Month: November 2010

WineTasting in the Hunter Valley

Duke and I are on a four week vacation in Australia. We are driving from Cairns in Northern Queensland to Melbourne on Australia's south coast, exploring along the way.

Last Friday we drove to the Hunter Valley north west of Sydney and tasted wine at a couple of wineries.

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We were having a hard time finding a place to spend the night because a big concert was happening Saturday night (Peter Frampton, Chicago and America).

We stopped at the Hunter Valley Wine Country Visitor Centre and got some help finding and booking a room. When we came out of the information office 15 minutes later we had a flat tire on our rental car! It had been raining all day and was still raining hard so we were very happy to call road side assistance and have it changed. We ended up spending about three hours of prime wine tasting time getting the tire changed and repaired. 

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Finally we checked into our Guest House and went to find a couple more wineries before they closed their tasting rooms at 5.  The Hunter Valley is a beautiful region. It is just too bad it was rainy and cold. It would have been nice to sit outside, sip our wine and enjoy the view. The guest house was on top of a hill and our room had a whole wall of windows. We did get to enjoy the wonderful view over breakfast in our room.

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Our Australian Adventure – The Gold Coast and into New South Wales

Wednesday we drove down to the Gold Coast, on the Queensland coast south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast has beautiful beaches and has lots of high rise condos and hotels. What a difference 40 years makes. When we lived in Australia we spent a Christmas at the Gold Coast and there wasn’t even one high rise.

This picture is one we took on the Gold Coast on Wednesday

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This picture is one of my sister looking out at the Gold Coast 41 years ago!

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From the Gold Coast we drove south, left Queensland and headed into New South Wales. It was interesting to listen to the American mid term election results on Australian radio. At one point they were talking about “accused witch Christine O'Donnell” being defeated.

Wednesday night we stayed at Darlington Beach Holiday Park in a small villa. We saw lots of resorts like this one where families could have a reasonably priced vacation on undeveloped beaches.The resort is located just north of the town of Coffs Harbour. Our villa was about a quarter of a mile from the beach so we walked to the beach. It was empty and beautiful. We collected some rocks and shells for our turtle and fish tanks.

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Later We went into town and picked up beer  and a pizza. We took it back to our cabin to enjoy it.

On Thursday we made a lot of progress in our drive towards Sydney. We stopped briefly a few times. Once at the Big Banana in Coffs Bay where I got an Australian hat to replace my Sun Microsystems baseball hat which I lost in Cairns. I am a bit upset about losing it since Sun (my former employer) is no more and the hat is irreplaceable. But I love my new Australian hat.

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We stopped in Nambucca Heads and went out to the Captain Cook Lookout. We were able to see hump back whales migrating south for the summer. They were very close to us and put on quite a show.

We also stopped and had a picnic at a Smokey Cape Lighthouse. It was stunningly beautiful.

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We spent Thursday night in Nelsons Bay.

I am behind in posting pictures to Flickr because almost every place we have stayed recently charges a lot for uploading. What a pain!  Anyway I will upload my picture when I get home or when I can do it without spending a  fortune.

The end of our Brisbane tour and heading South

Duke and I are having a wonderful time exploring Australia. One of the things we are finding is that you pay for Internet everywhere (if they have it) and sometimes it is pretty slow. As a result I am a bit behind in blogging. This post picks up on our last day in Brisbane as we complete our tour of the locations where my family lived 40+ years ago.

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Last Monday morning we drove out to Brookfield to see the second house my family lived in back in the  60’s when we were here in Brisbane. Our house was still there and looked much the same. When we lived there the Macintoshs were our neighbors.  When Duke and I were there Monday the name on the mailbox next to the Robinson’s old house was Macintosh!  We walked up the drive way and knocked on the door. No one was home.  Back on the street I called Dad to update him on all we had seen.

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Right after I hung up as we were driving away a car pulled into the Macintosh’s drive way. We went back up the drive way. When I told Mrs Macintosh who I was she gave me a big hug and asked me how that little brother of mine was. She invited us in for coffee and we updated each other on what has happened to our families over the last 40+ years.  She laughed about how my brother who was about four at the time used to come over to their house and climb in the window to visit her young sons.

Monday night we stayed near Brisbane and went for dinner at my friend Cathy’s house. It was so much fun to see her and meet her husband.

Tuesday morning we left Brisbane and drove to Lamington National Park south of Brisbane. From our tent cabin you could see the ocean and the skyscrapers at the Gold Coast. Lamington has mountains and sub tropical rain forest. We went for a hike and then had a picnic dinner on the balcony of our tent cabin.

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Our Australian Adventure – Brisbane

My family and I lived in Australia from 1964 to 1969. Part of what I wanted to do on this trip was visit the four houses we lived in in Brisbane.

Sunday morning we left Noel and Mandy’s and drove into Brisbane. We did the Marion Robinson tour of eastern Brisbane including three of the four houses we lived in while in Brisbane. I showed Duke Ascot State School and Clayfield College, the two schools I attended.

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As I was taking pictures of the last house we lived in a woman drove into the drive way. I told her I lived in the house back in the 60’s and she said “Oh the Robinsons!” It turned out she bought the house from my parents and raised 7 children there. She showed us around the house and told us how she had changed it. The house was built on stilts and she had added on a kitchen and living room under the house and put an inside staircase where my sisters room used to be.

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We checked into a hotel in downtown Brisbane and went for a walk. First we stopped briefly to check out the Treasury Building Casino. It is a casino in the original government treasury building. Then we walked through the botanical garden where my sisters and I fed the ducks when first arrived in Brisbane.

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 We walked over the Good Will Pedestrian Bridge to the south bank and along the south side of the river where there is a beautiful flower covered walk-way. We walked past an artificial beech called Streets Beech that is right next to the river. We watched the CityCat ferries on the Brisbane River.

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After crossing the river again we walked past City Hall which until 1976 was the tallest building in Brisbane. It shows how much Brisbane has changed that there are lot and lots of skyscrapers now. 

For dinner Sunday night we walked through the Paddington area of Brisbane to a pizza place called Kookaburra café. It was a nice walk through an interesting neighborhood and we passed all the backpacker hotels and the pizza was great.

If you would like to see all the pictures from our Australian trip they are available on Flickr here.

My 40th Clayfield College High School Reunion in Brisbane, Australia

Saturday was the day of my high school reunion. I went to Clayfield College from 1965 to 1969. When my family left Australia I was in grade 11. I haven’t been back since then.

One of my other classmates Libby met us at Mandy’s house. Mandy drove us to Clayfield College for a tour.  When I was at Clayfield College they had about 300 students. The school now has almost 1000 students. They have a brand new primary school building. There were lots of other new buildings and the school has bought a lot of the surrounding property. The boarding school is in what used to be a hospital across the street. The gym is in what used to be a bowling alley. It is a beautiful impressive campus. We had a two hour tour.

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There were about 15 of us on the tour including many of the boarders from our class. I boarded for one term. I think we were all blown away by how things have changed. The old boarding school has been demolished. The boarders life was pretty Spartan back in the 1960’s. Boarders shared cramped dormitories and the food was basic. We washed our hair in basins under the old boarding house.

When our guide told us about things like restaurant quality chefs and private rooms with attached bathrooms for seniors the former boarders broke out in laughter. The buildings were beautiful.

Our reunion lunch was at a restaurant in a very nice area of Brisbane. The restaurant was great because they let us sit and talk and have a leisurely lunch. We picked up where we left off 40 years ago and didn’t leave the restaurant until after 5.

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Duke had a great day too with Noel, Mandy’s husband. They hiked and bought fresh boiled prawns on the beach then had prawns and beer for lunch.

My pictures from the reunion are on Flickr here.