Northern Beaches of Sydney

Saturday after Jimmy's baseball game we headed down to Sydney. One of Jimmy's mate's was having a 30th birthday party at a local pub. And yes I said mate.. Im picking up their lingo and I like it :) We first saw blacksmith's beach which was on our way to Sydney and it was really nice and we had lunch there. We stayed at Jimmy's parents house and had a nice dinner and then went to the birthday party. We woke up Sunday morning and got ready for a long day of touring the beaches.. tough life I know! We went to Palm Beach first which has a Lighthouse that sits on top of a mountain and has a trail leading up to it. We hiked up to the Lighthouse and wow was it a journey! I had no idea what I was in for. 350 feet up this mountain with a steep pathway almost the entire time. I thought I was going to die, but once I got to the top I was glad I did it and the view was spectacular. As you all know I am not the outdoorsy type of girl but I think I did pretty well, Merd is my proof! We continued to see a few more beaches and I of course took a lot of photos. One really cool thing is they have pools at a lot of their beaches that is actually filled with ocean water. This one we saw has two sides one more for kids and is pretty shallow and another side that is more deep. I thought it was a great idea and how nice would that be to have one at home. Take a look.. The beach pool Another shot of the pool We actually walked on these rocks Stairs leading to the Lighthouse Halfway to the Lighthouse View from the Top 350ft high Just to show you how high up this is

Just for you, MOM

So when I posted the blog about the Gold Coast I spared everyone some details for your sake just because I was being nice. However, mom feels I should share with everyone so I will ;) Our first night on the Gold Coast at our hotel the Break Free Aruba Beach.. Merd and I made it a kind of quiet night. When we got back to the hotel around 10:30 or so all we wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch some tv or a movie or something. The couch was seriously un-comfortable so Merd say's, "Jill do you think this is a pull out couch!?" I said probably so we took the cushions off to check it out. We were going to make a comfy bed and relax. There was a large brown sheet covering so we thought maybe it wasn't a pull out couch.. once we figured out how to remove the brown covering, woo hoo it is a pull out! We unfold the first part and the legs are on the ground but Im sure you all know the mattress never follows the legs and is still bent in half. Both of us grab the mattress to pull it down and there are two blood stains on the mattress. I couldn't resist saying my first thought aloud, "Apparently someone was murdered on our couch!" It was sooooo gross and we were so disgusted we quickly put the couch back together and pretended like it never happened. But of course before we left I had to take pictures of it! Here you go Looks normal right? Just ugly... Weird brown covering.. Figured out the covering... Pulling the legs down.. There you have it! Seriously disgusting!

Hunter Valley Wine Tasting

We returned from the Gold Coast on Thursday night and went wine tasting all day on Friday. Our driver picked us up around 9:30 AM and we drove to Hunter Valley about 45 minutes away. We were in a van with five others, two couples and one single guy. Ironically both the couples were from the US.. and quite interesting. We started off at a winery called Savannah Estate which is named after the owner's daughter who's only 12, must be nice! The lady that served us was pretty generous and we tasted about ten different wines and she had out cheese and crackers ;) We soon were off to another winery and again tasted at least 7 or 8 different wines. This particular winery which I can't even remember it's name had the most amazing view! Our tour driver told us that they had the best location of all the wineries in the Valley. Next we went to the Smelly Cheese factory and sampled a few different soft cheese's, they were ALL delicious! We also got gelato there and bought some cheese to take back to Jimmy's house. After that another winery.. we're up to 3 now, then to Hunter Valley gardens for lunch, which also had a winery and a chocolate tasting! Then we went to our last tasting which was mainly liqueors. They had some Chili Schnapps called Dragon's breath. Holy crap I can't believe I tried it. The server poured everyone some and said wait because we were all going to do it at the same time. Then he said don't sip it because it will burn your tongue.. he started counting 1...2... looked over at Merd and said, "well I guess she couldn't wait" and 3 everyone else. It was pretty funny! She had already tried it so she knew what she was in for but failed to let me know.. It was REALLY REALLY hot! Anyway we had a blast and had a lot of wine. We ended up buying 3 bottles and 1 bottle of Kilkenny Cream which is like Baileys. Very Very fun day! The view I was talking about Chilli Schnapps.. HOT! YUM Such a tourist.. signing the guest book! They were roaming around so we stopped to take pictures

Gold Coast

Wow has it been a busy week! We started with going to the Gold Coast on Tuesday which is in Queensland and we stayed in Broad Beach. Now I've been to two states in Australia! We flew out on Tuesday afternoon and when we arrived let me just tell you how nice the weather was! OH yeah and also when we got on and off the plane we literally walked outside and walked up a flight of stairs to get on the plane. When we got to our apartment/hotel it was nice, a bit on the older side but not bad. We went to dinner on Tues at a nice Italian place and had really good food. We were both wearing jeans and T-shirts and people were looking at us like we were insane! Because it is their winter over they are all bundled up even when it's only 70 degrees outside.. pathetic! Wednesday we shopped for about 5 hours but to my defense it was a HUGE mall! And we went out to Cavill Ave that night to a pub called O'Malley's and wathched the Rugby State of Origin. Basically there are three state of origin games through out the year and it's Queensland vs. New South Wales. Wed night was the final game of the three so it was fun to watch. Rugby is seriously intense and they all beat each other up. I LOVE IT! Thurs we just toured some more and flew back home. I snapped quite a few pics along the way here's a small glimpse. Our hotel Local Beach First night at Uno the Italian restaurant Our complimentary milk HAHA! Sweet, right?! Some really good people watching here! Surfer's Paradise

Fingal Bay

After Nelson Bay we continued driving and first we went up to the top of this hill that overlooked Nelson Bay, let me just say it's gorgeous! You could see everything it was really awesome. Then we went to Fingal Bay and I ate my first scallops and chips aka french fries. The scallops were really good, just a flat potato that's fried, how could it not be good right? We walked on the beach after our snack and again the sand is amazing. The sun came out for a few minutes but was behind clouds most of the time. I also saw a blue bottle which is essentially a small jelly fish. It was washed up on the shore and looked really cool, apparently they can be deadly, yikes! Tomorrow we are going to the Gold Coast for two nights, and rumor has it that it's going to be about 20 celsius.. about 70 I think so Im pretty thrilled about that. We'll put up some pictures when we get back. This is a picture overlooking Nelson Bay and Fingal Bay. Here is a Blue Bottle that I was talking about. It seems as though some had washed up to shore during some storms. Great camera work Jimmy!