Even more wine tasting!

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We booked to go on a tour of the Hunter Valley by coach to see the scenery and do some wine tasting. However, because few people had booked we were transferred to another company and taken in a mini-coach.  Our driver/guide, Vanessa, was excellent.  On the way she told us all about house prices in Sydney, what the average salary is, where people are living, how many people live in the city etc.  Like any other city there was a lot of traffic going in to Sydney as we were driving the other way.

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The itinerary included a stop at the Australian Reptile Park ( the original tour didn't ) where we were provided with a coffee and muffin and some food with which to feed the resident kangaroos and emu.  Once again we were able to stroke a koala or a baby alligator, but there weren't many takers for that.  The jouney then continued through interesting scenery in a fruit farming and horse breeding area.  We drove along part of the original Great North Road built by convicts  in leg shackles in the 1830's.  It was evidently built because the currents in the ocean were too strong and causing problems for ships, however the steamship was invented in 1832 and the road was never fully used.  We went through a couple of villages who were taking part in a scarecrow competition, the theme of which was "I'd rather be........."

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EVentually we arrived at our first wine tasting - Brokenwood winery, where we stayed for an hour and tasted 8 different wines, then on to Hunter Valley Winery where we had lunch, each course of which had a different wine to go with it (4), then on to Oakvale winery where we tasted another 8 including a dessert wine, and we were given some cheese to taste with the wine.  I'm surprised we could stand up at the end of it, mind you we all fell asleep on the bus back. (There were only 9 of us ).  We finished the day with a visit to a chocolate shop but we each got only 4 tiny pieces of chocolate.

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On Tuesday morning we just pottered about trying to log onto the computer using the free internet at the Opera House cafe, but it wouldn't work, we went back to the Bridge Climb Visitor Centre to look at the display and film, as we hadn't had time on Friday, had some lunch and then went back to the hotel to collect our luggage and wait for our airport shuttle bus.  Despite an accident on the motorway the driver managed to divert and got us there in plenty of time.  As we were flying premium economy we had a separate check-in which avoided the queues.

John was excited that we were flying on an Airbus 380 and he was not disappointed.  The seats were very comfortable and there was plenty of space, well worth paying the extra for that and the service.

Our thoughts on Australia are that it is a HUGE country.  Far bigger than we imagined, larger than the whole  of Europe.  It has various time zones and climates.  We don't think it is as beautiful a place for scenery as New Zealand.