Following the Dream

Christian November 10th, 2008

     The weekend was soon upon us again.  I forgot what it was like to look forward to weekends.  Even prior to the trip, I was working a second job as a waiter so I did not really get to enjoy them.  We had to be up early on Saturday for a wine tasting tour of the Hunter Valley. The trip was through the YHA Sydney, including transportation, tasting at five wineries, and a tasting at the smelly cheese factory.  The hunter valley is located a couple of hours outside of Sydney and is home to many, many wineries.  On the way to the hunter, we grew nervous as the weather turned worse and worse.  Luckily, by the time we reached the YHA in the Hunter Valley, the weather cleared and the sun was out.  We enjoyed some tea and bikkies (biscuits or cookies) at the hostel before jumping in a big purple minivan that would wisk us to all of the wineries. 

The day was filled with wine after wine after wine.  By the time lunch came around we were really starting to feel good from all of the wines we had tasted and were definitely ready to eat.  We were taken to the Roche Wines Estate for lunch.  That sounds a bit fancier than it really was, actually we were taken to the Roche Wines Estate’s cafeteria for lunch.  The land of the estate is really well taken care of and beautiful.  After eating something to soak up some of the wine that was sploshing around in our stomachs we looked around in their way overpriced chocolate shop that was completely packed with people.  Here they had stawberries you could buy to dip into thier chocolate fountain and a plethora of other goodies, all way out of our price range.  Resisting the urge to buy anything, we headed outside to relax in the grass for a bit while we waited for the rest of the group to make their way over to our magic purple minivan.  After lunch we still had the smelly cheese store and also another winery to visit.  The smelly cheese store was interesting.  They basicially sold softer cheeses that were marinated in jars with other ingredients.  We tasted five or six cheeses with popsicle sticks.  Most of them were actually really good, one of them was terrible.  They also had infused olive oils there that you could try with little bread pieces.  I must say I was did not like many of these.  The lemon infused olive oil tasted like pinesol cleaner and the flavor stuck with me for the majority of the day.  After the cheese store, we made our way to the Hanging Tree Vineyards.  They were not very creative when naming this winery.  The name stems from the large tree that sits at the front of the winery, that you pass when you drive in.  The tree was used to hang people many years ago (so the story goes).  This winery was very beautiful.  It had a good view of the valley as well as a rose garden and a pond.  There were two weddings happening when we were there.  After taking some photos of the property, we made our way inside to taste some of their wine.  Being short on time, it was a very fast tasting.  Our guide then told us that those who were on the two day tour could stay and enjoy some more wine, while the rest who were on the one day needed to go back to the YHA to catch the bus to Sydney.  Since we were on the one day, we said fairwell to the winery and headed back to the minivan.  As we started to pull out, we heard “Stop, Wait, Hold On!”.  When we looked back we saw these three ritzy girls from the U.S. that were on the tour running towards the minivan.  One thing, that somehow they did not notice was that they were running through one of the weddings in the rose garden.  They ran right through the isle between 2 bridesmaids, as the procession was going on.  All of the people sitting watching the wedding looked very cross at them.  When they got on the minivan they were clueless.  We tried to key them in with clues such as: the priest who you ran in front of, the 30 or so people sitted on two sides of the isle all holding cameras, the people wearing suits and dresses walking down the isle.  They shrugged it off and talked on their cell phones for the entire ride home, gossiping and planning their night out (they were supposed to be on the two day but told the guide that they had homework and had to go back to Sydney).  It made us realize how we did not miss those people back home, whose world revolves around the next new fashion, the new gossip, and where to go spend their money that night.  We did not get back to Sydney until late, by then we were all tired and called it a night.

 
     The next morning we were going to visit something that Casey and I have been excited about ever since we heard about it.  Featherdale Wildlife Park is located about an hour or so outside of Sydney and is a surefire way to interact with koalas, kangaroos, and wallabees.  We got stuck in some bad traffic on the way there, so we missed the crocodile feeding by minutes.  We even raced by all of the kangaroos, and wallabees hopping around to try to see it.  Luckily, the park was not all that big, so you can make it from one end to another in a matter of minutes.  We did catch the penguin feeding.  They were really cute, since the penguins at the park are the world’s smallest spieces of penguin.  After that we finally had our chance to interact with some animals.  First up, we found kangaroos lounging in the shade.  He let us walk up to him and pet him.  It was amazing.  After a few minutes, he decided that there was something more interesting elsewhere and hopped off.  We noticed that there were a lot of people with ice cream cones filled with kangaroo feed.  Finding out where to get them became our #1 priority.  We found the ice cream cone station right next to the koalas.  We stopped and got our photos taken with the koalas and got to give them a pet as well.  Now armed with ice cream cones filled with kangaroo feed, we headed out to make some new friends.  The kangaroos did not seem all that interested in them, as I think that they had their fill already.  However, the wallabies absolutely loved them.  They seemed to like the ice cream cones more than the feed itself, often taking large bites of the cones.  As you would hold out the cone, they would grab the cone with one paw and your hand with the other paw as they chowed down.  Interacting with a wallaby was a great experience.  At one point a wallaby stole a little kid’s cone that he was trying to feed it and ran off with it.  The wallaby was standing in the “People do not cross” zone, holding the cone like a person, munching away.  It was a really neat day.  We saw tons of different animals: dingos, albino peacocks, a huge saltwater crocodile, tons of birds, a wombat, tazmanian devil, and more kangaroos than we could have hoped for.  What really topped off our day was when we were leaving we passed a koala nursery.  There were little baby koalas hanging on to the mommy koalas.

     The week ahead Casey and I were determined to see more of Sydney, since we really did not explore as much as we had wanted to.  During the course of the week we made plans to visit Paddy’s Markets, Chinatown, the Sky Tower, the Aquarium, Wildlife World, the auto show, and Bondi Beach.  The first attraction on the list that we visited was the Aquarium at Darling Harbor.  This turned out to be a really nice aquarium.  The displays were all very good and they even had a place to rehabilitate sea lions.  Another great display that stood out was the shark tank.  Once down below the water level, you walked through two tubes that allowed you to view the sharks as if you were in the tank with them.  Among the sharks, there were also sea turtles, and gigantic manta rays swimming around.  It was a very neat experience.  The same day we also visited the auto show.  It was a pretty decent auto show with most of the major foreign automakers having displays.  One of my favorite displays was the Mitshubishi display.  They had an actual Lancer Evo hooked up to a PS3 with Gran Turismo on a large plasma screen.  You sat in the car to view the large screen through the windshield.  I was nervous at first since it was right hand drive and the shifting was with the left hand, but after the first lap I managed to drive decently, only crashing a few times.  We walked around for a while, spending most of our time at the Lamborgini and Ferarri displays.  This was a great way to spend a rainy day. 

It was raining another day as well so we made our way to Wildlife World, where all of the advertising led you to believe that you would have close contact with all different types of animals.  You can get close to them, but they are all behind glass.  The one animal that you could get close with, the koala, cost an extra ten dollars.  The habitats for the animals were well set up, but we found it a bit disappointing after our trip to Featherdale.  We then made our way to Paddy’s Markets near central station.  This is a huge indoor flea market and is the best place to buy any souviner.  We walked around for a bit looking at all of the stalls, selling anything from tee shirts and key chains to hair wigs and woman’s underware.  It is located right in Chinatown, so it was easy to see Chinatown upon leaving.  On the next clear day, we visited the Sydney Sky Tower.  It is a tower in which you go up in an elevator to the top for views of the city.  Unfortunately,, we were stuck behind a huge tour group, but the line moved quickly.  Once up at the top, we had a 360 degree view of the city.  It was pretty up there, however since it has been built, skyscrapers have been built taller than it that take away from the view.  After walking around it two or three times, we had enough and headed back down. 

One of the days, I woke up for work to a beautiful day.  Since the weather had been a bit rainy, I decided to wait until the nighttime to do work and wake Casey up and let her know that we would be going to Bondi Beach for the day and capitalize on the weather.  It only took about an hour to get there from Revesby.  Our first views of the beach were amazing.  We had no clue that a beach in a city could be so pretty.  The water was a very nice clear blue.  We walked around for a bit before plopping down in the sand.  The waves were crowded with surfers enjoying the good surf.  Sitting on the beach we must have asked ourselves twenty times why we did not come to Bondi sooner.  The day ended sooner than what we have hoped, since I had to make it back to get some work done.  The week was jammed pack and flew by, between us acting as tourists and me staying on top of my work.  Luckily, we had a good weekend planned.

 
    That weekend, Janine was joining us (and driving) to Dubbo.  Dubbo is a town located about five hours from Sydney and is home to the Taronga Western Plain Zoo.  To break up the drive there, Janine took us to a town named Mudgee.  This is an up and coming wine area for Australia.  We stopped at three wineries for tasting.  The wine was pretty good at each of them, and the one Italian place even served up snacks.  We stopped at a cheese tasting as well, with one of the cheeses leaving us with a terrible taste in our mouths for the next two hours to Dubbo.  We arrived to Dubbo early, so we decided to stop at a Boomerang factory that was supposed to be a neat experience.  They show you how they make them and teach you to throw them.  Unfortunately, they were not open for the day, so we headed back towards the zoo.  Upon checking in, we were shown to our tents and given free beer, wine, and snacks.  In the meantime they made us draw our favorite animals on our name tags for an icebreaker activity.  I drew a picture of Casey, but seeing how that would not work for the game I then drew a monkey.  We had to talk to people to try to get into groups with animals from the same area.  It was kind of cheesy followed by a pass the toothpick when I say this game.  After the icebreaking activites, they took us into an education room.  Here, they took out animals for us to interact with and learn a bit about.  It was pretty neat, they even had a 10 foot long Python we could hold, as well as a porcipine type animal.  After our quick education, we then headed out for our night walk.  It was pretty neat seeing some of the nocturnal animals so active.  One of our favorites was the manned wolves from South America, the other was our first encounter with Suzy the wombat.  She was rescued and now resides at the zoo.  The walk took about an hour.  The next morning we had to wake up at 5:45 for the morning walk.  We were able to walk around the zoo before tons of guests came in.  On the walk we got up close with giraffes, rhinos, camels, heard a lion roar, and saw and heard some funny antics from the primates.  We also were able to pet Suzy the Wombat.  After the morning walk, we were treated to some breakfast before the program ended.  We then had the chance to see some more on our own.  You actually drive around the zoo, viewing the wide open enclousures that the animals are in.  It is pretty neat how it is set up, as they typically have a trench built around a large land enclosure so that the animals are on the same level that you are with no fences in the way.  One of the surprises was that the zoo had baby cheetah cubs.  We visited them two times and gave Suzy one more pet before the very long drive back to Sydney.

 
     Our last week in Sydney was very busy.  Between me trying to get through all of my work, buying sovenirs, shipping them home, seeing the opera house one last time, taking a ferry ride in Sydney harbor, and shipping my laptop for work back the week flew by.  One of the nights that we were on our own for dinner we decided to order Domino’s (go figure) and enjoy a bottle of wine.  When Casey asked for Buffalo Wings, the guy on the phone sounded very concerned when he said, “I am sorry ma’am we have nothing at all to do with buffalos.”  One of those differences you don’t think about.  Our last Saturday night in town we met Janine and two of her friends out for some drinks at our favorite place in Darling Harbor then saw Batman Returns on IMAX.  It was a good last night on the town.  We are truely going to miss Sydney.  It is such a beautiful city that has so much to offer.  If we were ever to move abroad, Sydney would be where we would try to go.  We are sad to say goodbye, but the road is calling our names and it is time to see more of what Australia has to offer.  A million thanks to Janine to putting up with us for a month while we invaded her space.  Thanks for all of the great home cooked meals!  Now it is off to the Great Barrier Reef up North.

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