AusNZVeganMoFo: Getting away from it all.

Last weekend I was whisked away to the magical Gold Coast by two of my BFFs, known to you lot as The Jens, for a girl's weekend. We headed out of Brisbane on Friday afternoon, and the traffic was a bit slow in the peak hour exodus from the city but not too bad. Soon we had checked in to our appartment at Aquarius On The Beach at Surfers Paradise. We are girls who love to eat, so first on the agenda was dinner!


We each made our own pizza. The Jen's are not vegan, so promptly set about cooking chicken and bemoaning the fact that no one had brought any cheese for the pizza. I had made a pizza topping ahead of time, so just heated it up and spread it over my pizza before baking. This is Roasted Eggplant and Sesame Pizza from Vegan Pizza. When I was doing the shopping, they were all out of frozen pizza bases, so this was one from the bread section. It was OK, but not quite as delicious as other bases. A bit biscuity. I totally ate my pizza like a big cookie, just picked it up and munched.

The night progressed with some drinking, dancing and general silliness. I pretty much don't drink, but I did have a bit of Fresita Sparkling Wine, which is delicious because of the added strawberry pulp. So fantastic! Then we headed off for a pre-bed sauna and spa before heading off into the land of sleeping.


Our breakfast spread. I had made a batch of batter the previous day to make Pancakes from Vegan With A Vengeance. The room only had a really crappy electric frying pan, which is why they turned out a bit dark. They kept on sticking! But they were delicious. Here we have our breakfast spread - pancakes, strawberries, blueberries and maple syrup. And a bowl of Clinkers. That belongs to the Jens, not me. They seem to have a slight obession with them!


Here is a pancake, all dressed up and ready to go in my belly! A certain smaller Jennifer actually put a Clinker on her pancakes to see how it would go. These omnis are a crazy bunch, I tell you. ;)

The morning was spent on the beach. I applied many layers of thick sunscreen, layered up with clothes and headed down for a lovely 15 minutes on the sand. I then attempted to lead an inspired charge into the ocean, but the water was so cold that the three of us ran squealing out as soon as we were there! Despite our best attempts to coax ourselves back in, the thought of that cold water hitting our stomachs was just too great. So we settled for a swim in the pool instead. Or some of us did. Little Jen sat on the edge and would not come in, but Big Jen and I had a lovely time doing some synchronised swimming (I'm a flower!) and aqua-aerobics!


Soon our bellies called to us again, so we headed up for lunch. Whenever Big Jen and I are at each other's houses, we love a lunch of fresh rolls with avocado, green leafies, tomatoes and hummus! I had also made a batch of Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad from Veganomicon and brought down some left over Red Flannel Cole Slaw from Vegan Planet.


Behold, a delicious lunch plate!


Afterwards we decided we need to do a bit of shopping. This is our list. Unfortunately, we did not come across any houses to buy for ourselves and the convenience store was fresh out of ponies for me! Hee. On the way back we stopped off at a potential place for dinner to see if they could do a vegan dinner for me. I spoke to the chef, who was adorably flummoxed but the idea of vegan and all the things he couldn't use (I did point out that there are far more vegan ingredients in the world). But he said by the time we came back tonight, he would have conjured something up for me!

Which will be in my next post! I have a lot of photos to share, and it seemed all a bit too long to cram into one post. So stay tuned to see the incredibly cute dinner I was given!

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


Dim Sim, looking small and black and just perfect. She really is my little black pixie princess! *snorgle*