Wine tour with the girls in Margaret River

 

It was time for a road trip. Though it was the middle of winter, the girls decided that a wine tasting tour sounded like a great idea to spend a weekend. After the directors’ drinks on Friday, which are put on by the Perth and Subi offices every two weeks, we went for dinner at Ararang, a Korean bbq place, and then home to get some rest before the big trip. The problem is that I get so excited about road trips that I generally cannot sleep much the night before. I fell asleep at around midnight just to wake up 4 ½ hours afterwards to throw the bags in the car. Trevlyn and I picked up Jenna and Rutchi on the way. We stopped in Mandurah for a great breakfast (Eggs Benedict yum yum) and finally arrived in the wine region after about 4 hours drive.

First stop was the Island Brook Estate, a small winery but we got us a map of the whole area and some great ideas on where to head to next. The Grove Vineyard is apparently well known for its liquors, so we went there first. They had a great selection of home made liquors such as Strawberry and Coconut but the one thing that caught my eye was the Chocolate Port. It also completely caught my taste buds and I didn’t have to think twice to get a bottle. After chocolate port the next stop was the Margaret River Chocolate Factory which was quite a disappointment. They did not let us try any chocolate other than the chocolate buds. Goward&Black Vineyards was close by and they also had a Providore taste room where we tasted all sorts of dips as well as Dukkah, which is a mixture of nuts and spices which when mixed with olive oil makes a yummy dip. After stuffing our faces we needed more wine. Vasse Felix was our chose to fulfill this desire. It was unfortunate that the vineyard was full of hideous metal sculptures because otherwise it was beautiful and had good wine. They also had a sparkling red wine, which was different – I do prefer cava. What I also got was Oops! Red wine stain remover. The week before I had a little accident on our carpet and spilled a whole glass of red. What a shame – about the wine.

Olio Bello provided us with loads of great olive oil and dipping bread as well as hand creams and olives. That made us so hungry that we stopped at the brewery next door, in Cowaramup to have a drink and a late lunch. The weather was great and we even sat outside. Margaret River and surrounding area is a beautiful peace of the world. After the brewery we had had enough and the vineyards were also close to closing, so we checked into our hotel in Margaret River, the Margaret River Holiday Suites. After splitting up the beds between the four of us, we went for a coffee at Wino’s. We were pretty beaten down, i.e. tired, at 6pm but pulled ourselves together with the help of some Jaeger bombs at Settlers in town. We also decided to watch the rugby there and occupy a table reserved for diners by chewing over an hour on a serving of chips and salsa and some potato wedges. The Wallabies won again – this time they beat the All blacks (New Zealand) though I admit, the kiwis are much better looking. The tavern also had a live band which started playing around 9ish. The front singer looked like a hippie but the band played all sorts of rock styles while the locals behaved like junkies. We sat at our table and were joined by Loren from Cali and Peter and Carl from Sydney. Loren invited us to an after party but we were completely knackered from the long day, so Peter walked us all back to the hotel.

My night wasn’t too great since the nachos and wedges decided to dance tango in my tummy and I spent most of the night in the bath room. The next morning I felt better and off we were around 11am.

First we went to Prevelly to grab some breakfast and after I made everyone turn around because I had forgotten my camera under the bed, we did finally get breakfast – or more lunch, at the Sea Gardens Café. Funny enough Peter and Carl showed up about 15 minutes after us, so we sat around yapping for a while until the rain front that hit just as we were eating disappeared. We had a quick stop at the beach which turned into a wet shower. To warm up we went to find some more vineries. On the way we even saw kangaroos though we do think they were fenced in and only bred for eating. So far we had not seen a single kangaroo though people have told us stories about these mean little creatures. Apparently they ambush humans by setting traps and jumping in front and behind the cars at the same time. Humans countered by putting roo bars on their cars. Roo bars are not like Mars bars, they are very similar to the cow bars we have in Texas though, except that they don’t just put them on SUVs and trucks. To do something touristier we stopped at the Mammoth Cave which was quite impressive. Peter and Carl crossed our paths – AGAIN! They must have placed a transmitter on Rutchi.

In the Mammoth Cave

After the caving experience we decided to start heading back north and hit a few more vineries before making our way home (and hopefully being attacked by some kangaroos). We stopped at Cullen and Knee Deep. The latter had a great rose wine. Those that know me know I don’t generally drink rose but this one was great. It tasted like strawberries. Their Shiraz was great too, so I bought a bottle of each for when Silly and mom are here. (I cannot promise that the Chocolate Port will still be there) Our last stop for the day was Swings & Roundabouts. The only reason we went there was because Jenna used the saying, which means “this&that”. It was a stroke of good fortune because not only was the wine great and the vineyard one of the most beautiful, they also served hot chocolate&mixed berry muffins with custard and cream. It was a great ending to our stay. We packed all our goodies into the trunk and made our way back. As the icing on the cake we made our last stop at Cicerello’s in Freo to have fish&chips. It was great! Trevlyn and I got back at 10pm and fell into our beds to rest from this wonderful road trip weekend.

The Fish&Chips link to more photos

In hindsight, we should have left Friday after work and will take that into consideration the next time we decide to go some – no worries mates, plans are already in the making!

 

 

 

 

Love notes

I would like to say that I found the perfect man here in Australia. Are you surprised? I sure hope you are because – I would be too. Fortunately, this entry is not about the perfect man, I would not want to bore you to death with a soppy love story even if there was one, though I will say this… I know he exists, he is just in hiding somewhere. But this is beside the point.

No, this entry is about little notes that I keep finding stuck to my windscreen for parking in the wrong places. I have been here three weeks and so far had two notes.

My first Aussie love note

I thought the first ever note was very rude. I did in fact check online just the week before that unit 18 was still up for grabs (as such the parking space wasn’t used) but I guess 700,000 dollar units go rather quickly in this city. Just a week later I found this lovely note on my windscreen. Considering that I had no prior warning, I would have expected a nicer note. I obliged of course and moved my car outside the parking garage. Our apartment, unfortunately, only comes with one official parking space and there is no visitor parking. I am not sure who designed this apartment complex but making one carport for a two-bedroom apartment is a little inadequate.

I started parking my car behind our building. There are parking spaces at the back of the drive way that did have a sign saying “private parking” but I assumed that the parking was for the company next door and that surely noone would mind me parking my car there overnight, considering noone worked overnight and there was always a space when I got home and usually still space when I left in the morning. This week I found out that I thought wrong. Tuesday morning I came to my car and found this note.

Love note No. 2

When I found the note I noticed that it was soaking wet and the writing a little smeared. It must have been stuck to my car overnight, though I have to say it was a little nicer than the first one. When I found the note my car was the only car parked in said parking spaces. Oh well, considering there actually is a sign saying no parking, of course, I obliged to this note as well and moved my car – along the wall right outside the parking garages. There are no signs and there is enough space for other cars to pass. Now if there was a tank or a hummer coming through it might get a little stretchy. I am fully expecting another note in a day or two…

On the upside of it all, I have not had a parking ticket nor a speeding ticket, at least not that I am aware of. Are you surprised again? Ha, me too.

Big Brother Australia

Here we are, Trevlyn and me, watching big brother in Western Australia. It’s the grand finale and on our TV screen there are Terri, Rory and Ben sitting on the couch. I do not know what drove me to go onto the big brother website, I think I wanted to find out how old Ben and Bianca were. I knew Ben was 19 but I would have never guessed Bianca to be 18 (she looks old!) Anyway, this is beside the point. What I found much more interesting is that the website already proclaimed Terri as the winner. So Ben is going to be evicted just now on my TV. Why would they not show this at the same real time all over Oz? I don’t get it. This just took out all the fun of watching the finals. On top of that I am just reading that there will be another surprise.

“Rory and terri, congratulations, you are the final two” bla bla “Big Brother has one final surprise for you.” Terri turns around to see her daughter and grandson walk through the door and instantly loses it as tears erupt from her made-up face.

What on earth! I have not even seen that part yet. Ben is happily sitting on the couch. Well, it is no wonder they are taking this show off the screen. I hope they do the same all over the world. There is one question left open… who is Big Brother? Will we ever know? Will I ever care enough to google it? 

We are now switching to “Farmer Wants a Wife” – another high class show where city girls stick their hands up cows’ bottoms, 42 year old men kick their mothers out of their home for a few days or weeks to invite some pretty city girls to stay with them and a winemaker who thinks the perfect wife is a 19 year old model who cannot hold a conversation. Ace!

News from the “home front”

I have been here for 3 weeks now and time has been flying by. Lots of things have happened, not just in my life but in everybody elses as well. Some friends are moving to other parts of the US and the world, others found new jobs, others again are embarking on new travels, my sister is sick at home (not home sick), my mom is telling me every day how she cannot wait to come to Australia and today I also received news from one of the loves of my life, Benji. While I am gone he just seems to be having so much fun. He made new friends and has been annoying the hell out of my friend Rachel it appears. The “boys” as she lovingly calls them have only been driving her slightly crazy.

I do miss my boy and it appears I will have to get him a friend once I come back so he won’t be so alone at home and does not cause too much havoc. He seems to be enjoying his time with the boys as well.

Benji and Pip on Rachel's kitchen cupboards

And more animals

crossings (and link to more pictures)

We had not had enough animals yesterday with all the wallabies, boks and sharks. Today we finally wanted to see the kangaroos. None had crossed our way so far although we had seen road signs announcing possible encounters and several cars with roo-bars in front of them. Now roo-bars are metal bars in front of the radiator of a car such that the roos don’t get into the radiator when you hit them. How awful is that!!!

Jenna came around at 11am to pick us up and we made our way to the Caversham Wildlife Park. There were loads of families and little kids and way way too many birds. They had all sorts of cockatoos, parrots and doves. We saw some kookaburras, whiich are a type of kingfisher native to Oz. They are the birds that are best known for their call which sounds like an echoing human laughter. The park had plenty of kangaroos and we fed them in the petting zoo.

Can you scratch right there? My arms are too short!

They were pretty lazy as food was plenty. Not as lazy as the koalas were. These fluffy bears sleep 20!!!! hours a day. How do you like that? The other 4 they eat. Sounds like a good life. We weren’t allowed to hold the koalas though because that apparently shortens their life span by several years.

They must get really stressed out by human contact. We also saw some Tazmanian devils and tried to hold them but after they bit of several fingers we gave up. Next on the list were the wombats. However, there was a huge line of people to meet the wombat, so we gave up and had a hot dog instead.

As a good ending to the day, we all went for a little walk through Freo and caught some good bargains on fruit and veg at the Fremantle Markets. Since the vendors don’t want to take all their stuff with them at the end of the day, you can find some types of fruit and a lot of vegetables for really cheap.

Wallabies, Springboks and other animals

Friday night was Natasha’s (girl from work) birthday party at the Brass Monkey. She really made a great effort to decorate her Alice in Wonderland party and provide everyone with an awesome experience despite pouring rain all day. Jenna and Rutchi came by our place and after one or two glasses of wine, we made our way toward the venue. On the way we stopped at the Lindt store to buy a gift. When we got to the Brass Monkey in Northbridge we were soaked to the skin. Umbrellas didn’t help much either. Apparently the rain had been so bad that the Swan River decided to break its boundaries as well and they also recorded a tornado in or close to Perth. And here I am thinking I can escape such kind of phenomenon.

The Wonderland party was great. Unfortunately, us secondees decided that white wine was going to be the choice of drink for the night. I don’t remember much else but per eye witness accounts and photo evidence, we are a bunch of very jolly drunks. I do remember cup cakes which were great and funny hats. I do not remember talking to a bunch of drunk Irish on the way home. (photo evidence will follow later once I lay my hands on it and after extensive censoring of such)

Saturday morning we all felt the after effects of the booze. The bad thing was that construction workers apparently do work weekend shifts in this country. At 7 o’clock sharp they decided to start drilling and hammering. Something else was hammering in my head as well. I stayed in bed a little longer but 8:30am the room finally stopped spinning and I got up.

In the shark tank at AQWA (click pic for more)

Trevlyn and I made a little grocery run down the street to Woolworths and then gave Jenna a ring to see if she was still alive. She was and we went round her’s to pick her up. The plan for today included a trip to the Aquarium of Western Australia, or short AQWA. It’s quite a small aquarium comparative to others I have seen, however, it has the best shark tank ever. I could have stayed there forever and watch the sharks and rays go over my head.

We stayed around the area for a late lunch at Hillarys Boat Harbour which has quite a nice little shopping area. Of course, there was also a gelati shop. Did I already say thank you to all the Italians for that?!? Again, thank you thank you thank you. Passion fruit sorbet and cherry bomb ice cream!!! Other flavours they offered included lemon meringue pie, Toblerone, Pavlova, blood orange … I could go on forever. It was the land of plenty, cockaigne.

Sadly we couldn’t stay at the harbour forever because we had some other plans for the evening. The Australian rugby team was playing the world champion South Africa at the Subiaco oval and we had tickets! On the way back to town we saw the masses of South Africans making their way to the oval. I really don’t know where they all had been hiding but there were Springboks shirts, scarfs and flags everywhere.  I wasn’t 100% sure anymore if I was in the right country.

Fans fans fans (for more pictures click the pretty ladies above)

Before the game Jenna cooked us some pasta and then we walked to the oval. Trevlyn was of course in SA gear while Jenna and I decided to go yellow and Rutchi wasn’t sure yet who to support. The stadium was packed with almost 42,000 people and the atmosphere was great. La Ola was making its rounds until rudely interrupted by a penalty kick for SA. I found it very strange how people in the stadium were communicating though. The South Africans decided to bring some sort of horn or hooting device with them and while one was blowing on one end, there would be an answer from somewhere else in the stadium. The Australians had a simpler way of communicating. The guy two rows in front of us yelled “Aussie aussie aussie” and everyone in the crowd would answer “Oi, Oi, Oi” …. again … Aussie aussie aussie …. oi oi oi …. 

The South Africans had left their world champion class at home because other than 3 penalties, they didn’t get much else done. The wallabies on the other hand had 2 tries.

Final score...

Trevlyn of course wasn’t too happy with the result but will have to live with the humiliation. I am sure she will receive plenty of grief from the coworkers next week.  

After the match we were going to go to Anja’s moving party but we were still feeling the aftermath from the night before and decided to be party poopers. Instead we had coffee/hot chocolate and cheese cake in Subi.

On another note and somewhat off-topic, I had mentioned before how much Aussies love to queue up. Well, after the game we actually saw a line of cars one after another lining up to exit a parking lot – except that the first car was actually standing in front of a bunch of poles that looked pretty solid to me.

No comment

(They do probably sink into the ground but it looked pretty funny anyway)

Aussie … oi … aussie … oi … aussie aussie aussie … oi oi oi!

My first bush walk

Leah, Leslie and Jenna

Today Jenna and I thought we do something more active and try out our first bush walk. I had found this website and we picked one marked as easy in the John Forrest National Park, which is about 25km away from Perth. We also invited Leah, Warwick’s girlfriend, whose first name I totally butchered in an earlier post but I am too lazy to change here. I hereby apologize. Leah in turn invited Leslie (please let me have this one right), a friend of her’s from Alaska who is over here to get a new perspective. After we had crammed everyone into the car off we went. On the way we got some coffee and went looking for bananas for Leah. We found a great market in Midland. The goceries are pretty cheap and they have a real butcher stand and fresh fish. Open from 7am to 7pm – so I could even go there during the week after work.

We made it to the ranger’s station in the park around 10:30am, signed into the trail book, took a map and off we went on the Eagle View Walk trail. This trail, as said before, was considered easy. I think Leah might have been the only one thinking that way because she was speeding ahead closely followed by Leslie and Jenna. I was trailing behind every once in a while with my backpack, especially on the upward sloping bits but I think I fought pretty well. The shrubbery in the park was quite nice, lots of big trees as well. We saw some birds but didn’t see many other living creatures except some trail bikers. We stop a couple of times to have some water and refuel.

Perth from a distance

The trail overall was 16km (10 miles) and had some great views over the park and also of Perth. Due to our speed of one Leah (i really think this should be a new speed measurement) we were back at the ranger station at 2:20pm. Considering we probably stopped for about 20 minutes overall, we had a speed of about 4.6km/h (2.8 miles per hour) After dropping everyone off back home I stumbled into the apartment and onto my bed where I stayed for the rest of the evening. Well, it wasn’t that bad but my legs hurt and I walked so much that the soles of my hiking boots were starting to fall off. Now I need to get that fixed!

The Perth City Walk

Saturday morning I had set up a refresher dive with a local dive club, Perth Scuba. That meant getting out of bed early since they expected me to be there at 8am. Of course I was there at 7:30am. Fuenf Minuten vor der Zeit, ist des Soldaten Puenktlichkeit. (sorry this doesn’t have a translation into English, it’s a German idiom) I had time to take a picture of the rainbow as it was a little rainy. Then Andy showed up, my dive instructor for the day. First I had to sign a bunch of waivers, such as not suing the dive store in case I encounter a bull shark in the river (joke by the way but these things do apparently get into the Swan river). After a quick reintroduction to the dive tables, a coffee and the wet suit fitting off we went to the river. The water was freezing, especially as it was running down my back. The decent was horrible. I hyperventilated and it took me a minute and some air to finally get to the bottom. Then everything was ok. It has been a while since I last did this stuff and Andy was pretty patient. There was also quite a bit of current. After a while down there, I even got used to the cold, it really wasn’t that bad.

During the refresher we did a couple of quick exercises such as hovering and fin pivot, which was pretty tricky considering the current. Visibility was ok – definitely better than the bloody Texas lakes – about 5 meters or 15 feet. There were a bunch of puffer fish which were a little annoying since they swam right up to your face, lots of shells and clams and mussels. Apparently, the club does a night dive every week during which they catch shrimp. I may have to try that one day though I do worry about the bull sharks a little. I didn’t see one on the dive which doesn’t mean that they didn’t see me. In Texas these are the ones that come close into shore and bite the fishermen. They are actually pretty aggressive.

After the dive, Andy and I had a little chat and he told me they go out into the Indian ocean every Sunday. I may do that before going shrimp diving. Then I went home and had a nice hot shower.

In the afternoon, Trevlyn and I went for a walk through downtown. We started at the Art Gallery of WA (Western Australia), passed the post office and the town hall, which is the only convict built town hall in the country. I am not sure I believe that considering Australia was pretty much founded by convicts. I am sorry my Aussie friends, please don’t take this personally. This is your history and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. After all they were all more petty thieves – being sent off for stealing a loaf of bread or similar. Just look at what a great thing they did. Australia is pretty amazing! Anyway, back to the walk. We passed the Fire Safety & Education Museum, the Royal Perth Hospital which had a massive tree outside, still not sure what kind. Then we got to St Mary’s Cathedral (1863) which was unfortunately under restauration. It looks like an impressive building and is supposed to be completed in… July 2008. Well, considering we did the walk on July 12 and they really didn’t look like they were finished, I do not think this deadline will be met.

Yes you can ride them

Next was the Perth Concert Hall. To identify the building, they had written the name in rather huge letters on a concrete block in front of it. It was built in the 1970s and that’s exactly what it looked like. We passed the Government House, the Council House where I rode a kangaroo which was happily grazing in front of it and on we went till we got to the Swan Bell Tower. This modern structure contains the royal bells from London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields. We didn’t go in and instead Trevlyn had a hot chocolate and I had ice cream. The guys at work already told me about the bell tower. Apparenly, this thing was only placed there to have a tourist attraction, nothing else. It obviously works because there were a bunch of tourists around and inside ringing the bells.

Swan Bell Tower (click the pic for more photos)

After the walk and a little relaxing time, Rutchi came over and we all went to meet Jenna in Subi (short for Subiacco). We had some really good pizza – thanks again to all the lovely Italians in this city, and then grabbed some ice cream to go which we snug into the local cinema for the 7:30 showing of Mamma Mia. This movie is great! A definite watch! Good acting, good music and great Greek countryside… oh and not to forget – lots of Colin Firth!!! For the Pierce Brosnan lovers this would be a good movie too even though he looks rather uncomfortable singing.

Week two low-down

I also survived my second week downunder without any problems – had a great week actually. The people in the Perth office are all pretty cool and very nice to the newbies. Needless to say, I am pretty happy. I was out at a client all week with Ashley and toward the end also Mark and they are heaps of fun. We did get work done too. No worries! They introduced me to Nando’s (great chicken place – definitely something that should be introduced in Texas) and Australian hiphop which is also surprisingly good. Not so much the dancing wild strawberries…ok, here we go, i really want to share this one with you.

Since it’s pretty much dark or close to dark once we get home from work, there isn’t much one can do during the week. Trevlyn and I have been researching what to do when and where for the next few weekends. We also watched Big Brother (yes, it is a disease that appears to be airborne and spreading over all the countries in the world) and a bunch of other exciting shows. Since Thursday nights are the late shopping nights, i.e. stores close at 9pm versus there usual 6pm closing time, Trevlyn and I went to IKEA to buy some blankets and a roasting pan. IKEA in Australia is just like any other IKEA in the world, including the Swedish meatballs in the cafeteria (yum). I believe I saw my whole Dallas apartment in a showroom and I was just about ready to search for a red Neon in the parking lot and make my way home, down the Dallas North Tollway.

Friday night was girls’ night out. Trevlyn, Jenna, Rutchi and I met at our place and after a bottle of champagne we hit Murray Street. We went to the probably most touristy place on the whole street for dinner, Bobby Dazzler’s – the first “true blue” aussie bar in Perth apparently. Food was pretty good though and so was the beer.

from the left – Jenna, me, Rutchi and Trevlyn at BD’s

After BD’s we headed back up the street and wanted to go to Carnegie’s but apparently Aussies really love to line up to get into a venue. There was a massive line outside so we changed plans to what appeared to be the closest place that didn’t require queuing in the cold. That was the Belgian Beer Cafe. Careful, the name is deceptive. It’s nowhere close to a cafe – it’s a pub. They served great Belgian beer and appeared to be the meeting place for all the foreigners or we just had aliens written all over us because at the end of the night we had another Brit and a Swiss guy sitting at our table. We also had quite a few laughts and after last orders made our way back home.

(true blue is aussie slang for being patriotic)

Aussies know how to make it count…

‘Hello, is this the police?’
‘Yes it is. How can we help you?’
‘I’m calling to report about my neighbour, Wazza. He’s hiding Cocaine inside his firewood!’
‘Thank you very much for the call.’
The next day, police officers descend on Wazza’s house in great numbers.
They search the house and then go out to the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they bust open every piece of firewood but they find no cocaine.
They swear at Wazza and leave.
The phone rings at Wazza’s house. ‘Hey, Wazz, Did the cops come?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Did they chop up your firewood?’
‘Yep.’
‘Happy Birthday, maaaaaaaaaate!!!’