And to think I avoided eggs for so long...
Coming up with ideas for things to do for ‘E’ is not as easy as one may think. Sure, there’s eggs (something we were keen to avoid, for personal gas and cholesterol issues) but after that? Well, it’s just concepts and ideas, a nebulous existence (ha! Unintentional e pun). Excellence. Experience. Everything. Luckily, the future bride of this blog was up to such a challenge!
The words ‘epic’ and ‘extreme’ are generally reserved for things of a more grandiose nature: tropical cyclones, Blake Griffin’s mad hops and the Planet X games are all good examples. Exercise? Eh. Probably not up there in the scheme of things. But we made it so.
Phase one of Theresa’s extremis exerciseis plan involved a leisurely ride into the city (read: a mad cap seat of your pants through inner suburbs traffic in 30 degree heat). At least at the start we looked pretty schmick!
Pretty fly for a ride guy (laaaammmmeee)
Panting, but not broken, we made it to the office, our makeshift bike haus for the day. Of course, that was just the end of part one. Theresa quickly escalated us to DEFCON 4 with a 1km jog into the city. Again, sweat featured prominently, an exudation of liquid cooling our brows and preparing us for phase three of the extreme exercise trio of events: indoor rock climbing!
Those rocks are shocking!
I don’t have much of a history with rock climbing. Sure, I was exposed to my fair share of school camp moments – ah Angelsea, how I miss thee – but it’s been a long time between drinks. Indeed our most recent memory of rock climbing was 18 months ago, an occasion that saw us scale beginners walls (and not much else) before waking up the next day with our arms feeling like they were encased in cement, a mental projection of the classic Italian swimsuit.
Still we were optimistic that the Hardrock Climbing Company would provide more expansive and less painful memories than the last time. Certainly we had warmed up more than our previous experience.
Naturally, Theresa took to the walls like a duck to water, rushing up varying faces with not even a knee strap slowing her down.
Strap yourselves in...
As for me? Let’s just say that I don’t quite fit the image of a rock climber. I won’t be featuring on any Hardrock promotional tapes anytime soon…
Not a pretty picture
I kind of liken myself to a Tyrannosaurus Rex in this situation: sure, I’ve got powerful hindquarters, but my lack of any bulk in the upper arm/gun region makes tasks like this troublesome. Thus I was pretty pleased when I conquered one of the moderate walls.
Hanging Tough, New Kids on the Block style!
And if nothing else my safety checks were KICK ASS.
The best part was, neither of us woke up with sore limbs – tres miracles!
(And yes before you ask, we did still jog back to the bikes and then ride home. This was an E Date of EXTREME EXERCISE after all).
We had certainly worked up an appetite with a day of needling our physical extremities, so what better way to placate growling stomachs but with some fine dining (some would say expensive – we would, if only to keep with the E Date theme) at Ezard on Flinders Lane. Side stepping a new bride and her photographic entourage, we entered an immaculately kept long room of green details, friendly staff and the smell of Parmesan infused olive oil.
There are some quite spot on reviews out there about Ezard – try here and here for starters – so I won’t repeat what’s out there. To quickly add my two cents though : the morsels of food we had as the six part degustation were all exceptionally presented and enticing, the service was engaging (the first strangers we ever told about the alphabet date and this here blog!) and the tastes exquisite. Suffice to say it ticked a lot of E aligned boxes.
But don’t just take my word for it – just check out the dessert sampler:
Platters: the best kind of dessert
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that we’ve fallen into the habit of doing alphabet things in groups of three, and E Date was no different. Again with a bit of thinking outside the box, we ended up at the Atrium Bar at the Sofitel, Melbourne. Why? Because of the elevator ride up 35 floors of course, not to mention the expansive views of the city from such an elevation!
Through the Looking Glass, Sofitel style
And that, dear reader, was that. Another alphabet themed date in the can and perhaps the hardest one to coordinate so far given the lack of clear E date activities.
Coming up soon, things to do with F (get your minds out of the gutter RIGHT NOW).
One Response to “E Date: where we avoid eggs (but experience lots of other stuff)”