James Oppenheim’s blog

I heard the legend, I drooled at the description, I pondered my manliness, I had to try the famous, no wait, infamous Cathedral burger at the Igloo Roadhouse. Kym did not take much convincing. The lure of a road trip with greasy food was easily enough to bait her hook, line and sinker. After all, she is a fun loving girl! But more accurately she did not want to feel like she was missing out on my adventure to validate myself, and anyway, she could always point and laugh if I failed.

So off we went: zooming down the Maroondah Highway; coasting through the Yarra Valley and the obligatory Hot Air Balloons; salivating through Healesville at the thought of the almighty burger; winding through the Black Spur and the trees that make you feel two feet tall; and finally speeding into Buxton in an attempt to stop our hungrily grumbling stomaches.

So there we were standing outside the Igloo Roadhouse in Buxton, a little overwhelmed at the gravity of the situation and what we were about to attempt. Carefully entering the esteemed establishment, both Kym and I took a while to take in our surroundings. Like a predator stalking its pray we stealthy glided up to the counter to order, ‘one Buxton Burger and a Cathedral thanks’. Silence… Maybe us city slickers cannot be in these parts. As I mustered up the valour to ask again we heard ‘nice one mate!’ from the cook behind the counter as the kitchen began to fill up with smoke from the sizzling onion, egg and pineapple.

We had done it. We were waiting in a roadhouse for our destiny to appear from behind the glass counter. There were many questions, ‘will I pass out from an overload of mince?’, ‘what happens if my egg yoke oozes onto my fingers?’. When the two glorious specimens of Australian roadhouse dinning finally arrived there was no time to think. Instinct took over and we chowed down like it was 1959. Just one moment to digress if I may, for those uninitiated in the adventure sport of big burger eater to help overcome the shear girth of the three hamburger patties use both hands to squish it down like a pancake and leave the wooden skewer in as long as possible to avoid the inevitable rear end meat and salad explosion. Done, finished, my childhood dreams realised, all I could see now was a large plate where once the beast had been as I drifted in and out of consciousness in a haze of burger goodness.

Triumphantly leaving the roadhouse in a cloud of dust behind us from my 1989 Ford Laser we decided we needed to walk off the massive amount of grease we had just ingested. So we headed through the mist to the Cathedral Range State Park. Incidentally for those of us who love massive blocks of chainsaw carved tree trunks, Dean Smith Dancing Bear Sculptor is worth a visit, even if it is only a fleeting one. After an hour and a half an uphill hiking, we reached the Cathedral Peak to be meet by an amazing view of far reaching mountain plains and a valley soaked in mist. With our bellies full and our harts and minds rejuvenated we bounded back down the hillside and drove off to the Healesville pub for a rewarding beer and an end to a fantastic adventure.

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Technorati Tags: Burger, Hamburger, Igloo Roadhouse, Road trip, Cathedral Rangers, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 12:28 am and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.