Hunter Valley

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Relieved that we managed to sort out our tight schedule for touring Australia, we were back at work for another week with a slight skip in our step, dreaming of our upcoming travelling.

On Monday after work I headed into town to pay the remainder of our bill with the travel agency. Banks in Australia not only charge for the simplist of bank accounts, they also make it extremely difficult for customers to withdraw anything over $1000 in any 24 hour period. Despite having internet and telephone banking with them, and asking permission for a larger EFTPOS payment, I was advised that the only way I could withdraw $1500 was by going into a bank. With banking hours here of 9.30 to 4.30 this is extremely difficult for the percentage of the population working 9-5 nowhere near a local branch.

Monday was however my lucky day, the boss was off and I managed to sweet talk one of the guys at work to drive me to the nearest bank so that I could withdraw the money. After careful scrutiny over my bank card, passport and UK driving license I finally had access to my money!!

Sitting on the bus with our tickets firmly in hand, the prospect of travelling again seemed so much more real and exciting. We were finally getting somewhere after what seemed like weeks of talking about it.

Gary somehow also managed to drop our flat keys down the shaft of a lift. He claims the door sensors didn't work and it shut on him making him drop them, but he was probably just careless. The security guard of the building he was at (a lawyers in town) was from Cornwall and helped him retrieve them free of charge as he said he was loyal to the Celtic Nations, of which some people from Cornwall are obviously still partiotic about. It worked out well for Gary anyway!!

Hockey Night

Our Canadian friends were beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from the lack of Ice Hockey publicised or televised in Australia. After a few googling sessions, Megan discovered that one of the bars in North Sydney organised a Hockey night once a month, replaying the recent games downloaded off the internet. So we arranged to head over to the bar on Wednesday night for a few drinks to cheer on the Flames.

Gary and myself are now Calgary Flames fans, apparently if you are introduced to a new sport it is custom to become a supporter of the person who introduced you to the sports team!! Well so Stew liked to believe.

The bar was really nice although I think that Gary, myself and the bar staff were the only non Canadians. Many fans were sporting their teams colours, and in fact one individual slipped outside for a couple of minutes between games and changed his shirt for the next game. Very strange!! Megan and Stew seemed to really enjoy the game especially the final score of 4-3 to Calgary. An impressing turn around considering they were 3-0 down after 3 minutes. Needless to say their goal keeper was taken off in the 4th minute.

By the end of the game we were beginning to understand the rules of this very fast sport. We kept an eye out for the hillarious fights between players that Stew had told us so much about. Unfortunately for the boys this was a relatively clean game, with no major fist fights, perhaps next time boys.........

Hunter Valley

Megan and myself were getting extremely excited about Hunter Valley and decided in order to make the most of the sampling fine wines we should get an early night for the 6am rise in the morning. However the boys decided otherwise, and began knocking back the boxes of goon (horrible stuff), and after 5 times of hearing 'one more before bed' Gary finally fell into bed adamant that he he was not drunk and that he would be able to get up at 6am the following morning without a hangover!!!

On the alarm bell I was up and in the shower, giving Gary a few more minutes of peace before I decided to wake him. After getting dressed there was still no movement from any of the others so I began to make lots of noise around the flat, there was no way I was going to be missing our bus. The poor guys were still drunk I'm sure, which was probably the only reason that they made it out of the door and to the bus stop!! Megan and myself found it quite amusing, knowing fine well that the hangovers would soon hit in!! hehe!!

Arriving at Central Station in plenty of time for the Rovers bus, we became disheartened when the bus driver told us that we had not been booked onto the bus, and that he was not allowed to take any more passengers. Being turned to the back of the queue and told to wait in the event that another passenger did not turn up, did not go down too well!! According to the bus driver it is quite common for the YHA to forget to book passengers onto the Rovers bus. Thankfully we managed to get onto the bus and I enjoyed the scenery out of the window as the others caught up on a little sleep!!!

Arriving at the Hunter Valley YHA was so peaceful!! The scenery was beautiful, and the hostel reminded me of little log cabins. As we waited for the tour guide we soaked in the calm atmosphere of the hunter valley and wished that we had booked in for the night!! Think the boys were beginning to feel a little groggy at this point so helped themselves to a few headache tablets to alleviate the pain!! 😊

Our tour group was of mixed ages and nationalities. Most of the people on the bus were up for a good laugh, however there is always one in the group, and this was a cranky middle aged English guy who thought that every wine was disgusting, never finished his glass and screwed up his face after every taste!! A very annoying character who gave us something to laugh at as the day went on!! We were unsure if he was a snobby wine connoisseur or just a pretentious idiot, either way he wasn't much fun.

We visited two wineries before lunch, stopped at the Hunter Valley Gardens for lunch followed by cheese tasting and two more wineries in the afternoon. All the wineries visited were small family run wineries, which was much better as the tour seemed to be conducted on a much more personal level.

Tinklers was our first stop, which had the most gorgeous black labrador guarding the door and greeting visitors. We managed to restrict ourselves to one bottle of wine on the way out the door!! Second winery was Rosemount, where we were serenaded by one of the workers with a great voice. Megan and Stew are big fans of Rosemount back home so we left the second winery with another two bottles of wine!! So far so good!!

Lunch was not included in the tour, however a table was booked at the Hunter Valey Gardens for us with 20%!d(MISSING)iscount off all food and drink!! The food itself was ok but rather over priced for the quantity and quality of food on the plate. As with most of these tours, the choice of places to eat, outwith our control, is rather limited!! After lunch we had a quick stop off for some cheese tasting at the smelly cheese company.

The third winery was Draytons, which tragically had an explosion earlier in the year, losing the owner and a welder. There was still evidence of the tragedy, however they had constructed a temporary cellar door to allow them to continue trading while reconstruction is under way. This seemed a very popular winery with many groups of people, including a hen party, providing us with some half time entertainment. We tried over 10 different wines so by the time we came out we were all quite merry. They also had a special offer on which Gary could not resist, returning to the bus with a case of 12 bottles of wine, and Stew with a bottle of Port!!

The last winery for the day was The Hanging Tree owned by a lovely couple. Rumour has it that years gone by a number of bushrangers met their demise at a tree on the property, hence the name of the property. The owners are more horse people, wine making was something that came with the property. The man himself is a horse whisperer so between the different wines he entertained us with some interesting stories!! Despite apparantly being an ex-surfer and an ex-beer hound, he looked like a proper Aussie character from the bush and definitely one of the most interesting locals we have met in Australia. The land was beautiful and I even managed to get a look at the horses in the Paddock!! Their red wine was amazing, probably the nicest red of the day which is no wonder why they won awards for it last year. After all our purchases of the day we decided not to buy any here and headed off back to the YHA in time for our bus back to Sydney.

We lay low the rest of the night and on Sunday ended up heading into town where Gary conveniently re-routed us by Harry's Cafe De Wheels at Central for a grub stop. After hitting Paddy's Market and the internet, we headed back to the flat and il vino did flow for the rest of the night. We didn't regret any of the wine we'd bought as it all ended up tasting great!!

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Photos

Gary
Catching up on some sleep on the way to Hunter Valley

Stew
Trying to sleep on the way home!!

Paddock
At the Hanging Tree!!