Anyway, the real point of this post is to tell you all about my EPIC weekend going wine tasting and whale watching. We had to be up at the school bright and early on Saturday morning where they picked us up and took us to Hunter Valley. There we were to 3 differerent vineyards Drayton’s Family Wines, McGuigan’s and the Golden Grape. All were very beautiful (the area in general is GORGEOUS!) and all quite different really. At each vineyard we got to taste somewhere between 6 and 10 wines. I couldn’t believe all of the differences in tastes! I need to work on my appreciation for wine before I attempt to go wine tasting again, I was relatively sick of it when we left the first vineyard! At the Golden Grape we also did some schnapps testing which was quite interesting. They gave us chilli schnapps which burned your WHOLE mouth! It was sooo spicy! And it was very strange to have a drink that tasted like chilli. They recommended cooking with it actually so a lot of people bought bottles of it to take home and cook with. Between 2 of the vineyards they took us into the little town that is around and we went to a super delicious chocolate shop. I had some chocolate covered strawberries (typical) and bought some chocolate covered peanut brittle which was wonderful as well! Also in the little town there was a wedding going on as well as a few bachelorette parties so that was neat! It really was a cute little town, had a live band playing and everything!
After wine tasting all day we got back on the bus and drove to Newcastle where we spent the night. It wasn’t too exciting of a place, just a small town with a few restaurants and such. We went to a thai place (I LOVE THAI FOOD!) which was delicious but unfortunately the service was absolutely awful. We then went down to the brewery as we had heard this was the placed to be, and boy was it! I hadn’t seen that many people throughout the entire town! It was a cute place, we got to sit outside by the water and watch a live band there too. They were good, had a great music variety! So we sat there for a bit before heading back and going to bed early as we knew it was going to be an extremely early morning for us.
We woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready for a day of whale watching and dolphin spotting up in port stephens! I was so exciting! I couldn’t wait to get to see these beautiful animals! We went on just a little catamaran which was neat, and off we headed. It was a bit chilly but thankfully i had bundled up that day and even brought my scarf! It was a realatively rocky boat ride and i think that literally half the boat got sea sick at some point on the trip. Thank goodness i have a strong stomach and turned out alright! We got to see about 10 or so humpback whales and a couple of pods of dolphins throughout the excursion. The coolest part BY FAR was one point in which the dolphins swam right in front/under the boat for at least a minute! And lucky me had scored a spot right at the front of the boat so they were right under me! I was in sheer disbelief of how close they were too me, if i would have reached down towards the water i could have touched them! And they swam right there for what seemed like eternity! It was AMAZING!
After whale watching all morning and grabbing lunch we headed off to the beach. Gosh i can’t remember the name of the beach but it is unimportant anyway. it was a really beautiful beach (as most are around here!) and it was nice to get to just hang out and relax for a bit while we waited for our next activity to start.
Get this... I GOT TO RIDE A CAMEL! It was EPIC! It was such a neat experience, it was sort of similar to a horse but still a bit different. It was higher obviously and the saddle had 2 seats in it which was different. My camel was a large male named Aussie (how appropriate!) and it was a really great time.
I cant say that when i came to Australia i had any intentions of riding a camel on the beach so it was super neat! We hung out on the beach for a bit more before making the 3 and a half hour drive home. Overall it was a WONDERFUL weekend! I had a great time :D
