4/2/08
Ok, I found 10 spare minutes to write about the last week. As I left off earlier, I had the winery and brewery tours on Friday. One of our surf instructors, Jai, from our surf trip came to stay with us for a week (he was the younger one, so 18) and we had him around which was very fun. I only got an hour of sleep on Thursday because we were up all night hanging out with everyone in our building. We had to get to the bus for the winery at 8am on Friday so we could make our first wine tour at 10:30 am at Lindeman’s. We had cheese and crackers, lunch and hit three wineries before 2 pm. We must have tried about 20 different wines and we also took a tour of how wine is made. Hunter Valley is absolutely gorgeous, they’ll be a link for pictures at the end of this. After the wineries we were all pretty tired and dehydrated, but little did we know that the best was yet to come. The brewery was Blue Tongue (as in skink), a brand of beer here that makes delicious beers. We all get out of the bus and walk into this patio area with tables and chairs set up. On all the tables there were bowls and bowls of potato wedges and sweet chili sauce (it’s an Australian thing, delicious) and sour cream. On another table was paper with a run through of their 6 best beers and next to that, about 400 shot glasses filled with all their beer. “Take as many as you want, eat and relax.” Exactly what we wanted to hear. Everyone went to town on the beer and wedges, it was incredible. Blue Tongue makes this ginger beer that is so good, we bought a 6 pack and regret buying more.
After we got home that night around 6, we were all pretty much dead, but we made dinner, hung out a bit and then went to sleep since we were leaving for the Blue Mountains at 8:30 on Saturday morning. Everyone in my program (plus a few, Jai, Cydney and a couple other non-CEAers) met at a bus stop and headed off. We got to Katoomba around 10:30, dropped our stuff at the hostel and headed off to do the Great Staircase and the Three Sisters. The Great Staircase is exactly what is says it is, a huge staircase/trail about 5 miles long that goes down a cliff into a valley around the Three Sisters and then leads you to the railway, the steepest train in the world. Once you get there, this train takes you up the cliff on other side, so you basically go in a big circle. It was so beautiful there, lush rainforest around these towering cliffs. Lots of pictures are posted.
That night we all went back to the hostel, Jen, Lindsey and I helped Murray, our program leader, go food shopping and make dinner. Our hostel was great so we had a courtyard with a BBQ and some tables. Everyone just ate and drank all night, until we went out to a local piano bar. We came home by 12, and pretty much everyone was asleep by 1.
Sunday morning we had a choice of either going caving or mountain biking, but you had to be in shape for the mountain biking, so only 3 kids did it. The rest of us took a bus to the Jenolan caves and went deep into a mountain. The caves are huge and steep, and they’re over a river. It was awesome.
Once we all got back to hostel we grabbed our bags and had to run for the train (Cydney and Mandy missed it), we were home by about 8:30. Jai was still with us, so we all made dinner and went to bed early since I have a full day of classes on Mondays. Since then I’ve just been going to class and trying to catch up with my life. Today is Wednesday so I may or may not go out. Tomorrow my program goes to the Opera House to see a symphony plus didgeridoo. Someone is having an ‘opera after party’ and then Friday I’m going to Paddy’s Market to stock up on fruits and veggies.
Luckily I’ll have a few hours of downtime tomorrow, but I do have two “papers” to write (papers here are 1000-1500 words, pretty short). Hope you all are well, sorry for the hiatus, I’ll try to be more constant!
Link to winery and more:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289914&l=b1e83&id=824622
Link to Blue Mountains:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2296089&l=479f7&id=824622
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