Monthly Archives: February 2012

Gold Coast Survival Guide for Families on a Budget

Posted by Glutenfreewheeler on February 16, 2012 2 comments

It’s no secret the economy is in a volatile place – less of us are willing to slap the family holiday on credit like we might have in the past. Here are some tips for keeping the cash flow positive if you’re heading to the Gold Coast these Summer holidays.

Check in Early!
Flights in the school holidays sky rocket, get in quick. If you miss the boat on the flight front, you can always catch the train from Sydney – $124.50 each way for adults, $1 for kids and one child under 4 for free! Brace yourself for 16 hours though, and if your three year old just happens to succumb to motion sickness like mine did and vomits like a volcano during the first hour… well no one’s going to forget that adventure are they?
Think Theme Park
A little research will tell you that getting to the parks early and heading to the furthest ride first will get you a couple of rides in before the throng catches up. Check online before you leave for the best deals on packaged theme park tickets – not only will you save money, but you’ll get to sweet sweet queue jump at the start of the day when spirits are still salient. Be aware that many of the theme parks have a rule against people bringing their own food in – there are ways around this slugging for the financially astute – being a coeliac is one of the best.
Sleep Well
Unless you fancy bunkering down in the bathroom with the mini bar contents once the kids fall asleep, a separate room is invaluable – take a two-roomed apartment over a hotel room if you can. There’s no harm asking for a better deal directly from the source – we got $60 off the nightly rate at a fabulous place in the Gold Coast hinterland just by quoting our budget and… er… begging. Aqualine Apartments in Southport are great for families or if you’re after a 5 star hotel, the RACV Royal Pines has rates from $100 per night for multiple nights.
Dine Savvily
Look out for early dining deals – Sage in Surfers Paradise has gluten free options galore as well as offering 40% off food before 7pm – particularly consoling if your little tackers love to order but refuse to eat. Spurn average hotel restaurants – BBQ’s are a welcome antidote to the sensory exhaustion of the themeparks. Pick up some gf snags from the general store and savour the peace at the ‘locals beach’ in Miami. Or wander through the sculpture walk by the Gold Coast City Gallery and BBQ by the canal in Bundall. The hinterland also has some spectacular BBQ sites.
Window Shop
If you’re not checking in at the Palazzo Versace, you can still have a drink in one of their bars and soak up the opulence in the foyer. The Marina Mirage, nextdoor, is a great place for an evening stroll, check out the bezillion dollar yachts for sale and watch shoals of silver brim under the pier.

In the land of plastic fantastic, go further with your cheap skates on!

Travelled: October 2011

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Gluten Free in Uluru

Posted by Glutenfreewheeler on February 16, 2012 None comments

Being gluten free in Uluru was pretty easy for me as I was invited to the fabulous Longitude 131. It’s a super-luxury outback resort and having only 15 luxury two-person tents and charged at a (staggeringly high) all-inclusive rate, they pride themselves on catering to guests individually.

It was a sensational couple of days but aside from the food-on-tap scenario, ie., ‘Could we have a cheese plate and a glass of wine each please – we’ll be by the pool….’, the food is definitely not what Uluru is all about. And being so far from everything except the desert (even Alice Springs is a good 450km away), the ‘local produce’ is fairly limited.

NB – these crackers were not gluten free..

The permanent ‘tents’ have white, dramatically pulled ceilings, wooden floors and stylish furniture. Built on stilts, they wobble in the red earth when the wind blows. While the resort restaurant was great at providing gf meals, the tours provided by the resort were not so well-equipped – and when your tour starts at 4.20am and there are nothing but a few grapes between then and 11.30am, it’s noted!

We did stop once at ‘Sails in the Desert’ which is next down in the Uluru resort pecking order and it has a couple of restaurant options. I wasn’t enamoured with my thai curry but none of my fellow diners were impressed with their meal – I repeat – no one is there for the food!

As a travel experience, it feels pretty ‘rail-roaded’, with tours taking guests from resort doorstep to various points of interest and spoon-fed information, it’s more senior citizens bus trip than wilderness adventure. They do make a point of saying how dangerous it is to wander off though, apparently many people have died on and around the rock and even more at Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) where temperatures in the rock folds soar above 50°C. No doubt next time I’ll be roughing it – driving and camping; I wonder how different it will feel.

This was my heroic adventure – setting out to a knoll about 100 metres from our tent… maybe you knew this but things do grow in the desert and they’re scrubby, prickly things that make it tough going. I was excited to photograph this snake trail when I got there…. then I looked around and saw lots more and scooted back to my luxury tent like a frightened pony. Hard-arsed Aussie indeed.

A truly awe-inspiring place though and I was so so lucky to be able to go in such style – it’s not every morning you wake up to this:

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Finland Takes the Cake

Posted by Glutenfreewheeler on February 16, 2012 None comments

I poisoned myself in Finland. With blueberry soup. Ironic as Finland turned out to be the most gluten free-iendly place imaginable. Arriving on midsummers eve June 2010, we taxied into the glorious harbour city of Helsinki for a week. My two girls (aged 6 & 2) and I were thrilled by the Scandic Grand Marina Hotel with it’s play area in the restaurant and spirited feel, rare in such a big hotel. We strolled into the city after our first white night. Ach, I love travelling and was totally electrified – freewheeling in a foreign land post-childbirth, who would have thought?

Playgrounds and Moomin (Finnish children’s books) were not my only concerns for the trip though and I braced myself at Tourist Information that first morning, searching for the simplest way to explain my dietary requirements for restaurant recommendations. Spoilt by the fact that most Finns speak English, I launched into my spiel only to be interrupted by the young blond information officer ‘Are you a coeliac?’ he asked. I am. ‘So am I’ he said ‘Welcome to Finland – you can eat anywhere!’ Yep. An emotional moment – and he was right.

As if it’s a legal requirement (though it’s not) virtually every eating establishment in Finland provides gluten free meals – usually indicated by the heaven-sent ‘g’ on the menu. From the fancy Kamp Cafe (on “Pohjoisesplanadi”, the main Boulevard in Helsinki), which dispensed with the ‘g’s but assured that they could make anything on their menu gluten free; to McDonalds (We didn’t partake but apparently they have gluten free burgers); to the bistro on the train – can you believe it??? The bistro on the train!!!!! I could eat absolutely anywhere and didn’t have to bother anyone. The trains, I have to add, also have a special carriage for children complete with play area sporting a slide, a mini train (on the train…) and a bookshelf with books for kids to read on their journey. There’s also an enclosed area for feeding and changing young babies; space for people with pets; a designated smoking area; disabled access; an area for prams and another to hang your bike.

How lovely to walk into a cake shop and have 7 choices of cake, none of which looked like a crumbly poor-cousin to the gluten-full options. I love cake! Gluten free bread was baked daily in “Stockmann”, one of the main department stores amongst other places and there was generally not a Finn who hadn’t at least heard of gluten.

Finland as a country has a 2% confirmed coeliac rate. How much of this is due to an increased incidence of the disease versus increased testing is unknown. Certainly compared to surrounding Nordic countries and the rest of the world, Finland is well ahead in it’s gluten free awareness. The coeliac society of Finland (www.keliakialiitto.fi) hosts regular gluten free training courses for the Finnish catering industry which are hugely popular. Interestingly, a whopping 20% of the Finnish population reports some degree of lactose intolerance which is also reflected in their restaurants and supermarkets.

Helsinki centre is easy to explore on foot, the onion domed Uspenski and imposing Lutheran Cathedrals are striking and useful landmarks, though at the end of a long day’s sightseeing, the rattly tram network came in very handy. English is spoken widely in Finland, we did learn Finnish for thank you, ‘kittos’, and our favourite foreign phrase of all time ‘hopi hopi’ often heard now on our school run, it translates roughly as ‘hurry up let’s go!’.

We were lucky enough to have friends who lived about an hour out of Helsinki. Their idyllic pastel coloured wooden house was surrounded by wildflowers and we ate on the perpetually sunlit deck; reindeer with cranberries followed by cloud berry jam with Juustoleipä cheese (like a non-salty but still-squeaky dessert version of halloumi which I can’t find anywhere in Australia). Divine. So exciting to experience totally new foods in a totally new place. I had to consciously stop myself smiling before I went to sleep.

Scandinavia has a reputation for being expensive. I expected the hotels and food to be at least up there with London prices but found it (especially the accommodation) to be much cheaper. Taxis are very expensive but the trams are not and the trains were reasonable. Norway apparently administers the Scandinavian King hit for traveller finances these days.

Ah – but watch the blueberry soup on the breakfast buffet. I assumed it was straight-up blueberry puree but it is thickened with wheat flour. My mistake and it won’t happen again. I will be back to Finland though. Definitely worth a special pilgrimage for the gluten free. A magic land where good design, considered functionality and understated beauty are staple, and it seems everyone is catered for.

Time of Visit: June 2010

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Gluten Free in Tasmania

Posted by Glutenfreewheeler on February 16, 2012 None comments

With it’s isolated geography and remote locations, hunting for gluten free food in Tasmania can be daunting. There are some fabulous options and some scary non-options…

Hobart is the easiest place to get by, check out:

Ginger Brown Cafe in South Hobart which not only makes it’s own gluten free bread onsite but also has several gf cake options! Exciting times. Lovely retro, homespun vibe and also great for kids. Little peeps will love the oversized marshmallows anyone and toys – parents will love the relaxed service and highchairs. Located a couple of kilometres out of the city centre, Ginger Brown is near the Cascade Brewery.

Ginger Brown Cafe: 464 Macquarie Street, South Hobart

Another ‘neighborhood’ cafe, Citrus Moon in Kingston also bake their own gluten free bread, have many marked gf options on their menu and the cake options are plentiful – cozy and child friendly, it’s another easy place to wile away an afternoon.

Citrus Moon: 23 Beach Road, Kingston

http://www.citrusmoon.com.au/

The pretty city of Launceston was trickier although we didn’t have long there so I’m sure there are many more options – we did come across Salsa in the seaport area and as well as being delicious, the staff were well versed in the gf options (which were also marked) on their menu.

Salsa: 24 Seaport Boulevard, Launceston

http://www.salsatapaswinebar.com.au/

Gluten free dining in Waratah??? It’s a cute little backwater and a close-enough option if Cradle Mountain accommodation is full. We had a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) stay at the Waratah Hotel – if quirky, rundown, surly-served places are your thing, this is the place for you! I had asked when I made the booking weeks before whether being gf would be an issue and was assured it would be fine. However, when asked in person what they had that was gluten free, the barman went into the kitchen and came back a deadpan ‘Nothing’…. I suggested perhaps that the steak and some salad would be and they were happy to oblige – I ate the steak and then saw that the salad on the side included a hefty serve of pasta salad!!!! Quelle horreur!!

We did see platypus in the wild at Waratah though so it was all worth it..

Next door, the Scenic View Cafe was quaint and friendly (though not open for dinner!), they had gluten free bread and sausages and incidentally, also offer a rental cottage which sounded much more appealing than our room in the hotel (with no windows!).

Scenic View Cafe: 22 Main Street, Waratah (03) 6439 1147

Here is a cute Waratah residence;

As with a lot of remote options – getting somewhere self-catering and buying your own groceries is the safest bet – being able to eat out is a bonus.

Gluten free options on the West Coast Wilderness Railway and the Gordon River Cruise in Strahan were great as the tours were great but long and starvation never fun..