Category: 2006-03: SYD and the Hunter Valley

This is the photo that came before this one.

I think this photo is more dramatic; appropriate for Australia’s big spaces. It IS a bit dark though.

Saw this on the train ride over to Katoomba.

They’re everywhere!

In one of my earlier entries, I said that Sydney reminded me of a mix of London and Singapore.
It felt like London because: CityRail is often late, anything in a bottle (alcoholic or otherwise) is expensive and they’re really big into meat pies here (which isn’t dat bad…).
I got that Singapore vibe here because of the architecture (lots of old shophouses that wouldn’t be out of place in non-CBD Singapore) and rules and fines if you break the rules.
I mean, check these rules out! You need rules for this? Ha ha ha.

This is what you see when you get up early. And then go back to sleep.
Got a long day today. Am off to SYD for my flight back to the states. 15 hours on UA! Ergh…

One perk of staying in a hostel is that you have access to a kitchen and you can make your own food.
Sometimes you can get lucky when your hostel has a gas-fired barbeque!
It’s my last night in Oz, so I figured I’d do a shrimp steak on the barbie! I drove into town with a couple of the fellas and got beer and a steak.

Rubbed it down with a little salt and pepper, and fired up the grill. They do things differently here. Note the spanners (pliers) for the steak below:

Kidding! Here’s the implements of torture for da meat! Best and cheapest meal I’ve had here.
View image
Note the spatula thingy. Bigger than a CD and has a bottle opener on the neck.
Oz meat DOES taste different from US meat. US cows are fed corn while Ozzie cows are fed grass. Something for bar trivia!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

This is Mia.
She lives here. She will come up to you as you’re eating, put her paw in your lap, tilt her head and look at you with puppy dog eyes until you give her something to eat. According to Andrea, Mia has had wine soaked crackers, all kinds of cheese and the night I got in, chops and sausages.
Mia eats better than Andrea and Bessy do.

Sunset from the deck. See the grill back there? That becomes important later.

First thing you see coming into room #10

First thing you see coming OUT of room #10

Reception

as seen from the parking lot
It may look all bright and glamourous now, but at night, it’s dark. Hella dark. It’s soooo dark that the stars in the parking lot are really bright. I even saw a shooting star out here.
Kanna tell you what I wished for. OTW it dun come true. I think it’s a law.

It all worked out, having to get the bigger car because of the two Lisas and their baggage. There was four of us driving to the wineries, comfortably! Plush! “Most of the time, things work out“. The backpacker’s credo. I need to remember that!
Apparently, according to Bessy, Australia has a list of “giant things”. I’ve seen one of these in personam, the giant fork that I took a picture earlier.
She knew about the fork. Where it was and everything. Interesting…
Anyhoo, to add to the collection of giant things, I present to you, gentle (if not slightly bored) reader, the giant wine bottle.

This giant wine bottle is part of a complex that has a winery, food and book shops, picnic areas and a restaurant. We were here to grab lunch. Wine tasting started at 1000 and we’ve already visited three wineries. Food is in order. We all is hungry. Must eat or kanna taste anymore!

This is a schnitzel burger. Bessy is getting ready to attack it.

Gee, this is really big

Bessy: I tink dis is biffer den by mace (I think this is bigger than my face)
Burger: ooouch! My ass! (ooouch! My ass!)
strangely enough, these burgers (I had one too) don’t count as “giant things”.
We continued on the wine trek, visiting more cheese shops and wineries, purchasing some wine and cheese for dinner and some liquid omiage for some people back home.



A fun winery.
When we all got back, there was a bottle of yardstick, cheese, good company and 70 or so bugs. Now that’s a nice evening…

So today was the big winery day! Andrea and Bessy work at the YHA, cleaning up the rooms and common areas and generally making it look spiffy. I saw a walking vacuum cleaner in the common room early in the morning and was perturbed until I saw it was just the vacuum cleaner wearing Andrea for propulsion. They stay for free in exchange for work. A lot of places that cater to backpackers in Oz have this kind of arrangement, according to Andrea. She’s doing this because picking fruit for 10 hours a day is not her cuppa tea (she’s English).

Andrea on the left side from LHR, Bessy’s to her left from YYZ
Florio also joined us. He’s from northern Italy. The part of Italy where they learn German in addition to Italian and the nearest airport is in Austria (?). I think he was either camera shy or was taking pix of the girls too. He learned english in four weeks using CDs and books and he’s more articulate than many of my frens in SF. Of course a lot of them are in IT so they speak an completely different language.

Today was the first day of me driving on the “wrong”, erm, “other” side of the road (thx, Christine! =P), It was a bit of a white knuckle ride getting from SYD back to the hostel. Unfamiliar roads, fast traffic on the RIGHT and right turns added up to thrills galore.
Since I now had passengers and they had stuff, I figured that getting a bigger car than the Toyota rollerskate I had originally reserved was a good idea. I wound up with a Ford Falcon XR6. Not bad! It’s rear wheel drive, solid and not bad to drive. Why can’t Ford US build them like this?

These girls had a lot of stuff. They filled up the boot and the part of the interior that they weren’t sitting in. In short, we packed up the car (backpacks, bags, my roller and go-bag, skateboard and surfboard) and took off across the Harbour Bridge northbound around 1400.
Some on the road silliness:

Lisa #1 (because I met her first) in the backseat, drowning in luggage.

Luggage!

A very serious me, trying not to drive the wrong way down the highway

Lisa #2 (because I met her after Lisa #1) in a neat shot. I like this one.
After 2+ hours of Portishead, a meal and gas break and mixed roads, we arrived at Newcastle and their oceanside YHA. Originally the plan was to drop them off at the city center, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?

The open road
I eventually made it to Cessnock, the city in the Hunter Valley where my hostel was. I wound up taking the long way around, but didn’t know it at the time. All I did was ask “where’s Cessnock” and got there eventually. I arrived around 2000. In the dark. But I got a room all to myself, yay! After 5 days in an 8 bed dorm, this is a welcome change. I met the other guests and the staffers and wound up organizing a self-guided winery tour. Self-guided = map and recommendations. That happens tomorrow. It’s going to be fun!
It doesn’t look far on the map, but 40% of the journey was on highways with the rest of it on freeways. But strangely, it wasn’t that bad. Australian drivers generally follow the rules of the road. Stay left. Pass on the right. And I didn’t see too many overt acts of stupidity. I found out later that it’s illegal to talk on cell phones while driving here. Also to eat or drink while driving. And despite Australia’s reputation as a hard charging, hard partying, hard farting people, their drink-driving laws are pretty stringent.
Hope you two made it to Brisbane!

Was wandering around the Bondi beach area when I saw these places:


I dun think they’re related to the places in LA that I remember. Ha!