I wanted to go to Newcastle as a couple of girls I met in Sapa in Vietnam live there so I said i'd drop by and see them. So I did. And Elianne had found a wine tour she fancied so she came as well. And I couldn't let her do the tour on her own so I went along to. I'm just that sort of person. Kind and thoughtful.
The day we arrived we mainly slept. I know it seems such a waste but I'd had such a bad night coach journey. It was 12 hours from Bryon to Newcastle and my chair was broken. The coach was full so couldn't move. Anyway I arrived in the morning (Elianne was on a different coach and actually arrived at 4am so just had to wait at the station as the hostel didn't open for check in until 7am!), picked up a tired Elianne from platform 1 of Newcastle station and we headed straight to our hostel. We went out for a walk but ended up just heading back and having a sleep. Travelling is tiring OK! In the afternoon we booked our wine tour, went to the beach and in the evening went to see Australia. It was good. I think if it was a film about Britain it wouldn't have been. It was pretty damn cheesy and stuff but there were some great bits in it picturesque wise. Ok film geek chat over with. It left me and Elianne bawling our eyes out at the end. I can't even remember what happened. It had a happy ending, oh and there was a running theme of the wizard of Oz throughout with 'there's no place like home' coming up. I think that's what triggered the tears for me haha. We had to let the rest of the audience leave so we could try calm ourselves down a bit. We blamed it on being tired...
So the following day we got picked up by the wine tour people and drove to the Hunter Valley. There were a couple of sisters from Sweden - Sarah and Malin, and a dutch guy. As we chatted to them, Malin said she recognised me. It turned out that when in Byron just before I got on my bus, a random girl came over to me as I was checking out the skydiving pictures. She asked if I'd done one as she'd done hers that day and was all excited. It was not even a 2 mintue chat and then she went off. So it was her, now sitting in the same van on the same wine tour!!
We arrived to the first vinyard and got sat down. The views were really stunning and it was a really sunny day too which helped. It was around 10.30am by now and we were being poured our first glass of wine. Hmmm, think I could get used to that lifestyle. JOKE!! Don't worry, i usually wait til at least midday when pubs open...
We got taught how to wine taste, something I did in fact need to be shown. Ok ok i'll stop with the drinking jokes now. So rinsing it around the mouth and getting your nose right in the glass etc. We tried about 6 wines from the hunter valley so were already reasonably happy after our first bit of wine tasting! And then moved on to Rosemount and Lindeman wines and did exactly the same there. And to break it up a bit next was a cheese tasting place, followed by lunch. We'd taken our own sandwiches for a bit of budgeting! And after lunch a bit more of the same. It was hard work. After a while all the wine all started to taste the same to be honest! Except for the last liquor we had - chilli shnaps. YUK. I've tried chilli vodka before and this wasn't too different. Just like drinking a glass of chilli believe it or not. Can't imagine why anyone would want to buy the stuff!!
Then a trip back to our hostel where we noticed the sign on the window of the van ' do not access bus through window'. Thought it was quite amusing. Why would they need such a sign? And off to bar where they put on a free bbq for us. They weren't too generous though. Elianne had to pretty much argue for her sausage haha. And we met Sophie and Jesse as well, the girls from Vietnam. It was really nice to see them again, and talk a bit about our Sapa adventure. Sophie was getting ready to move to the Red Centre, so was all excited about that as well. And Jesse was coming to Sydney that wknd so we arranged to meet up again.
The next day we headed back to the bus station for the 2 hour journey back to Sydney.
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