Wine Country
We took two wine tours through the Barossa and Yarra Valleys. Cori was really able to impress the wine people when she explained that she was from the Okanagan Valley. They were also interested by the fact that we have REAL ice wine grown on the vine rather than something manufactured in a stainless steel vat.
Pay close attention to these pictures as the angles of the bottles are different. (Damn it...I wish I could remember WHY...oh well).
This particular winery actually still fermented a small amount of wine using a manual crusher and in the traditional old style oak barrels.
Could you imagine living here making wine for a living?
Oh yeah...here's something more my style. I give you the NEBAKANEZER, the largest of all wine bottles. Yes...that IS a "regular" wine bottle on the left. The middle wine bottle has a special name too...but it obviously pales in comparison to the bad boy on the right.
See the sign at the top? Here...let me blow it up for you,
Oh Jeebus... Too bad this was at the END of our trip, or else I would have been in there like a dirty shirt!
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Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures of my trip -- it certainly was a BLAST and I would love to go back, preferably in their summer time.
The Great Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road is an extremely scenic highway that runs alongside the ocean (duh). We saw some WILD koalas and finished up at the 12 apostles at sunset -- made for some great pictures.
Seriously...how was this thing holding on! It's fast asleep and apparently not concerned for its safety.
This is one of the most dangerous coast lines in all of Australia. Don't let the clear skies fool you...this is an EXTREME rarity for this part of Australia. Normally these cliffs are socked-in solid with fog.
There is a famous story of a shipwreck where only two people (out of hundreds) survived a horrible storm. Their ship drifted too close to the shore but couldn't tell where they were due to thick fog. Too late they realized their mistake and crashed where only two young people survived and were found washed up on this beach. HE was 20 and SHE was 18. Both were single.
The local media tried to make a "Romeo and Juliet" story out of the couple, but after getting patched up they went their seperate ways and didn't see each other again for the rest of their lives.
The twelve apostles...so named for the number of land formations thrusting into the air seemingly from the middle of the ocean. These used to be connected to the main land; however, erosion has left only these columns.
This "bridge" will eventually become an apostle. Always a tourist spot, the LAST apostle to form actually had people on it when the "bridge portion" fell to the ocean! Luckily no one was hurt but the stranded people had to wait a number of hours for a helicopter to come rescue them.
And here is the actual apostle that the people were rescued off of!
Here is a pretty good picture to give you a sense of scale for the 12 apostles
This might be one of the best and my most favorite out of all the pictures I took the whole vacation.
Melbourne
Melbourne is Australia's "Montreal" in that they have a very ... open and progressive culture. Oh, and the architecture is to die for.
They make extensive use of their back alleys in Melbourne. Here is a back alley just CRAMMED with shops and little restaurants
This is a pretty weird juxtaposition -- a porn theatre and a church. But such sights were common in this city. Oh...and Sanchu...the casino here was pretty good.
Footy Match
I fell in love with the AFL -- Australian Football League. Sorta a cross between soccer and rugby, the AFL is to Australia what the NHL is to Canada. It is played on a cricket pitch -- the fields are HUGE and is really easy to get into / pick up.
These seats were the equivalent of sitting at the very front of the second section in Rexall Place to watch the Oilers. This gives you a great perspective of how large the field is.
Kick it through the middle uprights is a "goal" and counts as 6 points. Miss the middle, but still get it through the shorter uprights is 1 point. You literally punt the ball through the uprights -- and some of the players can kick it easily 45 - 50 yards for a goal.
The home team enters onto the field.
The home team scores a goal and the (small) crowd goes crazy.
Here is a pretty good YouTube Video that shows hightlights of an AFL game. It's worth a look for sure. Some of the "marks" are amazing. A Mark is where the ball is kicked and you catch it in the air. Doing so means that the opposition has to give you space (i.e. can't tackle you) up to the point where you caught the ball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25elPRdK1M
Surfer's Paradise
This is the TRENDIEST spot in all of the East Coast of Australia. The shopping is to DIE for -- Sophie, you'd have had a field day -- and the surfing is not bad for the tourist types. I don't think a lot of LOCAL people come here...this is a total tourist trap. There are million dollar condo's everywhere and every brand name imaginable.
You actually have likely seen (or heard) about the Gold Cost (and surfer's paradise) because of their world famous golden bikini meter maids.
Sadly, on the day we went, the temperature was around 15 degrees, and off-peak tourist season, so there were no meter maids.
ALL of these shops were in ONE MALL!
This was actually taken in Coolangatta. It's basically just like Surfer's Paradise but much less developed. Here were the best surf waves we saw the entire trip. Overall, the swell was small -- even at Bell's Beach were some of the worlds LARGEST waves are found, we were disappointed by the wave size.
Here is what you'd normally see at Bell's Beach (which is down the Great Ocean Road). Sadly, what we saw was pathetic compared to this.
XXXX Brewhouse Tour
A LOT of Australian beer is HIGHLY regionalized...each state has their own favorites. For the LONGEST time, the "main beer" (and sometimes the only beer) sold in the places were frequented was XXXX. I know, I know...I ALSO thought that it was some sort of EXTRA dirty pornography or something.
In actuality, XXXX is "Four - Ex"...but we didn't learn this until we took the tour. Up until that point, we were (read: I) was too embarrassed to ask for a beer and pronounce it wrong so I didn't have a single beer! At the end of the tour you get 4 free pints, which explains why I look a TEENSY bit tipsy in the photo below.
While I adverted disaster with XXXX, that's not to say that I didn't have an embarrassing story asking for beer. Another main beer is Carlton Beer. We went to this one local neighborhood bar that was off of the beaten tourist path. I strolled up to the bar and asked for a imperial pint (yes, there are two pint sizes) or CaRlton Draft (emphasis on the R). The response of the bar tender, who had her head down at the bar, was, "
Oh my freakin' god...where are YOU from".
Then she looked up and saw my HUGE Canadian Athletic sweatshirt -- she got it immediately upon seeing me.
Apparently the "R's" in most words are silent. As in, I should have asked for CALTON beer.
I quickly learned that XXXX is NOT the best beer Australia offers. Carlton Draught is great as is Coopers Pale / Sparkling Ale. And you can get Coopers at the Globe in Down Town Edmonton.
This photo was taking explicitly for a co-worker of mine. Mark...welcome to the famous XXXX brewery where they make Duff, Duff Light, and Duff Dry. Any fan of the Simpson's will get this reference and the episode it came from.
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
This place was cool...again, think open air zoo. At this one you were allowed to get pictures holding a koala! One point I'd like to make -- Koala's are NOT that cuddly. Furthermore, they stink really bad -- they have scent glands that they use to mark territory, attract a mate, etc...not pleasant in the slightest.
You have to pay $10 to get a photo -- the money is used to build new Koala sanctuaries. However, after that you can snap all of your OWN pictures that you want. Here is Cori holding Mark the Koala.
Here are a pair of male, teenage koalas doing what these animals do best -- sleeping and eating! They sleep upwards of 18 hours a day, mainly because eucalyptus leaves have a natural sedative in them. Koalas sleep in the most precarious of positions -- often we wondered how it was possible that they didn't fall out.
Despite what this picture might indicate, this wallaby was NOT buying what I was selling. Damn bugger wasn't hungry!
I'm certain there is some sort of "Larry the Lounge Lizard" joke here...but I can't quite put my finger on it. In all honesty, however, these Red Kangaroos were HUGE. Over 6 feet tall. These were the only kangaroos that you couldn't go up and pet / touch, mainly 'cause if you made 'em mad, their kick could put you in the hospital.
Australia has some fantastic birds of prey. Here are two examples.
Wombats. Cute...but sleepy!
Cori's SKY DIVE Adventures
Cairns is a great vacation spot if you go in the Canadian Summer. Cairns (pronouced Cannes -- kinda like the film festival) is always around 30 degrees celcius. They don't have winter or summer, per se, only wet and dry season. Dry season happens to be Australia's winter so it was PERFECT when we were there.
Corinna got to live out a long time dream of hers to jump out of a perfectly good plane. This nearly got her kicked outta dad's will!
Okay...so this has nothing to do with skydiving. But dammit, it's a great picture of us and I wanted to include it. This was taken outside of the Cairns YHA.
