マッドクラブ

11月15日（日）快晴

直訳すると泥蟹。マングローブ蟹とも呼ばれます。和名はノコギリガザミ。インド洋の熱帯、亜熱帯に生息。波の静かな内湾、汽水域、マングローブの根元、干潟に巣穴を掘り、昼間はそこに潜み、夜間活動し貝類を捕食。貝を割るために強力な鋏を持ちます。第5脚は遊泳脚。ケアンズには観光客向けの「魚釣り＋蟹採り」ツアーがあります。餌を入れたカゴを沈めて採ります。味は濃厚で美味ですが、殻が硬い上に身に汁気が多いので服が汚れます。

世界の蟹（ベトナムの泥蟹もあります)

.......................................................................................................................................

Mud crabs
Sun. November 15 : fine

In a literal translation they are crabs made of mud. They are also called mangrove crabs. They are called “saw swimming crab” in Japan. They live in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of Indian Ocean. They dig holes on the calm-waved coves, brackish waters or mangrove bases, hide there during daytime and come out to catch shells at night. They have strong scissors to cut shells. Their fifth legs are swimming legs. There is “Fishing and mud crab catching” tour for tourists in Cairns. You catch them by sinking the pots with bait in them. They are rich and delicious but you may stain your clothes because the shell is quite hard and the meat is very juicy.

crabs in the world

バラマンディー

11月14日（土）快晴

OZが1番好きな魚。体長2m、体重60kgに達する熱帯域に住む大型肉食魚。豪州北部では湖、川、海を往復しながら生活。成長が早いので養殖もされています。小魚を捕食する性質がありルアー釣りの対象魚として人気抜群。各地でバラマンディー釣り大会が開催されます。ケアンズにも日本から沢山の釣り人がやって来ます。癖のない白身の上品な魚としてムニエル、フライ、ソテーなど色々の料理に利用されます。焼き魚、煮魚、刺身派の僕には上品過ぎて口に合わない魚です。

ダーウィンのバラマンディー

.......................................................................................................................................

Barramundis
Sat. November 14 : fine

They are the kind of fish that OZs like best. They are big carnivorous fish that lives in tropical area and they become 2m long and 60kg. In northern Australia they live moving among lakes, rivers and seas. As they grow fast they are breed as well. They have the nature of chasing to catch small fish so they are very popular as the target of lure fishing. Barramundi fishing contests are held in many parts of the country. A lot of Japanese come to Cairns for fishing. They are used to cook in meuniere, fried, soute or other various kinds of dishes. I am the man who likes grilled fish, boiled fish and sashimi so they are too sophisticated for me.

barramundi in Darwin

フィッシュ・アンド・チップス

11月13日（金）晴時々雨

英国生まれの、労働者のためのファースト・フード。タラやカレイやオヒョウなどの白身魚を小麦粉と卵の衣をつけて揚げ、棒状に細切りしたジャガイモを揚げて添えたもの。ロンドンで注文すると新聞紙に包んで渡されることがあり、冷たくなると生臭くなることがありますが、豪州でそのような経験はありません。カロリーが高いので僕は滅多に食べませんが、食べるなら白身魚ではなくサバやサワラのような青味魚を揚げてもらいます。

アラスカのオヒョウと鮭と蟹

.............................................................................................................................................

Fish and chips
Fri. November 13 : fine

This is the fast food for labors originally from the United Kingdom. It is deep-fried white-meat fish such as cods, flukes or halibuts in batter with stick-cut potato fry. If you order it in London, you may be handed it wrapped with newspaper and when it becomes cold it smells fishy sometimes. But I have never had that kind of experience in Australia. I seldom eat it because it has too high calories. If I ate it, I wouldn’t order white-meat fish but bluish fish like mackerels or Spanish mackerel.

halibut, salmon and crab in Alaska

カレイの煮付け

11月12日（木）曇時々雨

豪州の魚は海水の組成が違うのか生臭さがほとんどありません。OZは魚をおろせないので魚屋には各種魚が切り身で並んでいます。1尾丸ごと買うと内蔵や鱗をきちんと処理してくれます。だからどんな魚でも、醤油、みりん、日本酒、砂糖、だし汁を混ぜた煮汁で10分間煮るだけで簡単に煮魚が完成します。魚種により美味いものも不味いものもありますが、生臭さくて食べられないということはありません。焼き魚はご近所に気兼ねしますが、煮魚なら大丈夫。

豪州はどんな魚もディープ・フライ

.......................................................................................................................................

Boiled flatfish
Thu. November 12 : fine

Australian fish rarely smells fishy and that might be because the composition of the sea water is different from Japan. OZs can’t handle fish so lots of slices of fish are displayed at fish stores. If you buy a whole fish they will hand it after cleaning and scaling. Therefore, you can easily cook boiled fish dishes just boiling it for 10 minutes in mixed soup of soy sauce, sweet sake, sake, sugar and stock liquid. Some kinds of fish are good and others are bad depends on species but none of them smell too fishy to eat. We always feel constraint in cooking grilled fish but we don’t need to worry about cooking boiled fish.

all fish is deep-fried in Australia

アトランティック・サーモン

11月11日（水）晴

豪州は世界第3の広い漁業専管水域を持っていますが、漁獲量は55位。OZはほとんど魚を食べません。しかし近年ミナミマグロ、アトランティック・サーモン、アワビ、タイ、ブリ、ウナギ、イサキなどが輸出用に盛んに養殖されています。魚偏に11が2つ、日本では今日は「鮭の日」。豪州サーモンは脂が乗っているので日本ではサーモンとろの寿司ネタとして珍重されます。豪州では燻製やステーキにされます。刺身用も出回っています。

豪州アワビ

..........................................................................................................................................

Atlantic salmon
Wed. November 11 : fine

Australia has the third widest fishery ground in the world but the catch of fish is on the 55th. OZs rarely eat fish. Recently, however, they have eagerly raised southern blue fin tunas, Atlantic salmons, abalones, breams, yellow tails, eels, pig fish and other kind of fish to have them export. Chinese character for salmon “鮭”consists of “魚” or fish on the left-hand side and “圭” or two elevens on the right-hand side, so today is “salmon day”. Australian salmon contains a lot of fat and people appreciate it as the gradient of sushi, fatty salmon in Japan. In Australia it is used for making smoked fish or steak. You can also buy the fresh meat for sashimi.

Australian abalone

長物に懲りてナマズを食う

11月10日（火）晴

先日ウナギをおろしていたら砕けた背骨が飛んで右目を直撃。破片が目の奥に入り込んだらしく、眼瞼をひっくり返して洗眼をしてもとれません。目を動かすと激痛が走り、そのうちに頭痛も出現。一般医を受診しても1-2時間待たされて「死ぬような病気じゃないよ」と紹介状をくれるくらい。鎮痛剤と鎮静剤を服用し、腫れ上がった右目を湿布して12時間眠ったら翌朝異物は消えていました。早速ウナギはレシピから削除。土用も牛肉かナマズで我慢します。欧米ではウナギもナマズも食べます。

羹に懲りずたこ焼きを食う

豪州ナマズ

.........................................................................................................................................

A burnt child dreads the fire
Tue. November 10 : fine

The other day when I was cleaning an eel the small fragment of the backbone jumped into my right eye. It seems that the fragment has dived into the back of my eye. I repeated vainly washing my eye turning my eye lid inside out but it didn’t help. I felt an acute pain when I moved my eye balls and then started to have a headache as well. Even if I had visited my general doctor, he should had said “It’s nothing to make you die.” and written a letter of introduction after waiting for 1 or 2 hours. I took some painkiller and sedative, put the wet compress on my swelling right eye, slept for 12 hours and found that the foreign body had gone next morning. I immediately deleted all eel cuisine from my recipe. I will accept beef or catfish instead of eel on midsummer. People eat eels and catfish in Western countries.

A burnt child likes octopus balls

Australian catfish

鬼おろし

11月9日（月）晴

竹でできた大根おろし。大根は金気を嫌います。おろすと言うよりは削るに近く、おろす際にあまり水分が出ないので材料に含まれる旨みや栄養分も失われません。程良い粗さで水っぽくなく素材の歯ごたえも残っているので素材本来の旨みを堪能できます。などと言われると少し気をそそられ、そのうちにどうしても買い求めたくなる性分。合羽橋で先月、980円で購入。だけど結構扱いにくい。好奇心、信じて疑わず、苦労して調理することが美味しい食事を作るコツかな？

八甲田おろし

...........................................................................................................................................

Bamboo grater
Mon. November 9 : fine

It is a radish grater made of bamboo. Radishes don’t taste good when using an iron grater. It’s shaving rather than grading, so the juice doesn’t seat so much and you don’t lose the flavor or nutrition. It makes good grain of grated radish because it doesn’t absorb too much juice and remains crisp, so you can enjoy the original taste of the food itself. Bing explained like this, I am the man who must go buy one. I’ve bought $13 one at Kappabashi last month. It is a little hard to handle, though. The tip of cooking nice meal is to have a curiosity, to believe everything and to cook with toil.

west wind from Mt Hakkoda

オランダたこ焼き

11月8日（日）雨

ホームセンターで220Vのたこ焼き機を発見。外箱に「ダッチ・パンケーキ・メーカー」と書かれた中国製で2500円。オランダのパンケーキのパンネンクーケンはクレープですから、これはれっきとしたたこ焼きプレート。あるいはベビーカステラ焼き用なのでしょうか？早速たこ焼きに挑戦。しかしケアンズではイイダコは売っていますが蛸足は手に入りません。イカで我慢します。干しエビ、天カス、青海苔、紅ショウガ、竹串などをアジア食材店で調達。外はカリッと焼け、中身がとろり。ハフハフ、満足の一品でした。

宇宙たこ焼き

岩を買う

...........................................................................................................................................

Dutch octopus balls
Sun. November 8 : rainy

I found the octopus ball cooker that works in 220V at the hardware store. It says “Dutch pancake maker” on the package, costs $35 and is made in China. Pannenkoeken, Dutch pancake is crepe so it’s obviously an octopus ball cooker. Or it may be the baby castella cooker? After long, I tried making octopus balls. However, you cannot get octopus legs but an ocellated octopus in Cairns. I accepted squid instead. I got some dried shrimps, tempura shred, fine dried sea weed, red pickled ginger and bamboo spits at the Asian grocery store. The outside of the octopus balls was crunchy and the inside was soft and thick. Hot and yam, that was something I was fully satisfied.

space octopus ball

buying rocks

熱帯雨林のブランコ

11月7日（土）快晴

ケアンズには2つの世界遺産があります。グレートバリアリーフは小さな珊瑚が数万年をかけて巨大化した全長2000kmの地球最大の生命体。それは8000種の生物に住処を提供し、二酸化炭素を吸収し酸素を供給します。暖かい海水は蒸発して雲となり、熱帯雨林に雨を降らせます。熱帯雨林には豪州の哺乳類種の3分の1、鳥類の2分の1、淡水魚の3分の1が確認されています。20万種類以上の植物が作り出す滋養分は川を流れて珊瑚海に注ぎ、グレートバリアリーフを育みます。

熱帯雨林

.........................................................................................................................................

Swing in the tropical rain forest
Sat. November 7 : fine

There are two world heritages in Cairns. Great Barrier Reef is the 2000km-long biggest organism on earth that has grown in scale from the small coral in several thousands of years. It gives homes to 8,000 different kinds of lives, absorbs carbon dioxide and provides oxygen. The sea water vapors to make clouds and that causes rain onto the tropical rain forests. In the tropical rain forest one third of mammals, half of birds and one third of fresh water fish of that live in Australia are found. The nutrition that is made by more than 200,000 different kinds of plant flows down into Coral Sea through the rivers and that raises Great Barrier Reef.

tropical rain forest

ペーパーバーク

11月6日（金）晴時々雨

ケアンズ北部には沢山のビーチがあり、そのほとんどの海岸通の街路樹は椰子の木。しかしパームコーブは、名前が「椰子の入り江」なのに街路樹はペーパーバーク。ユーカリの仲間で樹皮がティッシュペーパーのように薄く次々とはがれます。パームコーブの300mの海岸通りには直径3mもあるペーパーバークの巨木がずらりと並んでいます。伐採は禁止されているのでホテルもレストランも店内に巨木が生えています。

ペーパーバーク

............................................................................................................................................

Paper Bark
Fri. November 6 : fine occasionally rainy

There are a lot of beaches on the north of Cairns and most of the roadside trees of their Esplanade are palms. Despite of the name, Palm Cove its roadside trees are Paper Barks. They are a family of Eucalyptus and their skins peel off thinly and continuously like tissue papers. The huge trees of Paper Barks with their 3m diameter line up on the 300m long Esplanade in Palm Cove. As cutting them down is prohibited huge trees are standing in the building of hotels and restaurants there.

Paper Bark

旅人もおだてりゃ木に登る

11月5日（木）快晴

旅人の木は扇状に広がった葉が夜露を集めて扇の要に雨水を溜めるので、旅人に非常用飲料として利用されるそうです。マダガスカル島原産。成長の早い木なので熱帯のケアンズでは大木になり、喉の渇いた旅人は10mくらい木登りをしないと水を飲めません。一見すると椰子の仲間に見えますが、葉や苞の形からバナナの仲間と分かります。手入れをすると美しい形に育つので装飾樹として利用されます。

旅人の木

.............................................................................................................................................

Travelers sometimes climb a tree
Thu. November 5 : fine

Traveler’s Trees gather the night dew with their fanwise leaves and store it in their pivots, so the travelers use the water as emergency drinks. They are originally from Madagascar Island. As they grow quickly they turn into quite tall tress easily in tropic Cairns. So, a thirsty traveler has to climb almost 10m to drink the water. At the first glance they look like the members of coconut family but you can define them the members of banana family by looking at the shape of their leaves and bracts.

Traveler’s Trees

ヘリコニア

11月4日（水）快晴

僕のアパートの北門の花壇にヘリコニア・カリバエアが咲きました。ヘリコニアは花（花を包む苞）の形がオウムの嘴に似ているので和名が「オウムバナ」。中南米原産の熱帯性植物。多くの亜種があり、そのほとんどが大型で派手な花を咲かせます。20cmほどの赤い鮮やかな嘴状の花が10-20個交互に連なって咲くので花列の長さが1m以上にもなります。大型で華やかな花なので花壇に列植したり、生け花に利用されます。

ヘリコニア

.......................................................................................................................................

Heliconia
Wed. November 4 : fine

Heliconia Caribaea bloomed on the flower bed beside the north gate of our apartment. As the shape of Heliconia’s flower (actually it’s a bract) is alike to the parrot’s bill, it’s called “Parrot Flower” in Japan. It’s a tropical plant originally from Latin America. There are a lot of subspecies and most of them have big and gaudy flowers. The bill-shaped 20cm-long red fresh flowers bloom lining 10-20 alternately and the length of the flower line reach more than 1m long. The pollen is carried by Sunbirds and Fruit Bats. In Cairns they are raised outdoors and used for arranging flowers.

Heliconia

極楽鳥花

11月3日（火）快晴

ケアンズの住民の多くは、ケアンズは極楽だと信じています。極楽とは幸福に満ちた地。OZはブラジル人と並んで、我こそは世界一幸福な国民と信じています。極楽鳥はパプアニューギニアに住む極彩色で求愛のダンスをする鳥。ケアンズ周辺にも亜種がいます。極楽鳥花は南アフリカが原産の極彩色の花。意外と寒さに強くシドニーでも露地栽培が可能。生け花にも利用されます。旅人の木やヘリコニアの仲間も同じような花を咲かせます。どれもバナナと同じく芭蕉の仲間で、花は苞に包まれています。

極楽鳥花

.....................................................................................................................................

Paradise Bird Flower
Tue. November 3 : fine

Most of the habitants in Cairns believe that Cairns is a paradise. A paradise is the place where is full of happiness. Just like Brazilians OZs believe that they are the happiest people in the world. Paradise Birds are richly colored birds that live in Papua New Guinea and dance for their courting. There are some subspecies of them near Cairns, too. Paradise Bird Flowers are richly colored flowers originally from South Africa. Unexpectedly, they are strong against coldness so you can raise them outdoors even in Sydney. They are used for arranging flowers, too. Traveler’s Trees and Heliconia’s families have similar flowers. All of them are in banana family and the flowers are wrapped by the bract.

Paradise Bird Flower

テーブルランドの大朝食

11月2日（月）曇一時雨

エスプラネード（海岸通り）を散歩していると朝からBBQをしているグループやカフェでビッグ・ブレックファーストを食べている人を多く見かけます。ジョッギングや散歩をしている人も肥満者が多く、体重が100kgを超える人も珍しくありません。OZの65%は肥満者。肉、乳製品、砂糖、食用油の摂取量は日本人の5倍。僕は1ヶ月に1回くらいビッグ・ブレックファーストを食べます。美味ですが熱量は軽く1000キロカロリー超。

コアラ園の大朝食

.........................................................................................................................................

Big breakfast at Table Land
Mon. November 2 : cloudy occasionally rainy

Walking Esplanade I see groups of people who are enjoying BBQ in the morning or lots of people who are having big breakfast. I see so many fat people who are jogging or walking and some of them are more than 100kg heavy. 65% 0f OZs are obese individuals. OZs’ intake of meat, dairy products, sugar and oil is as 5 times as Japanese. I have big breakfast about once a month. It tastes good but the calorie goes over 1000kcal easily.

big breakfast at Koala Zoo

プールサイド結婚式

11月1日（日）曇一時雨

日焼け防止のため毎日プールで泳ぐのは夕方5時過ぎ。しかし今日は結婚式があるので水泳は断念。プールサイドに10脚の円形テーブルと80脚の椅子。ポートダグラスの教会で挙式後こちらに移動。夕方5時半から披露宴開始。参加者はカジュアルな服装で、短パン姿も目立ちます。一部の正装の女性たちもハイヒールを脱いで裸足。飲食はケータリング・サービス。生バンドも演奏しています。祝辞も乾杯もないまま立ち飲みを続け、8時に着席して食事開始。途中で何度かにわか雨が降りましたが熱気は冷めません。

ポートダグラスの教会

...........................................................................................................................................

Pool side wedding
Sun. November 1 : cloudy occasionally rainy

I swim after 5 o’clock in the afternoon everyday in order to prevent getting sunburn. But I needed to give up swimming since there was a wedding party. They put 10 round tables and 80 chairs at the pool side. After the cerebration at the church in Port Douglas they moved to here. The party started from 5:30pm. Most attendants are wearing casually and some of them are in short pants. A few women fully dressed take off their high-heels and are bare foot. The food and drinks are catered. There is some live music, too. Without giving any congratulatory speeches or having a toast they keep standing and drinking, and finally they sit and start their dinner at 8:00pm. Even though some shower attacked several times, they keep riding high.

the church in Port Douglas