Wine glorious wine

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So the day's here! I'm up bright and early and headed over to the coffee shop for a latte to line my stomach ready for the wine tasting.

Phone rings - 'Hey Adele, sorry to do this but I've had to cancel today's wine tour. Hope you can make it tomorrow!'

GAH! No I can't - I'm off to Perth tomorrow. You're kidding me right?

'No, sorry! Go to the tourist info centre and they'll refund you'.

I'm crying into my latte. The one day I can do this tour and it's off. Insufficient numbers. What am I going to do?

I ran to the visitor centre and begged for my life - was there anyway of squeezing onto another tour? And guess what....

Woohoo! Bushtucker Tours squeezed me onto their tour and picked me up just 5 minutes later, and what a stroke of luck that turned out to be. Because it was just the best tour with the best group of people I could have hoped for. A real turn up for the books.

There was me, an American girl Shoshana, the Cambridge twins Lorna and Sophie, the retirees Ivan and Jackie, the newlyweds Tamara and Corey, and the latecomers (missed the first bit of the tour due to going to visit Prevelly) Moira and Andrew. And our tour guides Linda (who looked like a Jackie - confusing when there was one already on board!) and Silvano, an Italian-Aussie.

We headed to the first vineyard where our tasting lessons began. We had 8 wines, in small but decent measures, of white, red, port and dessert wine, the equivalent to about 2 full glasses of wine. At 11am, this was a sign of things to come. A heavy day's drinking for all of us! There were spitoons available but you know how it is....

Second vineyard brought much of the same, this time with bubbles thrown in too. Our host told us he's studying the art of winemaking at university here. I mean, that's some degree course! And then working in the vineyard the rest of the time. Why didn't I know about that degree back in 1996?! Mind you, never too late to learn...

We had lunch here - a lovely buffet of cheese, meat for the meat-eaters and salad. We were told to line our stomachs....which we dutifully did. Next came a brewery (5 sample beers), another vineyard (lots more wine), the cheese factory (I denied all knowledge of me being there only the day before), another vineyard (expensive wines, very generously poured) and then the chocolate factory. I guess I had about 40 wines all day. My head told me much the same, and the banter on the coach started reaching record decibels as we all piled off at our respective lodgings. A pact was made - to head to the only realy pub in town, Settlers, in 2 hours' time. The only way to stave off our hangovers which were already beginning to kick in.

Of those that made the pact, just the 4 of us single girls rocked up but that's all we needed. We had a scream - pool sharking, having a few beers and having a laugh with my previously-mute roomies. It was a fundraising night for the people of Prevelly in the pub that night and judging by how busy it was, I guess they raised a lot of money which was great.

About half a dozen pints later I was done - to the point of being unable to finish the last one. I said a fond goodbye to the three girls who I'd only just met but who I'd begun to get to know. It's such a shame in this travelling lark that you meet such great people and then have to move on so quickly. Then again, you do tend to make the most of your time together - which in our cases was hustling at pool and drinking far too much, not to mention flirting with the seriously good looking male population on display. I wonder what happened after I left...I guess I'll never know! All I do know is that tomorrow's drive home is looking painful....hangover beckons!

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