Adventure Capitol of the World

We got to sleep in until 7 am today since our bungy jump was scheduled for 9:30 am. After having another delicious peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam sandwich for breakfast, we drove out over the mountains towards Queenstown. Megan was pretty nervous about bungy jumping and had told me that she would only do it if we could jump together. Once she told me that, I went ahead and reserved a time for the Kawarau Bridge bungy because that was one of the only places that let you do a tandem jump. Once we got there and were checking in, the woman convinced Megan to do it on her own since it is more of a challenge. After they weighed us and wrote our weights on our hands, we were off to the top of the bridge to jump.

We left our car keys and sandals on top of the bridge and then got into our harnesses. Then we had a few minutes to wait in line as there were 3 or 4 people ahead of us on the bridge. It was pretty windy and cold on top of the bridge and it made me glad I hadn't changed into shorts. When it was my turn then had me sit down at a lower platform that was thankfully sheltered from the wind. They wrap your legs together and then attach a cord from your legs to the bungy rope and a cord from your harness to the bungy rope. Then you waddle out to the edge where they count you down and then you are off.

It was awesome! I wanted to screaming "boost it" when I jumped but you are falling so fast that I ended up just yelling. You are going so fast it kind of takes your breath away. The sensation of speed is amazing. I had time to look down and around some before I hit the water. They had talked me into dunking my head. Unfortunately I jumped out and up instead of diving so I dunked even further then they intended. Luckily even though it was a somewhat chilly day, the sun was out and my shirt dried pretty quickly. I hastened up to the viewing platform so I could see Megan's jump.

Megan glanced over and then boosted her jump. From the way I saw it she did fine but she told me later that when they were moving her out, she told the guy she couldn't do it. The guy told her he'd count down from 5 and in her head she went I CAN DO THIS. Then when he got to 3, she decided she had to jump before he finished the countdown or she'd freeze, so she started jumping at 2.

After our bungy jumps, we got suckered into buying the pictures and DVDs (how many times are you going to go bungy jumping? don't you want documentation?). We picked them up and then headed on into Queenstown. On the way, we saw Amisfield winery and decided to take a quick wine tasting stop. We liked their wines and the guy pouring was form Chicago and talked to us a lot about how New Zealand wines differed from Napa and other areas in the states. We liked the wines and told the guy that we thought they were similar to Cakebread's wines. He laughed and said that the owner of Cakebread also owns Amisfield. Booyah to our ability to taste wines!

We drove into Queenstown proper and parked and headed in to an activities center. We didn't have anything booked until 5 pm so we wanted to see what other options there were. We decided we were going to go jet boating. We had done it once before in the North Island but we really enjoyed it and figured we'd give it another try. We had a few mishaps driving out to the location, but we ended up getting there in time still. This time was way more awesome than the time in the North Island. The boat went flying off at around 80 kph. They went through some really tight areas with rock cliffs on either side. They also drift through turns and pull 360s a lot.

After jet boating, we took a break from extreme activities and drove out to Arrowtown. It is a tiny village that has a lot of the historic store fronts and museums. We wandered around town. There was a self guided tour but they neglected to mention that you had to get keys to a lot of the places on the tour from the museum. We had already walked 15 minutes from the town center and we didn't have the heart to go back. It was really hot that day so we just walked to the various historic buildings. We lucked out at some of them because other people were there and got to go and see them. We then headed back into town and got some ice cream to cool off.


There was a fairly big Chinese population in Arrowtown during the gold rush days. The people of Arrowtown forced them to live in a separate portion of the village. While all the houses in Arrowtown were small, the Chinese houses would better be described as hovels. Some of them were 20 square feet and were set up like a lean to. It is amazing to me that they could live in such squalor.

We then headed back into Queenstown to the Skyline Gondola. We had booked luge rides and a dinner at the top. We took the gondola up. I can see why they have the dinner area where they do as it overlooks all of Queenstown and Lake Waktipu. We went up to the luge and decided that we would ride together the first time and then alternate luge rides so that we could take pictures of each other. We had hoped it was going to be real luge, but it was actually carts on wheels. It was still cool though. They bicycle style steering and you could actually get going dangerously fast. There are two courses, the scenic course and the ADVANCED course. We were planning on just doing the advanced course twice but they told us that your first ride of the day has to be the scenic course.

We got in and rode down together and then walked back up to plan out where we would get pictures of each other on the next run. I luged first and Megan took some pictures and video. Then I took the chairlift up and we swapped the camera so that she could go on her run. After our luge rides we headed into the dining area and got a drink while we waited for our seating time. It pays to check in as soon as you can because they seat you in order of check in. Since we were awesome and checked in first, they gave us the best seat in the house.


It had an okay view I guess. Best of all, we could each look outside instead of looking at each other. Since it was our honeymoon, they gave us complimentary champagne and then we started working on the buffet. There were tons of stations but we walked through the whole buffet to figure out our plan. In standard "eat for the cycle" form I decided I would have to eat a small portion of everything. I failed big time. There were two soups, 10 different fish dishes, 5 main courses and 5 sides, a big cheese, fruit and cracker plate, and an enormous dessert setup with ice cream and tons of small pastries and large cakes. The lamb and chicken main courses and the prawn sides were my favorites. What boggled our minds was how rude other patrons were at the buffet. While Megan was ladling soup into her bowl a woman pushed her way in front of her and was going to scoop her bowl into the soup. The worst was when we were getting cheese, a woman pushed her way in front of Megan and grabbed an enormous clump of grapes. It probably had about 200 grapes on it and she walked away with the whole thing. While we were shocked by what happened, a second woman pushed in and took the other grape clump! It was absurd. Luckily even though we weren't pushy we managed to get more than enough to eat and were thoroughly stuffed by the time we took the gondola back down to our car. After driving over the mountain once again, we were back home.

Glacier Walk Bear Grylls Style

Once again an early start. It is tough travelling for so long (I know stop whining) because you have to pack well. It was especially tough for us because we had to pack for tropical (fiji, barrier reef), spring weather (Melbourne), fall weather (Christchurch area) and then winter on the Fox Glacier.

We were bringing all our layers basically and Megan was super awesome and drove the first couple hours while I was useless and sleeping in the passenger seat. Luckily once she got tired I was ready to step in. The road from Wanaka to Fox Glacier goes through a bunch of mountains so unsurprisingly is windy and steep. Luckily, we were driving it so absurdly early in the morning that Megan saw the only other car driving that stretch and it let us make pretty good time.

We pulled in fifteen minutes late for our 8 am meet up, but they were cool about it and we managed to get fitted for all our gear pretty quickly. We had signed up for the all day ice climbing adventure. There is a lame "walk around the glacier" option, but the ice climbing only has 4 people to one guide and you also do ice climbing instead of just walking around. Obviously way more awesome. Once we were all set, we took the bus to the glacier area.

There is about an hour walk to the glacier on which our guide, Andy, explained what we would be doing and where we'd be going and also gave us a history of the glacier. I didn't realize that glaciers go through cycles of receding and growing based on the weather. Up until 2005, the glacier had been growing and now it is receding slightly. Once we got up to the glacier, we put on our crampons, harnesses and helmets and got out our ice axes.

Andy spent an hour or so teaching us how to walk on the glacier with crampons since it is way steeper than anything on which we were used to walking. Once he was confident we wouldn't fall to our deaths in ice fissures, we headed out to the first climb that he had in mind. He said that the glacier is constantly changing so something that might be a good climb one week might have collapsed another week which makes guiding tough. He found us a good spot to get started and set up ropes for us. He did a great job of teaching us; first he explained the theory of what to do and then he gave us a demonstration of how to climb. The whole time we were on the ice he was giving us tips and explaining different moves we could use in various situations.

After we were getting up and down the first set of routes he had set up, we ventured out a little further and he set up a second set of routes. These were significantly tougher as the first routes had been at an incline while the new ones were straight up and one had a lip that you had to climb up and over. We still powered through them and once we had each climbed the routes a few times, he announced that he had found a moulin, a hole caused by water runoff. We took a break to eat lunch while he set up the ropes for the hole.


After lunch we dropped down into the moulin and then climbed back up. It was awesome! Megan was worried about doing it at first, but once she dropped down, she was totally fine. We both climbed back out and were pumped about it. Then Andy said he had some serious climbs we could go to if we wanted. Luckily the other couple was awesome and agreed that we wanted to do them. We started walking and climbing up the glacier.

He said he knew of some sweet ice caves and after an hour or so we were able to find them. It was sweet walking through the caves, but a little disconcerting because he had told us how a lot of the glacier was unstable. We weren't huge fans of ice falling on our heads. He had also made sure to impress upon us that the ice boulders were very very heavy and that we shouldn't stand under them ever.


Afterwards, Andy found us a huge crevasse so we could drop down and climb back out. He set up the ropes again and I dropped in and started climbing. I did pretty well but towards the top, my forearms just gave out. I was so exhausted I had to wait for a while before finishing up the last bit. Afterwards, we all headed back. It was about an hour to get off the glacier and another hour to get back to our car. At this point we were all tired but we ordered a pizza to go, got gas and then drove back to Wanaka.

Dun - EEE - den

In order to give ourselves as little rest as possible, we had scheduled a bunch of stuff in Dunedin the day after we arrived in Wanaka. On paper it was about a 4 hour drive, but through good old American aggressive driving and creative passing, we did it in 3:15. Even so we had booked a 9 am tour, which meant leaving at 5 am and waking up at 4:30. F. Along the way, we encountered the largest fruit sculpture in New Zealand. Sadly, we didn't stop this time, but we noted the existance of the town of Cromwell. It would come in handy later.

Luckily Megan was a rock star and drove the last hour or so when I was too tired to keep on going. She had to deal with a ridiculously precarious road meandering its way up these cliffs leading up to Lanarch Castle, New Zealand's only castle. Ever. We got started on the self guided tour with a video purportedly of the history of the castle. Instead it just talked about how the family that purchased it 30 years ago repaired it and lived there. The castle had been in disrepair for a long while after the original owners lost it. I was disappointed to see them gloss over the real history and mostly focus on what they did.

After we finished up with Lanarch Castle, we backtracked into the center of Dunedin, called the Octagon. Surprisingly enough, it is shaped like an octagon with a bunch of shops and eateries bookended by some beautiful churches. We wandered around before heading down south to look at the train station. It is a beautiful building that is still in use today. We started to notice there that every time we mispronounced Dunedin, all the locals would repeat it with the correct pronunciation (shown in the title).


We started heading back to the Octagon, but along the way Megan noticed CADBURY WORLD. They have a tour and gift shop set up so you can see the chocolate being made (and buy it). We of course headed in. Sadly, on weekends, the factory isn't running so you don't get to see the people at work. During the week, there is an extended tour which really shows everything. Instead we got to see a movie and go through the factory where they showed up the machines and explained how they make the various chocolates. They also have the largest chocolate waterfall in the world which might have been the best part of the tour.

We left the factory just in time for it to start pouring. After taking a short detour to Vodafone to get another usb 3g modem for New Zealand so I could keep up with my internet fix, we windowshopped our way back to the Octagon. We had a 6 pm tour of Speights brewery and we tried to get into an earlier tour, but the douchebag (from Australia - I don't want to give New Zealand a bad name) wouldn't let us into the tour. Since we had time to kill and it was still pouring we got into our car to head to Baldwin St, the steepest street in the world.


It puts Lombard St to shame. It doesn't have any of that pansy "curves" or "switchbacks", just one street straight up. Clearly we had to drive up to the top and speed down, which Megan wasn't a huge fan of. After driving it, we decided to walk it as well. After little discussion we decided that driving it is a much better way of ascending. Once we were back at the bottom, Megan let me drive it one more time.


It was getting close to 6, so we drove back to Speights to get the tour. Even though we had the douchebag tour guide, it was still really awesome. They put a lot of work into having a good tour and it shows. We learned about the history of Speights beer and also the history of the site. They take you through all the different parts of the factory where they make beer. It even went through a hollowed out old cask. The best part of any is brewery tour though is that you get to taste beers at the end. We sampled 6 or so beers before the tour guide lied to us and told us another tour was coming through so he had to kick us out. We realized after we'd been duped that we were the last tour of the day.

After leaving the brewery, we decided we'd get food next door at the Speights restaurant. The food was pretty good but not exceptional. After getting food, we started driving back. We were a little under half full of gas so we were looking for gas stations leaving Dunedin, but we couldn't find any along the way so we just assumed we'd get gas on the road. After driving an hour or so and finally getting to a town that had a gas station, we realized that in New Zealand most gas stations close around 8 or 9. We must have gotten to this town right after they had closed. The bad part is that almost all of them also don't let you pay at the pump. As a result, we spent the next two hours searching for gas stations along the way. I had Megan get the laptop out and she looked up where towns were so that we knew about where we would have to call it quits so that we wouldn't run out of gas in the middle of no where. We got to a Mobil around 11 that claimed to have a 24 hr machine that took credit cards, but it was out of order.

We drove through a few semibig cities that had no gas stations open and we knew that Cromwell was our last chance. We had decided if we couldn't get gas we were going to have to find a hotel to sleep at that night. We had gotten directions to a gas station from google maps and we tried there, but it was closed as well. Megan noticed a hotel across the way and we pulled in there and she ran in to ask if there was a nearby gas station. Somehow it was the place to be on a Tuesday night with tons of people hanging out there. Luckily they pointed us to a BP that was open until midnight. We got there at 11:57! Woot to not spending the night in our car. After getting gas, we drove back home to Wanaka and passed out knowing that we had to leave the next morning at 4:30 am to get to the glacier in time for ice climbing.

What's Up NZ? I've missed you

I love New Zealand. I had really enjoyed my time spent in the North Island and the South Island is supposed to be even more picturesque. When we planned our trip, I knew the week in New Zealand was going to have some of the highlights. Our flight was delayed a little and instead of getting in around 2, we got in at 5 pm. It was a bummer because we only had one day in Christchurch, the biggest city in the south island, and it really cut into the time we had to spend there. After picking up our super sketchy rental car, a used corola from 1998 with 150k miles on it, we got to driving on the wrong side of the road.


We checked into our super cute bed and breakfast, Anselm House, which was only 5 minutes away from downtown. Jan, one of the two owners in the husband/wife team, gave us a bunch of suggestions for things to do, where to park, and places to eat. Armed with this info we headed into town. One of the super cool things about Christchurch is the small river running right through the downtown area. It is only about a foot deep and they will give you a boat ride (called a punt) along the river. More on that later.


There is a beautiful botanical garden in town as well. It is enormous and we spent an hour and a half waking around before dinner. Megan made sure to stop and smell as many roses as possible. We wandered around the city some more before our dinner reservation. While walking around we realized that we wanted to take the scenic tram tour, go punting and see the main cathedral. Unfortunately all of those are closed after 5 so we had to do them the next day.

We ate dinner at Cookin with Gas. I was skeptical at first due to their dumb name, but once we got there we were really happy with everything. The only issue we had was there was a super drunk guy sitting at the table next to us and he proceeded TO TALK REALLY LOUD THE WHOLE TIME. It was so bad sometimes it stopped our conversation. At one point his wife told him to be quieter and he stormed out of the building. That was the best. Both of our dinners were awesome; Megan had steak and I had salmon.

Since we had a late dinner, we decided to head over to the bar areas. On one of the inter Australia flights I had read the JetStar magazine which said that Sol Square was the new hot spot for bars. It took about 15 minutes to walk over there but even though it was a little out of the way, it was really awesome. It is basically an alleyway with 15 or so bars all packed in. There is also a sort of piazza area in the middle. It was a really sweet atmosphere. We went to fat eddie's which was one of the places suggested in the magazine. They had a live band and it looked really packed. When we were ordering, I asked the bartender to suggest something for me. He said he had just the thing and described it as LIQUID AWESOME. Of course I was intrigued and ordered it. Turns out it was a rum and coke with Matusalem Classico rum and a bunch of lime squeezed in. He was right it was pretty awesome. When I got a 2nd, I had a different bartender and didn't know how to get the same thing so I told her that the other guy had recommended a drink to me as LIQUID AWESOME and I wanted the same thing. She knew exactly which bartender it was and went and asked him how to make the drink. This whole area was neat because people would come for a live band and then leave once their set was done to go to a different place for more live music. It seemed like everyone was hopping through bars pretty quickly.

The next morning, we woke up early to a delicious breakfast that Jan had prepared for us. They had a delicious fruit salad, homemade jam and toast and eggs benedict. We liked the jam so much that she bottled us up a jar to take with us! They were super nice and we loved staying there. Plus they had free wifi! I <3 the internet. Afterwards, we jumped on the tram and rode it around the city. It tells you some about the area and also is an easy way to get around.

They sell combo tickets for tram tour and a punt in the Avon (the river running through Christchurch. We had purchased one and as soon as we finished the tram tour, we got off at the punting location so we could get that done before the crowds. It turned out not to be an issue because it started raining, but we got the first half of the ride done before the rain. They give you umbrellas and warm blankets so it was still comfortable. Afterwards we took a look at the beautiful cathedral downtown before heading over to the market.


Megan LOVES street vendors so she enjoyed shopping around. We bought some kiwi candy from a monk who hand makes all of it. We are still snacking on it. Even though we had already eaten lunch, I found my weakness again: german style sausages. We ordered one to split and it was the most delicious sausage I have ever eaten. We jumped in the car and starting driving to our time share in Wanaka.


We had scheduled a scenic flight around Mt Cook, but that was cancelled due to weather. This would be a recurring theme as well. Unfortunately we took the scenic highway to Wanaka but the weather didn't cooperate and it was foggy and rainy the whole way so we didn't get much of a view. We got into Wanaka, checked into our room and then ran downtown to get groceries for the week. They had gas grills as well as a weird microwave/oven combination where you could bake stuff as well as microwave things so we got a bunch of dinner food as well as meat for lunch. Prices were funny. It was about 4 dollars for a pound of steak or lamb and 12 dollars for a pound of chicken. All stocked up, we went to sleep early in preparation for an early day.

Cruising it up

Our last stop in Australia was Airlie Beach by way of Hamilton Island. We had booked a 3 day cruise with the Pacific Sunrise, a big wooden sailboat that sleeps about 30. The cruise boarded at 4 pm and we had gotten in the night before so we did laundry and picked up some lunch around town. We went to a chemist (Australian for pharmacy) for sunscreen and Megan got SUPER worried when we were there because we heard the people next to us talking about how they got bed bugs on their wooden boat. They advised us to pick up insect repellent and to sleep with it just in case. Luckily it turned out to not be an issue.

There were 6 other couples on the cruise with us and they pulled us all together and gave us a tour of the boat before showing us our cabin. They had some light food and champagne out for us and we generally bummed around the boat and ate dinner before they got everyone up top to see the sunset. You couldn't BYO alcohol but they let you buy a bottle of wine from them for the whole cruise and keep it behind the bar for you so you can have a glass at a time.

The next day, what would be our alarm clock the rest of the cruise, the anchor, woke us up at 5:30. We went back to sleep easily and woke up a few hours later to an awesome breakfast before we dropped anchor again at our first dive spot. We had only one dive instructor and 12 people who wanted to go, so we split into 3 groups. Megan and I were in the 2nd group and we spent the first hour snorkeling in the area. We got to see tons of awesome fish, but we called it quits after 30 minutes so that we'd have some time to rest before our dive. We hopped in the tender (small boat) and hung out until the dive group got back. No one in the first group had their certification so they didn't go very low and as soon as they swapped out tanks, it was our turn.

We were down for a few minutes before I realized that something was up with my pressure gauge. When I would take a breath, it would read 0 and then flare back up. I showed it to Megan and then surfaced. The dive instructor then took a look and noticed that my tank wasn't fully turned on. We fixed it and then went back under the water. On this dive we swam past an ENORMOUS fish which they get to see from time to time and have named Elvis. It was about 5-6 feet long and weighed more than I did when I was obese. Even though it terrorizes the fish in the area, it doesn't seem to mind divers and didn't bother us at all. The rest of the dive was awesome and when our tanks went low we headed up and were back at the boat. We warmed up and snacked some while the 3rd group was in the water and then the boat took off for the next dive spot.






This time we got in the water with no issues and my tank was all on and good to go. Unfortunately it had rained a little and that stirred up the bottom a bunch which meant we didn't have great visibility. We still got to see a sea cucumber and the nemo fish as well as a lot of other fish and really cool coral. Once we surfaced we took the tender back to the boat over really rough seas. I really started to feel seasick at this point and for the next couple hours I wasn't in great shape. Finally I went to the back of the boat and went to sleep hoping I would feel better when I woke up. Luckily for me, a combination of sleeping and the boat moving to a more protected area fixed my stomach issues and I was ready for dinner. Since we knew we weren't diving early the next morning, we finished up the last 2 glasses of wine and Megan discovered her new favorite drink, a midori spice (midori + malibu coconut rum + coconut cream + pineapple juice)



The next day the weather was finally cooperating and we headed over to the beautiful Whitehaven Beach. Apparently it was voted the best beach in some magazine for whatever thats worth. I didn't hold my breath, but when we got there it was pretty awesome. There were a bunch of small sharks and a ton of sting rays in the marshes and shallow water near the beach. After spending a few hours at the beach, we climbed up to the lookout for some photos before heading back to the boat.

Luckily, with the good weather we decided to hit another dive spot. In this one there was some really good coral. We were having a really good dive along a cliff wall. The dive master had been taking us through a bunch of rock outcroppings that we had to swim under which was exciting. Unfortunately, we turned a corner under water and got right into the current. As soon as we did that, we noticed the visibility had gone to shit and the next 10 minutes of the dive weren't very good. One of the other guys sucked through his air so we ended up surfacing even though Megan and I both had a fair amount of air remaining.


After our 3rd dive, we had all built up quite an appetite and we were treated to the best dinner by far of the cruise. Ross, the chef, had outdone himself every night and the last night he cooked an amazing salmon dish and a bread putting dessert that everyone onboard finished even though we were all stuffed silly from the salmon. Since we were just sailing back in the morning, we had a bunch of midori splices and hung out on the top deck. Finally, we passed out and woke up the next day to another delicious breakfast before getting all our gear off the boat and heading back into town.

We were really happy with all of the crew and all of the people with which we shared the boat.

Bungy!

Sydney Opera

Our last organized tour was a half day tour of Sydney. We got picked up in a big tour coach (this was our most touristy day). After a short stop to drop off some people to a different tour, we got moving. We drove along the harbor to Mrs Macquaries Chair, a big stone statue on the water opposite sydney proper. It has a great view of the skyline and Opera house.


We jumped back in the van and headed around Sydney. It was very interesting to see how spread out Sydney is. Of all the cites in Australia we've seen, this is msot similar to New York with urban sprawl stretching miles (or kilometers as it were) in all directions. Our last stop on the tour was Bondi Beach. It is a pretty popular beach area due to its promixity to downtown Sydney. It is pretty, but The water is cold and the beach itself has a very short break.

The tour overall was the worst that we have taken. It didn't really talk much about the history of Sydney and just jumped around and would give us a little chatter en route. It also was the most touristy. Luckily we only did the half day tour and got off the bus and wandered around Sydney shopping some. We decided to head to the Opera House in order to get our tour/dinner/show package tickets we had prepurchased
. It was fortuitous that we did this because the tour we had prebooked for no longer existed. Luckily they were able to convcert our reservation to a new tour. We went home and changed for dinner and took a cab back due to the sweltering heat. It had been super humid the whole time we were in Sydney. It a good reminder that California is the land of milk and honey whenever you are somewhere with worse weather (which is just about everywhere). Otherwise you definitely take it for granted.

The tour was awesome! Our guide was very knowledgeable but had a kind of obnoxious manner. She was like a high school thespian; overally demonstrative and excited about meaningless facts and figures. Her other problem was that every sentence LOUD AND then she slowly faded out until you couldn't hear her anym... I guess I should rephrase: the opera house is awesome and the tour was okay.

After the tour, we walked over to Cafe Sydney, which was one of the possible options for the prix menu we had bought a dinner/show package with the opera house. Once again we had a great dinner, we started with our new favorite food, more bugs in a salad. Then Megan had an amazing steak and I had a really good pork belly that I would have thought was amazing if I hadn't first tried Megan's filet. We had something chocolate and delicious for dessert as well as splitting a few sparkling wine drinks. We finished up and started walking back to the Opera house when I realized I had left my nikon slr at the table. I literally sprinted 3 blocks in a worry induced haze. Luckily they had set the camera aside for me and had someone waiting with the camera for me.

Megan caught back up and we walked back to the Opera house. Sprinting around had built my appetite back up and I got a sausage from a street vendor. It wasn't as delicious as I hoped, but I was full again for our George Benson show. We had heard his name before but hadn't ever listended to his music. The show turned out to be awesome. He was doing a tribute to Nat King Cole and sang a bunch of his songs before moving on to his own repetoire. The acoustics are amazing. To say that doesn't do justice to how awesome they are. Everyone says that but you have to be there to experience it. Most of the time at concerts they just blast the speakers so everyone could hear. Not the case at the Opera house - you could hear people on the other side of the concert hall like they were talking to you.



Benson was funny at times and moved easily through everything. At first everyone was a little subdued until his bassist urged everyone to get up. Soon there were people rocking out and standing all over the arena. He finished his set and walked off. One lady who had been rocking out hard in front of us starting screaming ENCORE ENCORE then realized perhaps this wasn't the venue for that. She turned around to Megan, kind of asking approval to yell more. Megan gave her a thumbs up and she went back to screaming encore! Benson came back for a few more songs before calling it a night. We walked back to our hotel and called it a night

I'm on a boat!

Just a short update. day 2/4 on our cruise. We went scuba diving and avoided being this enormous fish's dinner. more to come later

Hunter Valley Wine Tasting

In day 2 of organized tours, we had booked a wine tasting tour in the Hunter Valley region near Sydney. We were picked up at 6:45 from our hotel. Since we were running a little late, we didn't get a chance to have breakfast and had to wait until they stopped around 8 and we ran over to Oliver's and got coffee and a smoothie and a light breakfast before heading out again.

Our first winery stop (at 10 am - it was after noon in california though) was at Ernest Hill Winery, a small family owned affair. They sat us down around barrels and we had a very friendly and knowledgeable server pour us 6 or so wines and let us know about them.

Since there was tons of drinking to do, we piled back into the van and headed to Oakdale. Again we were at a big table and they talked us through the various wines. Hunter Valley is in love with the Semillon grape, which makes some nice wines. We also like that they make a bunch of light sparkling desert wines that are not too sweet. While they describe food pairing for every other wine, they always tell us for the sparkling ones "this one goes best with a 2nd bottle".

They herded us back into the van and we headed to our lunch stop, Blue Tongue Brewery. The driver had told us in advance that you could get a paddle of beer tasting and we were intrigued. Turns out when you get the paddle, you also get a full glass of your favorite. We ordered lunch and a paddle and freaked out the driver when he saw us only drinking beer and asked about our lunches. We let him know that we were only consuming alcohol today and food just got in the way. I wish I had taken a picture of his reaction. It turned out that the beer we liked the best was not one of the brewery's but an Italian Peroni brand beer. Australian beer is on the lighter side than most American beers. And as a bonus, Megan finally found some beers she likes.

Our next stop was Tintilla winery. Most of the vineyards in Hunter valley only sell at the tasting room, or cellar door as they call it in Australia. This winery was no exception as they don't make a lot of cases. The winemaker recently got married and made a wine for his bride to be. It was another sparkling desert wine and it was excellent. They actually only sold a few cases extra of the first vintage and once they realized everyone loved it, they started producing it in future years for general consumption. Megan lamented that I should have made a wine for her for our wedding. A quick reminder of our current wine making escapade brought her back down to earth.

Our last winery stop was at Mistetoe. Sadly they have no mistletoe up around the vineyard which seems like false advertising. They do have a ton of paintings up and have the picture nazi running around telling you not to take any photos. We did anyway. We were glad this was the last vineyard cause we were a little tasted out. Luckily there was still more to do though!

Our last stop before heading back was a combination cheese shop / gelato shop. Two of my favorite things rolled up into one building. Thanks Australia! All of the cheeses were amazing but we knew we were travelling so much that we weren't going to be able to keep them cold so we didn't buy any. We did buy gelato using Paul's volume method : every gelato places sells pints. It is often (in this case it was) cheaper to buy a pint then to buy two small cups. We sadly threw away half the print when we realized the fridge in the back of the van didn't have any freezing capabilities.

We both passed out for the 2 hour ride back to our hotel and headed in to the concierge to see how he had screwed up our dinner reservations. In Australia they are all about confirming the crap out of stuff. They always want you to call 24/48 hrs ahead of time to confirm reservations for trips, dinner etc. We had asked the concierge to make a reservation at a dinner place he suggested tonight and confirm our reservation the next day. Instead he failed at both. Luckily the concierge we talked to today suggested Nicks seafood on Darling Harbor which was a short ten minute walk away.


I was really indecisive about what to order and the waiter didn't help much when he told us that their special was "bugs". We talked to him for a few minutes trying to understand what they were (some kind of shellfish we thought) but it didn't help much. We asked if they were like crawfish and he said "they are like bugs because that is what they are". We were intrigued so we got them as an appetizer. They are my new favorite thing. They are sweeter than lobster and less chewy.

We also had gotten a coupon to this place from our hotel for free glasses of wine which we picked up. At this point after wine tasting we weren't as in to wine as normally but they were a nice touch. Dinner was awesome and then we headed back to our hotel after strolling around Darling Harbor for a while.

Blue Mountains

Due to the whirlwind nature of our trip through Australia, we signed up for a couple organized tours in the Sydney area. The first was a tour of the Blue Mountains, about a 2 hour drive from downtown Sydney. We grabbed a quick croissant while waiting for our absurdly early tour bus. We tried to get on the wrong bus twice but luckily the operators checked our names first since there are multiple tour companies doing similar trips.


Our first stop was a nature park that advertised a "free koala". Megan was really excited to get two new koala pets. It turns out that they only give out small koala stuffed animals which aren't nearly as exciting. On the plus side they let us pet whatever we wanted. Megan got to meet her new favorite animal, the wombat. She also saw more of the echidnas which she also liked. We had the good fortune to see one on the great ocean road but only briefly so it was cool to get a photo of one.

Later on, we got to feed kangaroos. Megan liked it at first but she was being stingy with the food and the one kangaroo decided to take matters into its own hands (feet?) and punched the crap out of her to get the food cup she was holding. Luckily it didn't hurt her, but she did lose most of the food she had. Moral of the story : don't get between a kangaroo and its dinner.

Our next stop was the little town of Leura for lunch. We stopped at the Red Door Cafe where Megan got a pumpkin turkish sandwich and I got a delicious steak sandwich. We have had really good luck with our food choices so far this trip. After getting lunch out of the way, we wandered around town shopping. They have a delicious fudge and candy shop that I was most excited about.

After lunch we went to see the "Three Sisters" which are 3 pillars standing near a cliff face. We walked around the scenic outlook there some before heading to a gondola ride across the valley. After a brief stop on the other side, we took another gondola ride down to the valley floor to check out an old mining town. I think I developed the black lung in that time.

We then took the gondola back up and wandered around the gift shop for a while. Megan REALLY liked a wombat stuffed animal there. I promptly asserted dominance on it and that was that.

Afterwards they took us to the Olympic park which was the site of the 2000 olympics. I think it would have been much cooler had it not been pouring rain. We still got out and looked at the fountain where the olympic flame used to be but didn't explore as much as we might have with better weather. Finally we went to the ferry to take us back to Sydney. We pulled in to the harbor which gave us our first view of the iconic Opera House.

After getting off the ferry we opted to walk back to our hotel so we could see more of Sydney. Along the way we discovered a cupcakery. Looks like the fad is sweeping the world! We of course purchased a set of six for later.

We got back to our hotel and asked the concierge to confirm some of our reservations and also suggest a place for dinner. We ended up with an italian restaurant which we thought was called Burpees. Turns out it was Beppi's. We had asked the concierge what atire to wear there and he told us casual. We unfortunately neglected to realize that casual in Sydney does not equal San Francisco casual. Megan walked in and stopped midway with the door open because there was no one wearing jeans, much less with no collared shirt. Luckily they were still willing to seat us and the food was delicious. Megan had lobster ravioli and I had a mixed seafood over angel hair pasta that both were great. Their bruchetta is also amazing. If you want a fun experience you can request a seat in their wine cellar which is quite extensive.

We knew we had another early tour the next day so we headed back home around 11 and passed out.