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!

Trip to Nelson Bay

We went up to Nelson Bay on Saturday and on the way is an animal park that we stopped at to see kangaroos, koalas, sheep, etc. We were seriously the only people in the entire park that were above the age of ten and didn't have kids. The park was really muddy because of all the rain we've had so our shoes were awful looking! We were able to feed sheep, baby lambs, goats, camels, kangaroos, horses, and pigs. I stayed away from the pigs they were gross! I was nervous to feed the camel and was going to chicken out until Jimmy told me, "Jill when will you ever get to feed a camel again, just do it!" So I did and Im glad, his mouth was like a suction cup and it took him about 2.5 seconds to eat all the food out of my hand. Right as we were leaving we found this hilarious "cut out" family.. Merd and I couldn't resist! We had so much fun and here's some proof. How cute is he! Look at the little Joey in the pouch They really loved Jimmy..only b/c he had food! Gotta love this one! This Kangaroo is sitting exactly like Belle! Directly on his ass! Greedy Bastard! He was literally climbing over the fence to get Jimmy's food. To think that we were petting cute little Lambs and the following night Jimmy had Lamb Shanks for dinner! He was joking that it was the cute little white one that Merd is feeding. Sad.

Newcastle

From the second we got into the car in Sydney I have been super picture happy! I try to keep it ready because I don't want to miss anything! Merd drove me around Newcastle today and I must say she does a pretty good job of driving on the other side of the car and road. I saw some beaches and even walked on the amazing sand! I feel like my dad just cut some wood with his saw and dumped it onto the beach. It feels like dust and doesn't even stick to your feet. I exchanged $500 and got $605 Australian dollars.. not too bad when you get more than you gave them! Their money feels waxy and so much more clean and colorful than ours. WE all know how obsessed with cars I am so I had to take a picture of a Toyota Prado AKA a Lexus GX470 back home. So weird! Oh yeah and the Acura TSX at home is a Honda Accord/Euro here. Last but not least Rusti the labradoodle next door is so cute! This is how she hangs out during the day, and she never barks! That is my kind of dog :) Oh yeah this is Jill writing by the way. Here is my Australian money that I exchanged over today. You have all of the bills from 50 to 5 and then they have 1 dollar and 2 dollar coins in addition to 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent and 50 cent coins. Here is the car I was talking about. Here we are in front of Dixon Park (one of the 5 beaches that Merd took me to). First time that I felt Australian sand...did you know that they transport sand to Hawaii??? It literally feels like saw dust! Here is Merd driving. She started laughing when I said that I wanted to take a picture. It is weird right? Last but not least, here is what they call the Newcastle penis. It is a look out over Noby's Beach.

Goodbye California

So Jill and I flew out on Tuesday from LAX and went directly to Sydney. Our flight was a little over an hour delayed so we ended up taking off about 1:20AM and arrived around 8:30AM on Thursday Sydney time. Jill was upgraded to premium economy but I wasn't so we regretfully declined so we could sit together in Economy. BAD IDEA! After about two hours we were both wishing we had bigger seats, even if they weren't next to each other. As soon as we were able to use our TVs in the headrests, I found out that mine didn't even work. I asked one of the attendants to reset it and they did twice and it still didn't work. I was in the middle seat and next to a guy that felt he needed to take up the entire arm rest so I felt claustrophobic the entire time. We missed out on our Cadbury Hot Chocolate, both of our snacks in between meals, and didn't receive the sleep masks while everybody else had one. I got fed up about 2 1/2 hours into the flight and took a sleeping pill and didn't see Jill for another 5 hours. So much for sitting next to one another! Anyways, we learned our lesson and will never decline a upgrade again! On a brighter note, here are some pics of us on our way :)

1 day!

Jimmy is literally packing the car as I write...we are headed down to Sydney and it is now less than 24 hours before we take off! I am so excited that I don't think I will even sleep at all tonight!

3 days and counting...

So I officially am done with Hunter Water as of yesterday. I now am at home for two more days and then off to Sydney. It is only Thursday and I am starting to pack. It is weird to think that I will only be packing mostly summer clothes considering it is 9 degrees Celcius today. Translation...around high 40's F. A bit cold for me to say the least. Anyways, Jimmy told me today that no matter how soon I get done packing we are both leaving at the same time. :) I just am getting too excited and can't wait! Off to packing, but I will see you all very soon!