumber, celery, green apple, mint, lemon, 456kJ) and The Modern Muse (kale, cos, green apple, cucumber, lemon, celery,  692 kJ). At this point I was hoping for something a bit more chewy, but still found this juice a satisfying savory change to the first two.

Juice #4: 13 Good Karma (carrot, green apple, grapefruit, tumeric, lemon, ginger), 802 kJ
I was really happy to see this juice back on the list, I think it's one of my favourites.  Compares to California Ghost (orange, grapefruit, cucumber, coconut water, 843 kJ).

Juice #5: 47 Green Wine (cos, kale, cucumber, pear, grape, celery, lemon), 648 kJ
Another familiar green juice, sweeter than Verde Vibes but very similar to Green Guru.

Juice #6: A.D.M (alkaline water, cashew, coconut, medjool date, cacao, vanilla, salt, peppermint essential oil), 1474 kJ
I couldn't wait to try this one, the last juice is always my favourite. The name made me laugh because there is no dinner, it's more of an after juice mint, although the energy content was close to a light dinner! Very similar to to Mylk of Foresight (alkaline water, cashew, coconut, calendula, medjool date, vanilla, cinnamon, pure WA lake salt), 854 kJ and Chai Vanilla Dream (almond, cashew, brazil nut, chai rooibos tea, medjool date, vanilla, filtered water), 878.7kJ. I think the addition of peppermint was a nice refreshing change, although I think my favourite last juice is Mylk of Foresight.



Some comparisons:

• Total energy intake was somewhere in between the last ranges:
• Summer Juices: 3982 kJ, 952 calories
• Spring Juices: 4300 kJ, 1028 calories
• Original juices: 3400 kJ, 813 calories
• There was no thick chewy juice like Juice #2, Glowing Greens in the original range, which I again missed
• There was no juice that I disliked (Sangria Sunset from the Spring Juice range put my tummy a bit off by the third day)

Triple J Hottest 100 of 2016

My votes:

• Mansionair - Easier (#199)
• Elk Road - Hanging By A Thread (#96)
• Flume - Never Be Like You {Ft. Kai} (#1)
• K.Flay - Blood in the Cut (#139)
• M83 - Do It, Try It
• Methyl Ethel - No. 28
• The xx - On Hold (#20)
• Banks - Gemini Feed (#80)
• Ali Barter - Girlie Bits (#58)
• DIIV - Under the Sun

Would have loved to fit in:

• Radiohead - True Love Waits (I didn't vote for this because it's not really this year's song)
• The Weekend - Starboy {Ft. Daft Punk} (#10)
• The National - Morning Dew

30th Birthday Trip Down South

For my 30th birthday Andrew organised an amazing getaway down south complete with amazing restaurants, winery visits, and a stay a the King's Cottage at the Cape Howe Cottages. He also managed to squeeze in climbing a mountain, which I was a little bit nervous about because I'm generally scared of the outdoors and nature.

1st December, Cape Lodge

I'm so glad I took the morning off of work because I really felt like I was on holiday straight away. I went for a run, stopped into Bunnings to pick up windscreen washer, and put up the Christmas tree. Andrew is flat out at work so had to go in, but we still managed to leave Perth at around 3pm.

After a long drive down (well, long by my standards, Andrew thinks is a short stroll) we arrived at the picturesque Cape Lodge. We stayed in a lovely little cottage with beautiful views of the garden and lake. After arriving and having our welcome truffles (which I actually liked!) and filtered rain water, we got ready to walk over to the restaurant.

The restaurant was a beautiful room overlooking the lake, and we even managed to catch the multi coloured sunset. The meal was one of the best I've ever had, with the only two others we could think of that even came close being Wildflower, and Aria (in Sydney). I normally don't take photos of food but couldn't resist this time; it was all so beautifully presented. I can't wait to show my parents to see what they think, I even ate roe!

The pick for me was the risotto, Andrew's favourite was the quail. Andrew chose a Cullen wine that was also the best wine I've ever had. He only later told me later that it was also the most expensive bottle I've ever had!

2nd December: Leaving Cape Lodge, Woody Nook, Vasse Felix, Sunflowers Animal Farm

Still full from dinner, we managed to fit in a delicious breakfast at the Cape Lodge restaurant while watching a couple of parent ducks teach two little ducklings to duck dive, it was so cute! The parent duck would go under, then the little ducks would panic and when the parent duck finally popped up they'd zoom over to parent for safety, probably feeling lucky to be alive. They got the hang of it by the end and were going down and popping up way later a long way away from where they dove.

We walked off breakfast with a walk around the grounds, and saw their garden where they grow a lot of the things used in the dishes at the restaurant, including artichoke which I'd never seen growing before (it's an impressive alien looking plant that reminded me of that thing that grew in my parent's yard a few years back). 

Our next two stops were a couple of wineries, Woody Nook then lunch at Vasse Felix. Both beautiful grounds in their own way and we had perfect weather to enjoy them. We've stocked our wine shelf with a few great bottles from each place. After lunch (and buying a few bottles from Vasse Felix) we walked through the art gallery below the restaurant. Most of the paintings were just a bunch of lines, but they were very pretty lines I guess.

The Sunflowers Animal Farm was our next bitter sweet stop. Emma recommended this place to us mostly because it had what she described as a bunny dome, which sounded like a magical place much to my own heart. Unfortunately the farm had been hit by the khaleesi virus a few weeks back and they had lost every single bunny except for one that had been handed in by an owner who couldn't look after her anymore. I hugged that bunny for a good 20minutes and she hugged me right back, it was quite emotional.

I also got to feed Wendy the joey! It was amazing, she held my hand and looked into my eyes while drinking gingerly. All the other animals seemed to go nuts for food, but you really have to convince a joey to drink it's milk which is kind of endearing. 

Much to Andrew's horror we witnessed another one of those special animal moments that make us lose faith a little bit. After the children bottle fed the calves, the calves decided they hadn't had enough and proceeded to try and drink each other's "milk", but they were all male cows. What resulted was an awful calf threesome that has earned it's place in the list of animal horrors we've witnessed (right up there with the giraffe flemen incident, and the monkey butt fingering incident).

We also met a very strange cockatoo that hated men and loved women. He would say "wanna cuddle?" or "I've been a good boy" as his war cry as he ran to attack Andrew.

Then came the long drive to Cape Howe which honestly was terrifying. We passed by so many kangaroos on the side of the road and almost hit a joey. I was so relieved when we finally got to the Kings Den! I'm so scared of night time country driving. 

3rd December: Cape Howe, Greens Pool, The Lake House

The Kings Den is as amazing as we remembered it, just so peaceful and romantic. Look at the beautiful breakfast pack the owners put together for us.

Greens Pool was absolutely stunning, I even waded in the water a little bit. The rocks were so easy to walk on; I usually get a bit scared at intrepid walks (Andrew probably wishes he never taught me that word) but these rocks were so easy and grippy to walk on that it was a pleasure to explore and see the gorgeous views, lizards, and even a manta ray.

The Lake House for lunch was really cosy, especially since it started raining.

After picking up some gluten free bread from the Denmark Bakery we headed back to make the most of the Kings Den.

4th December: Denmark and the Kings Den

This was our most lazy day. We slept in, had an amazing cooked breakfast, went to Howard Park and Madfish Winery, The Black Pig Cydery, stopped in Denmark for lunch, then enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing at the Kings Den.

We may have gotten carried away.

5th December: Bluff Knoll

I climbed Bluff Knoll. I can't believe I did it, and it wasn't that bad! Well, it was very challenging (and intrepid) but there were way less bugs and snakes (although way more goannas) than I thought there would be, although thank god for the Bushman's Spray which I think kept most of the flies away.

There were very different and distinct sections of the path, and although it was genuinely a path the whole way, some parts were very rocky and slippery and quite hard to navigate. My favourite parts were the bits with the actual steps even though these were the steepest. The worst bits were the parts with flat rocks (about 1/3 up near the waterfall, and towards the top).

The view from the top was like nothing I've ever seen before, and it was completely still with no wind so it was just lovely. We sat and ate an apple and a muesli bar before heading back down. 

It took us about 1h 20min to climb to the top, and about the same to come down. I have to say that the way down was probably harder than the way up because you really had to choose your path more carefully.

What a perfect little trip to end the year with, thank you Andrew for a great 30th b'day present!

Rooftop Trapeze and Mina meets Ava

Rooftop Trapeze is a new flying trapeze group that have started up in the HBF Stadium. We gave it a go yesterday and both Andrew and I got a cool catch!





The set up is really nice and the crew is lovely. I'm looking forward to going back there with a bigger group, maybe on another day so we don't interrupt the regular flyers too much.

A couple of weeks ago Mina met Amy's little girl, Ava. What a touching afternoon! It's amazing seeing my grandma hold my best friends baby; Mina has known Amy since she was a little girl living on Reflection Gardens.





Mina also met Megan's king charles terrier and told him he should be ashamed of himself for being so spoiled and sitting like a baby.

Perth Royal Show 2016

Yesterday I went to my favourite thing, the Perth Royal Show. Tracy and I went in the early afternoon, then I met up with Andrew, then we caught up with some friends from work for the fireworks. You see I need to tag people in and out because no one has as much royal show stamina as me (except for Amy, but she couldn't make it these year because of an impending baby!).

Tracy and I got there at 12pm aiming to see the 12:30 Dr Hubble's Bubbles show at the new Taste of WA pavilion. This pavilion was really well set up with gourmet food, and Nail beers on tap, I was sure we'd spend some time in there towards the night. We got front row couch seats and managed to catch a very confusing opening show by a guy who was making musical instruments out of kitchen stuff. At one point he drilled some holes in a carrot and was playing it like a flute, it was really quite amazing! But also strange. I was worried Tracy might be scared off, but she made it through OK.



The bubble show was pretty cool, Dr Hubble really loved what he was doing and you could just see his excitement when the bubble trick went right. He was having some (bubble) trouble because the pavilion was open on one side and the wind was messing up some of his setup. He managed to show us a square bubble (a small bubble in between two big bubbles on the top and bottom, and 4 smaller bubbles on the side pressed the center bubble into a cube), a bubble carousel (a stack of bubbles where the center stack was spinning around), a bubble caterpillar, an exploding bubble (filled with a smoky gas, and lighter fluid I think, then set on fire in the air), and a whole bunch of other bubbles too. We really enjoyed it!





Then we wandered up to the Creatures Great and Small pavilion to pat some animals while waiting for the Racing and Diving Pigs show.

I held a gorgeous angora rabbit, we held some a baby chickens, patted some baby pigs, and watched a gigantic pig feeding her babies (cute and gross at the same time, they're not gentle!).









The Racing and Diving Pig show was cute as always. It started off with a cute (but very long) song number by a little boy in a suit, and much to my delight the host was the same as last year; a spry older gentleman wearing an amazing rhinestone covered suite. The show itself is always the same, but it's quite quick so it's always worth seeing (and Tracy hadn't seen it before).



We went and saw the flower and cake displays which were both beautiful as always. I even saw a lotus flower for the first time and I thought it was beautiful! Those with trypophobia may want to skip the pictures below.







On our way to see Adam and Selina we noticed that there was a Komatsu HD785 haul truck near the main arena. There was also a wheel loader there, but it was a small one (Komatsu WA360). The size of these machines is just amazing. We were really lucky we got to see one, this is the first time I'd seen a dump truck up close, and this is on the smaller side of the trucks we simulate. Maybe we can claim the Royal Show as a business expense next year!







Adam and Selina are a brother and sister team that do a beautiful illusion show. Adam stabbed a bunch of sticks into a cardboard box that Selina was in, and unless she's a contortionist in jeans and a suit jacket I have no idea where she must have been. We guessed she was laying in the bottom but she'd occasionally pop her hand up out of the top, so she couldn't have been! They showed us a "walking through a mirror" illusion which was beautifully done, and as well as some card tricks they also did a shadow show in a big wheel type prop where Selina looked like she was walking through a a metal plank. Really cool, we have no idea how they did the tricks, but they were selling their "trick card deck" at the end of the show so I guess that's one mystery solved.



After the IGA pavilion, and a couple of mandatory purchases of sausage and Indian spices Tracy headed off and I met up with Andrew for the Dogolympics and Dock Dogs.

The Dogolympics were cute, but a little bit haphazard with dogs of all sizes running across some hurdles to their owners. The best bit was getting to see a purebred white dingo that loves to be held upside down!



Dock Dogs was a new thing this year, and it's an aquatic competition where dogs have to jump into a pool and are measured on speed or distance while performing a task. It was pretty much just watching a bunch of dogs trying to decide whether or not they were too cold to jump into the pool or not, very cute! One entry had a hilarious technique of getting her dog to jump into the pool by showing a toy getting thrown in, then holding her dog and slowly walking back and getting the dog so winded up that when she let go he bolted and jumped the furthest of the lot. So cute! We watched dogs jumping into a pool for ages.



After some more bunny patting (look at the size of this guy), a whiskey tasting at Limeburners, and some beer and snacks at Taste of WA, we headed down to the fireworks. My fireworks glasses are still standing all these years later and they still blow my mind every time.







The Python Loop isn't there anymore! So we didn't go on any rides. Andrew tried his luck at a throwing game, some of the other guys from work tried some basketball games, and I had a go at hanging on a bar for 2 minutes, none of us won. I'm so disappointed about that bar! The catch was that the bar spins so you could only use your fingers to hold on. I should have done monkey grip.

9h at the show is still not enough, man I love the show!