Friday, December 22, 2006
From Lone Cabbage swamp to North Palm Beach...
After hanging around a few days with Lynn and Chris, enjoying life and good company between cycling around the Melbourne area, mending and tuning our bikes, boating on the river and patting sweet fish-breathed manatees, we went on a typically floridian (so we hear) air boat ride through Lone Cabbage swamp. And I didn't make up the name! Apparently it comes from the name of a palm tree, although I prefer to think of a lone cabbage riding in the distance on a horse, whistling the song of the lonesome cabbage...
Anyway, we saw some alligators, but there are no photos to prove it so you'll have to trust us on that one.
Then we decided we were hungry, so Louis wrestled with a couple of fierce beteethed reptiles, did them a few Qin-na he learnt at his seminar last week and we took them back to Lone cabbage restaurant (!) to fry in the traditional american batter. Yup! No joke...Well, maybe you shouldn't trust us on that one, but we did taste some alligator tail fried in batter, which IS served at Lone Cabbage retaurant... well I guess it depends on the way it's cooked, but alligator is kind of chewy and not particularly interesting.
The air boat
The rest of our Gator Tail basket
Arriving at Terry's in North palm Beach
Terry is a Warmshower host. He's also a ranger in John D. MacArthur park on the East coast of Florida and lives in what he'd call a modest shack on the beach, which is in fact a really nice house on stilts on the banks of the estuary.
Incidentally there is also a pier or dock in the vicinity of the house, where we have tried out our talents of fisherman/woman today. Well it was quite an experience, and I don't really know what to think about fishing apart from it's a good way to pass an afternoon and also a very good axcuse for a beer whilst at the same time pretending to be exercising a "sport"
A moon fish. He was actually caught in the net we threw in for bait, but we threw him back in the water.
Anyway, we saw some alligators, but there are no photos to prove it so you'll have to trust us on that one.
Then we decided we were hungry, so Louis wrestled with a couple of fierce beteethed reptiles, did them a few Qin-na he learnt at his seminar last week and we took them back to Lone cabbage restaurant (!) to fry in the traditional american batter. Yup! No joke...Well, maybe you shouldn't trust us on that one, but we did taste some alligator tail fried in batter, which IS served at Lone Cabbage retaurant... well I guess it depends on the way it's cooked, but alligator is kind of chewy and not particularly interesting.
The air boatThe rest of our Gator Tail basket
Arriving at Terry's in North palm Beach
Terry is a Warmshower host. He's also a ranger in John D. MacArthur park on the East coast of Florida and lives in what he'd call a modest shack on the beach, which is in fact a really nice house on stilts on the banks of the estuary.
Incidentally there is also a pier or dock in the vicinity of the house, where we have tried out our talents of fisherman/woman today. Well it was quite an experience, and I don't really know what to think about fishing apart from it's a good way to pass an afternoon and also a very good axcuse for a beer whilst at the same time pretending to be exercising a "sport"
A moon fish. He was actually caught in the net we threw in for bait, but we threw him back in the water.
