LIFE IN THE LAND OF OZ: "An Orgy for All of the Senses: Wine, Chocolate, and Cheese for Everyone"

Today was an INCREDIBLE day. We decided to get out of Sydney, so we went on a wine tour in the Hunter Valley Wine Region of New South Wales. The day started early...6:15am to be exact. Our tour guide Steve, who described the day to us as "an orgy of the senses", picked us up at 7:15am right down the street from our apartment building. We drove about an hour and a half outside of Sydney to the Australian Reptile Park. We got to see some more Koalas, Kangaroos, Snakes, Spiders, a Platypus, and some other native Australian animals. Can't get enough of those Koalas :)

We were at the reptile park for about an hour, and then we drove another hour and a half to our first winery: Tulloch. It was one of the prettiest ones we saw and we tasted some great wines (and learned a lot about the wines and the region). After that, we went into the village of Hunter Valley for a great lunch (there were about 20 of us in the group). We walked around the shops in the village for a little--it reminded me of a small town in North Carolina or New Hampshire, filled with cute wine, chocolate, and coffee shops.

Our next stop was Drayton's Family Wines. It was our least favorite of all the stops, but we did find a bottle of Riesling that we all liked and bought a couple of bottles for the apartment. We had a cheese tasting there too which was great. There are cows that graze around a lot of the vineyards.

After that we went to "the world famous" Lindemans which was a beautiful cellar door (that's what they call it when they just sell the wines where the vineyards are --- no actual production goes on there). Their grounds were gorgeous and their wines very tasty. It was cool to go to the cellar door of such a large producer of wines.

Our last stop was Ivanhoe Wines, my other favorite next to Tulloch. From the outside it looked like a gorgeous two story blue, white, and yellow, house with a wrap around porch. The whole first floor was where they had their retail shop, and the basement was where the tasting was. They grow all their grapes on their property (over 50 acres). It was absolutely gorgeous.

After a long 3+ hour ride back (traffic was awful) we finally got to the Junction and went out to dinner. We're all just sitting around watching Love Actually on TV debating whether or not to go out or go to sleep. Big day tomorrow with Mardi Gras which we're super excited about. Check out some of the pictures from today that I posted below. Until next time...cheers :)