Getting my Wine-on.

So yesterday Bec, Emma, Michael, Simon and I piled into my shoebox of a car and drove to the vineyards for the day. After a tiny detour to Brisbane (jokes! but I did take the wrong turn - and immediately realised my mistake, so it cannot be seen as me getting lost), we went to my cousin's vineyard which is so very far away. Got there, drank all her desert liquers, bought one because I felt like I had to, then went on.

The next place was down the road and really cute (Simon thought the girl was also). There's this sculptures in the Vineyards thing going, and at my cousin's they had rhinoceri (sp?) and at this place they had a big hanging skeleton and a giant pick-up-sticks. Sorry, it wasn't pick-up-sticks, it was reminiscent of the children's game, but really represents the game of life. My bad. So altough this cellar was cute, as you walk in there's a pile of deer skins for sale wih the tag, "skins from our farm," which is a little disconcerting. Plus, there was a great big stag head mounted on the wall, complete with bullet hole near the eye. Lovely. This is probably incredibly hypocritical of me, considering the fact that I eat meat and wear leather, but it just feels so wrong to exhibit dead animals like that, almost as if to say, "Yeah, animal, how d'you like me now? I can beat you cos I have a gun."

Anyway, next we had a picnic lunch at the Hunter Valley Gardens. The boys did their man thing and barbequed, which is ALWAYS appreciated. Have I mentioned how much better food tastes when you haven't cooked it yourself. It's a fact. I read it. In a book.

Next we went to McGuigans which was a total bust. Much too busy and in the end we didn't bother. We tried some cheese though, so that was OK. After that it was on to Tempus Two. We were served by Alannah who was so lovely! She made us try a whole bunch of wines that weren't on the list so we could find some that we liked. She was so helpful and cheery and had wonderful descriptions of the wines, and when we found out she was going to U Newcastle sometime in the near future studying what Simon and I are studying it got even better. Wrote her a nice complement and bought a couple of bottles there.

Next we went onto Bimbadgen, our last stop, and who should I see but my friend Jemma, who I met in Chicago! She's working at the cellar there until she goes to London in five weeks. So weird to run into her after I hadn't seen her since 0-Ball. Everyone put in to buy me a bottle of wine from there, which was so nice, and then we headed home, everyone incredibly tired after a very long day.