I just got back from a rather m-m-mindblowing 2 day trip. Let me start exactly where I left off in the last post, however, by saying that the great weather I was telling you about decided not to last for the walking tour. The tour was great, the guide was a typical middle-aged Aussie dude who told us about how Aussies invented boxed wine and the square clothes lines that rotate. And subsequently, they invented this variant of slap the bag where you pin the wine bag to the rotating clothes line while everyone stands under it. You spin the clothes line and whoever the bag lands over has to slap the bag and drink out of it. Anyway, we walked to this chic cafe on Darling Harbor just as it started to rain. I was the first person to ask a question on the tour and won an additional free drink so I had some champagne and ordered a pumpkin feta pizza, which was super delicious. Then like I said, it started raining and it was a total bia trying to get home. My jammies were calling my name so when I made it back I promptly got in bed and read until bed time. Loser, I know.
I woke up early the next morning to go catch a bus for this two day tour. The guide, Matt, is a typical Aussie dude and encourages us to get wasted right from the get-go. He said he would answer any questions granted he was coherent enough to do so. Perhaps you see where this is going.
Our first stop is the reptile park. Someone was late getting to the bus so we only had roundabouts an hour to go through it. It was so great though! I got to pet emus, wombats, and kangaroos. I also saw a giant saltie, koalas, kookaburras, tasmanian devils, wallabies, etc. Australia really does have fabulous flora and fauna. I really thought I had died and gone to heaven touching a wombat. Pictures to come later.
Next we hopped back on the bus and headed to the Hunter Valley, which is Australia's wine country, think Napa. I felt extremely sophisticated swirling wine around in my glass, sniffing it, and all that ja
zz. It was all extremely delicious and they served it with bread sticks, cheese and crackers, and the like. The Australian wines were very good, but they were a lot more fruity and less dry than what I'm used to. They let us sample a lot of their unique ones, which was really cool. I bought a McGuigan sauvignon blanc at the first winery because it was delicious and I just realized also that it was the first wine I ever fancy wine tasted so perhaps there was some subconscious sentimentalism at work there too. Besides having great wine, the Hunter Valley is stunningly beautiful. It was a magnificent afternoon to say the least.
After that we drove to Port Stephens, which is a cute coastal town to stay the night in. But first we had to stop by the bottle shop, obviously. Matt took up $10 from everyone (adding up to around $330) and said he would make his famous punch for us called elbow, because its stronger than a punch, haa. So he went nuts buying all manner of things in the bottle shop and we're all drinking wine that we bought on the bus too. Matt took my ipod and started playing "The Jams" playlist over the bus' speaker system. Those of you familiar with "The Jams" know that this was undoubtedly a fabulous time and a good break from the weird music the Matt and some of the Europeans had been playing earlier. Everyone on the tour is naturally good friends by this time.
We showed up at our accommodation and after settling in, Matt made elbow (note the elbow vat is half empty in this picture) and massive amounts of Dominoes pizza got delivered. I'm laughing at myself right now thinking back on how much pizza I ate. Really, like in 10 minutes time I ate half a pizza, an additional slice of someone else's pizza, and several pieces of garlic bread that randomly showed up too. I'm dying laughing in this internet cafe reliving this night in my head right now. While the night was still young, Matt organized the most massive game of flip cup I've ever been a part of and as the night aged, other things. Eventually I showered and made it to bed and I want to tell you, it was one of the most fabulous slumbers I could've asked for. My bed was super comfy and warm and it was raining outside.
This morning I got up without consequence, and we got on a boat for a whale watching extravaganza. I was very excited until we got on the boat and the captain said there was potentially going to be 3 meter swells. I didn't know what that meant but got a little worried and asked one of my sophisticated European friends what exactly 3 meters is; and turns out its around 10 feet. I got very worried very fast. Sure enough, we go out into open water onto these massive swells while its still freezing and raining. I ended up at the back of the boat with the rest of the people who are sicker than seadogs getting rained on and trying so hard not to barf my brains out. Luckily, I managed to keep everything down, but oh my goodness I felt so terrible. I did get to see some whales though, a sweet humpback came up and slapped the water with its tail. My seasickness followed its normal course and I got to the point where I was exhausted from being sick and passed out with my head on a table somewhere. I woke up, feeling a little better, in time to see some dolphins and make it back into the calmer bay waters. And then I got a raging appetite. I hunted down some fish n chips after that for a nice lunch. A girl I ate with got barbecued mini-octopi which I thought was very cool. After eating one of this nasty little tentacles though I was absolutely repulsed. Um, gross.
Post whale watching disaster, I mean adventure, we went down the coast a bit (which is blow-your-everlovin'-mind beautiful) we came to these massive sand dunes. I've never seen anything like them, think Sahara desert. They piled us into 20 passenger off-roading vans, which was a crazy ride. We drove to the top of some dunes to go sandboarding. Sandboarding = awesome. Its like sitting on a snowboard and flying down this huuuge dune feeling like you're going 100mph or kph I guess. I always managed to hit bumps towards the bottom and wipeout. There's a video of it I'm going to put on youtube once I upload it, I'll post the link back on here.
Sadly, we left Port Stephens after that and headed back to Sydney. Of course, we stopped by a place with a bottle shop on the way incase anyone needed more alcohol. I was absolutely appalled by the thought seeing as I'd been seasick a few hours prior and did they really think I was going to put more nasty calories in my body? Mercy. Believe me when I tell you, these Aussies are crazy.
Anyway, now I'm back here. Quite the eventful trip, no? Well I'm sure wiped out. Its 9 o'clock on a Friday and my jammies are once again calling my name. I'll leave you with a few thoughts:
I like roundabouts, I think they're pretty efficient.
I understand countries vary on cultural things and whatnot, but why do we drive on different sides of the road and have different outlets and things?
I'm glad numbers are the same in every country.
The US really should implement the metric system, everyone knows what's going on with meters and things except us American kids.
I've only been here a week and I'm already picking up on Aussie ways of speaking, such as I caught myself saying "heaps" a couple of days ago.
Woah, I'm in Australia.
I woke up early the next morning to go catch a bus for this two day tour. The guide, Matt, is a typical Aussie dude and encourages us to get wasted right from the get-go. He said he would answer any questions granted he was coherent enough to do so. Perhaps you see where this is going.
Our first stop is the reptile park. Someone was late getting to the bus so we only had roundabouts an hour to go through it. It was so great though! I got to pet emus, wombats, and kangaroos. I also saw a giant saltie, koalas, kookaburras, tasmanian devils, wallabies, etc. Australia really does have fabulous flora and fauna. I really thought I had died and gone to heaven touching a wombat. Pictures to come later.
Next we hopped back on the bus and headed to the Hunter Valley, which is Australia's wine country, think Napa. I felt extremely sophisticated swirling wine around in my glass, sniffing it, and all that ja
zz. It was all extremely delicious and they served it with bread sticks, cheese and crackers, and the like. The Australian wines were very good, but they were a lot more fruity and less dry than what I'm used to. They let us sample a lot of their unique ones, which was really cool. I bought a McGuigan sauvignon blanc at the first winery because it was delicious and I just realized also that it was the first wine I ever fancy wine tasted so perhaps there was some subconscious sentimentalism at work there too. Besides having great wine, the Hunter Valley is stunningly beautiful. It was a magnificent afternoon to say the least.After that we drove to Port Stephens, which is a cute coastal town to stay the night in. But first we had to stop by the bottle shop, obviously. Matt took up $10 from everyone (adding up to around $330) and said he would make his famous punch for us called elbow, because its stronger than a punch, haa. So he went nuts buying all manner of things in the bottle shop and we're all drinking wine that we bought on the bus too. Matt took my ipod and started playing "The Jams" playlist over the bus' speaker system. Those of you familiar with "The Jams" know that this was undoubtedly a fabulous time and a good break from the weird music the Matt and some of the Europeans had been playing earlier. Everyone on the tour is naturally good friends by this time.
We showed up at our accommodation and after settling in, Matt made elbow (note the elbow vat is half empty in this picture) and massive amounts of Dominoes pizza got delivered. I'm laughing at myself right now thinking back on how much pizza I ate. Really, like in 10 minutes time I ate half a pizza, an additional slice of someone else's pizza, and several pieces of garlic bread that randomly showed up too. I'm dying laughing in this internet cafe reliving this night in my head right now. While the night was still young, Matt organized the most massive game of flip cup I've ever been a part of and as the night aged, other things. Eventually I showered and made it to bed and I want to tell you, it was one of the most fabulous slumbers I could've asked for. My bed was super comfy and warm and it was raining outside.
This morning I got up without consequence, and we got on a boat for a whale watching extravaganza. I was very excited until we got on the boat and the captain said there was potentially going to be 3 meter swells. I didn't know what that meant but got a little worried and asked one of my sophisticated European friends what exactly 3 meters is; and turns out its around 10 feet. I got very worried very fast. Sure enough, we go out into open water onto these massive swells while its still freezing and raining. I ended up at the back of the boat with the rest of the people who are sicker than seadogs getting rained on and trying so hard not to barf my brains out. Luckily, I managed to keep everything down, but oh my goodness I felt so terrible. I did get to see some whales though, a sweet humpback came up and slapped the water with its tail. My seasickness followed its normal course and I got to the point where I was exhausted from being sick and passed out with my head on a table somewhere. I woke up, feeling a little better, in time to see some dolphins and make it back into the calmer bay waters. And then I got a raging appetite. I hunted down some fish n chips after that for a nice lunch. A girl I ate with got barbecued mini-octopi which I thought was very cool. After eating one of this nasty little tentacles though I was absolutely repulsed. Um, gross.
Post whale watching disaster, I mean adventure, we went down the coast a bit (which is blow-your-everlovin'-mind beautiful) we came to these massive sand dunes. I've never seen anything like them, think Sahara desert. They piled us into 20 passenger off-roading vans, which was a crazy ride. We drove to the top of some dunes to go sandboarding. Sandboarding = awesome. Its like sitting on a snowboard and flying down this huuuge dune feeling like you're going 100mph or kph I guess. I always managed to hit bumps towards the bottom and wipeout. There's a video of it I'm going to put on youtube once I upload it, I'll post the link back on here.
Sadly, we left Port Stephens after that and headed back to Sydney. Of course, we stopped by a place with a bottle shop on the way incase anyone needed more alcohol. I was absolutely appalled by the thought seeing as I'd been seasick a few hours prior and did they really think I was going to put more nasty calories in my body? Mercy. Believe me when I tell you, these Aussies are crazy.
Anyway, now I'm back here. Quite the eventful trip, no? Well I'm sure wiped out. Its 9 o'clock on a Friday and my jammies are once again calling my name. I'll leave you with a few thoughts:
I like roundabouts, I think they're pretty efficient.
I understand countries vary on cultural things and whatnot, but why do we drive on different sides of the road and have different outlets and things?
I'm glad numbers are the same in every country.
The US really should implement the metric system, everyone knows what's going on with meters and things except us American kids.
I've only been here a week and I'm already picking up on Aussie ways of speaking, such as I caught myself saying "heaps" a couple of days ago.
Woah, I'm in Australia.
Um, it's Napa, not Nappa...sounds nappy.
ReplyDeleteLuv, Digital Sherpa
thanks dad
ReplyDeleteWe did that sand tobogganing thing when we were there...it was awesome.
ReplyDelete