Australia - Week 5 Coff's Harbour down to Wine Country

 March 14 - We'll get this thing finished, we've just been so busy...
We've just entered Thailand and are hunkered down in a heavy storm in Chaing Rai.  Laos was wonderfully mellow, Vietnam was exhausting and so far Thailand is wonderful.  We've had to completely change our Africa trip plans as our passports are getting dangerously full and it's very difficult to renew them overseas.  All is well and look for more posts soon!

Coff's Harbour South...

Thursday Oct. 6 continued...

Dull Dinner, Delicious Dessert, and Abundant Australian Alcohol

The drive to Coff's Harbour was uneventful and we successfully arrived in the mid-sized town at a posh, modern hostel. Everything was new and it was the first time we had a plastic passkey to our room. Only once we got there did we realize that oops- we left our cooler bag at Mike and Megan's, leaving us with few food options for dinner (this was not the first and won't be the last time we leave our chilli bin behind). We chilled out in our room and Meg took a swim in the cold, small pool before dinner time. With no chilly bin, we decided to dine on the town.

The main street was a short walk from the hostel and Meg became fixated on me choosing our eating place (because I usually end up being the chooser,ed.) . I went for a place that had a varied menu and a good deal on wine for people eating early, (and being on a tight budget) like us. The wine was tasty and we split a yummy seafood chowder before the mains eventually came with agonizingly slow and completely unmotivated service. My steak was near tasteless and Meg's salmon tortellini pasta was good, but small (it turned out I had ordered an appetizer from the “specials”). Meg decided that the place sucked and tried to warn people off through the window (with appropriate chocking motions) as they were standing on the street looking at the menu, but they unwisely ignored her and came in anyway.

We decided that this obviously wasn't the place for dessert and wandered down the street to a place that offered coffee and cake for $5(cheap,cheap,cheap). The main attraction at this place was they would take your choice of about 20 different candies/chocolate bars and mash them into your ice cream in front of you on their frozen stone. We watched half a dozen kids excitedly go through this process before we got to order and were pleasantly surprised that we also got ice cream with our cake (cheap,cheap,bonus!). It was surprising good and unsurprisingly filling and Meg gave them a tip in their jar as with the smashing and everything they were the hardest working servers we'd seen in Australia.

On the way back we picked up some wine (which was actually a drive through place- in Australia you don't have to get out of your car to get booze) as a gift for Meg's next cousins and were treated to an impromptu lecture on price and wineries by the staff, along with an invitation to tomorrow's tasting. (It just goes to show, appearances at a drive-through win shop can be deceptive). We declined as we had to take off early and breakfast wine was not our thing. Back at the hostel the kids were noisy outside our window in their beer-induced haze but they weren't doing anything we couldn't sleep through.

Friday – No Worries at Port Macquarrie...

Meg needed extra sleep this morning but I went for a run along the Coff's Harbour beach. There were several coves to run along as well as a spit that provided a nice view of the area. A few other people were out jogging or strolling but again the water was considered too cold for swimming. After that we had breakfast, packed and wondered about how the Ontario election turned out, as polls had not closed when we checked out of the hotel.

We made the short drive to Port Macquarrie and after some GPS confusion arrived at the home of Meg's other cousin John Scullin, brother of Megan. He gave us a hearty welcome and we headed out to lunch at a little spot with an ocean view. The service was slow but the view was splendid. We then headed to the nearby lighthouse which looked exactly like a little Greek church but afforded views of the long beach and some offshore rock formations.

John then took us on a tour of the town which had an abundance of beaches, some for surfing, swimming, or even weddings. We also took a look at the river that emptied into the port and some of the downtown areas. We headed over to the Koala Hospital to get an afternoon tour of the place. The tour host was very animated and was able to convey the personalities of the animals through her stories and analogies. The talk was planned around the feeding times for the marsupials so they were actually moving. Normally they sleep most of the day and all you can see are grey tufts of fur up in trees. The ones in hospital had been injured by cars or dogs mostly, plus a few young ones orphaned through similar reasons. We got some cute pictures and Meg wanted to adopt one (more like sponsoring, sadly you don't get to take your adopted one home). One young koala, Ely,went on a hunger strike rather than eat eucalyptus leaves , it was milk or nothing, even though she was much too old to be bottle fed. The koalas had a choice of over 60 different varieties of leaves but they each have their favourite. The staff have to get up at “sparrow fart” every day to pick enough fresh ones for them all. One little guy was burned so badly he couldn’t open his eyes. They nursed him back to health but he died of heart attack a few years later. Many of the koalas suffered from “wet bottom”, horrible disease that means they drip all the time, rust coloured bum and very uncomfortable.

Back at the house we had drinks and met Jan, who volunteers at the koala hospital. We were able to get online and learn Tim Hudak had lost the provincial election, which was heartening news. Meg got a look through John's notes and pictures of the family. We drank some wine, John made a fine Thai curry, and after our late dinner we all sleepily retired.

Meg consoles a wounded giant koala.

Saturday – Spotting Wild turkey and cooking curried chicken 

We woke up and had breakfast then John took us to a to return some useless electronics we had bought in Brisbane, and do some basic shopping. We were cooking dinner that night so we had to buy some food to get that together. John showed us a few other parts of town, including some nice areas by the river that almost felt like mangroves.

We returned to the house, got dinner marinading and Meg napped while everyone else relaxed. Once she got up we went for a hike along the shore line which took us along the breakwater where people have been encouraged to decorate the rocks, some artistically and some just scrawling their names across them. We hiked across several beaches which mainly had strong currents and were full of surfers sitting in the water waiting for their moment. Several of them were quite good and could ride a wave back and forth right into shore. We bypassed a wedding in a park and hiked around a few rocky points. Eventually we ended up at the dogs off- leash beach closest to John and Jan's place and spotted a colourful wild turkey which Meg had trouble identifying.

Back at the house we cooked a fine dinner (curried chicken with avocado sauce and brown rice), had some more wine and Meg learned more about the Scullin side of her family.

With cousin John.

Sunday – Newcastle Dune-Driving Counter-Culture

We got up, had breakfast and packed. Meg tried to go to church but found that the website had the wrong time listed. One lady told her she was “off the hook” but she had looked forward to attending the service... We took advantage of the extra time by watching some movies made by John and Jan about their old family house in Melbourne and some of the places they've traveled to in Australia.

We said goodbye to them and made plans to try coinciding with their upcoming trip to Melbourne (plans which were later thwarted). We drove towards Newcastle and turned off to take a look at Stockton Bight, famous for having the longest moving sand dunes in the southern hemisphere. We followed a pitted dirt road to a parking lot compulsory for all non 4-wheel-drive vehicles. We then had to walk down a dirt road for about 15 minutes where vehicles were pulled over to let air out of their tires (better traction for driving on sand). There were a large number of drivers there and it felt like we were witnessing a Newcastle counterculture devoted to dune driving.

The road ended as the dunes started; the ones close to the road covered with plastic fences, to lessen erosion. We walked up the nearest dune and saw a trailer covered with 4 wheeled utility vehicles and a tent where a family was hanging out. The guy with the trailer was driving golf balls off the top of the dune and waiting for customers. We walked across them and saw some steep far off areas that had tire tracks on them and wondered if the vehicles flipped over when they tried those routes. We made it past a few muddy oases and Meg was photographed as the desperate stranded desert dweller. We avoided the trucks and made our way to the sandy beach from which we could see the city and trucks nipping in and out of the dunes. We walked back and saw a couple and their son who knew to park closer to the dunes.

We got back to the car and drove into Newcastle. The hostel was in a nice old building with huge posh common areas. The windows had been open and as our room was right above the garbage bins, we spent a fair bit of time clearing out the cloud of flies that wanted to spend the night with us. We did some basic shopping at a smaller local grocer and then walked to dinner. One sidewalk was blocked leading us a few blocks away meaning that our path went up over one of the largest hills in the city. The views were pretty but Meg was pretty much out of energy by the time we got to our Indian restaurant. They had a pick and choose special and I had the huge small plate and Meg had the enormous large plate and everything was tasty.

Refueled, we headed back to take advantage of the DVD player in our room. The selection was kind of lame and we saw I Am Legend, decent but not completely satisfying as a post-apocalyptic movie. We then tried to sleep but the door separating us from the room was paper-thin and we were subjected to hearing loud British girls read Hallmark card platitudes to each other until well after midnight.

A desperate Meg gets water after weeks of being stranded in the Sahara.

Monday – Heading to Hunter Valley, the birthplace of Australian wine...and still cranking out dome of the best in the world..

We had a quick breakfast and removed ourselves from the hostel. We then went to Europcar to get a proper power pack for our GPS and did some food shopping. We had a pleasant drive to our next destination, the Hunter Valley wine region where we planned to sample the local wines, a la “Sideways”.

Our hostel was tiny compared to the Newcastle one but it was ranked 5^th out of all the YHAs in Australia. It was situated just off a sleepy road, on a grassy lawn, complete with a sauna and pool (that were sadly closed for the entire time). The room was spare, but clean and large enough to spread out (nowhere to keep our stuff except in backpacks and the trunk of the car).The common area, which included a nice wrap around porch, was comfortable and large. We settled and got some advice from the very friendly Carolyn working there. It turns out that her brother Nigel and his Ozzie wife own it and she came from England to help out. We got some advice on what to do and learned that the wine tour out of the hostel wasn't going anytime soon. We then headed to the posh Hunter Valley Information Centre where we went over our options and decided on one of the more economical tours. The Centre staff indicated it was a satisfactory tour but others warned we'd be led to the larger, less personal wineries and abandoned by our guide. The Centre had a tasting area for two wines that were projects of all the best vintners in the area. They tasted fine but not good enough to buy ...

On the way back we checked out the national park where we were thinking of going for a run. The parking spot was about a 10 minute drive down a narrow, pitted dirt road. The map at the picnic ground showed an 8 km loop, which was perfect for us. On the way back we stopped at the winery (Ernest Hill) closest to the hostel,which may have turned out to be the best wine tasting we had.. We were the only ones tasting there so the couple running the place were quite casual and relaxed. We did the tasting on their porch over a leisurely hour with him, while she sat in the next room and caught up on finances. All of their wines were available exclusively there and we learned that this was normal for Hunter Valley. The big wineries there also get grapes from huge South Australia vineyards, which apparently are the ones who gave Chardonnay a bad name by over - oaking it (naughty S.A.!). We slowly worked our way through about a dozen wines while he told us about the family history of the area. He also went through our HV brochure and made recommendations about which other wineries we should head to. We picked up two excellent bottles (one a tawny or port which was a new taste sensation for me) and tottered back to the hostel.

Sub-heading: Lost in the Outback...a scary run to nowhere...

After a bit of a rest we headed out for our run in the park. We easily parked in the picnic area and studied the map to figure out where we were going. We run at different paces but figured that since all of the other trails we'd been on were well blazed that this one would be as well. Hah!- No such luck! We followed an old dirt road into the woods, passing several areas used to dump garbage by the locals. The road went by the back of a few farms and got very wet and muddy in a few places. At one point I went straight on an intersection and noticed that Meg wasn't behind me. The intersection was a 4-way one and I couldn't see footprints, so I followed the trail back, hoping that she did the same thing if she couldn't find me. She didn't. There was no one else in the park and it was only about 30 minutes from sundown when I got back to the car. I rode it to the end of our loop just in time to see Meg emerge from the woods. Nervousness about the legitimacy of the trail she'd chosen made her make excellent time, and it turned out she had chosen correctly. (I normally have an awful sense of direction and the sun was setting- I was starting to panic, and I wasn't sure if I had just gone in a big circle, I was pretty sure they'd find my dead body in the woods...when I saw Owen coming towards me in the car- hooray-that was quite the reunion!)

Reunited we went back to the hostel to prepare an elaborate meal. Many of our hostel-mates were around by now, back from working on garlic and fruit farms. They were pretty low key, just wanting to eat and check their e-mail before going to bed early. We watched a reality show about a CEO who acts as a trainee to see how his company was doing. It was mindless but exactly what we needed and we were ready for bed.

Tues, - A day to rival any in Sideways...

We got up, had breakfast, and got ready for our wine tour. We were psyched as neither of us had to be the designated driver, yet apprehensive as a few people had suggested that it might be a b-grade tour... The pick-up was right there on time (which boded well) and we went around until everyone was picked up, 17 of us all told. Brian, our driver/guide, had loads of information about every place we passed which the older people up front listened to and the younger people at the back ignored and talked over (dare I say, natch?). We were heartened when Brian said that none of the wineries we were going to had wines in the bottle shops, all were exclusive and he said he wanted us to taste the “real” Hunter Valley (which boded better). We learned from Brian that fourteen years ago there were 82 vineyards, there are 152 now- so which ones to visit? You won't find most of these wines outside the region as they are not for export, they focus on award winning wines as they have a small, quality focused-yield. The region was known for its' dairy farming and coal (it still produces 70% of NSW's coal ).Our first stop on the tour, Kevin Sobels, gave us a taste of about 15 wines, with Brian getting behind the counter and helping with the proceedings (he used to work at an HV winery). There was a sleepy Saint Bernard behind the counter who seemed to be the manager. The wines were good but not outstanding and with the prices being between $20-35 we couldn't afford to buy anything that was simply satisfactory. It came at the end, as Meg had never been a fan of port before (until Ernest Hill Wines) but they had a white port which hit the spot, that was our first purchase of the day. They suggested we serve it over ice cubes with a squeeze of lime juice (oops forgot to do that but it tasted fine as it was..).

Brian, our guide (and bestest friend by the end of the tour),choices were smart, alternating drinking with eating...so we next visited a winery that had burned down but still maintained a gourmet olive shop, . There we sampled lots of preserves and oils and dubbah (a delicious Australian nut mixture that you dip your bread into after soaking it in olive oil). We also picked up some tasty tapenade. The next winery, Audrey Wilkinson, was one of the ones recommended to us primarily as it was on a great location at the top of a hill with 260 degree views of the valley. The story of this vineyard was that Audrey took over the vineyard at 15 after his father's death. He solemnly vowed to his father he would never touch a drop of wine, and our host says he just spat a lot. It is now owned by a rich Sydney lawyer. We had a private tasting room with an animated woman handling the tasting but sadly nothing really stood out. It often felt that the stuff that makes the connoisseurs swoon had no effect on us and the cheap stuff was what made us rave. We learned things that we'll never need to know again, such as:

Their renowned Shiraz comes from a section of the vineyard that isn't irrigated so the fruit has to work harder, the vines get a little stressed,and the grapes taste better. So in fact it wasn't that we didn't buy wine because we were cheap, but because we were protesting the treatment of the grapes..Here we also learned that Shiraz is from the Persian Syrah grape which is pronounced Shyrah (at this rate we'll be experts..)

After this we were dropped off for lunch at the “Hunter Valley Gardens Village” -yes, it's as bad as it sounds- a Disney-style tourist centre which consisted of generic “quaint” houses full of overpriced shops selling fudge and ceramic fairies, bordering onto elaborate botanical gardens We had simple pies and sandwiches and I had an overpriced cookie. Meg was full of wine and so disenchanted with the place that she ignored the fudge and chocolate shop (blech).

Our next winery was another recommended one, Ivanhoe, (which had the best name- of any winery ever conceived- so noble and chivalrous, it almost makes one want to joust or something) and we had our tasting on the back porch with an enthusiastic young man. We also chatted with some of our tour mates who had just taken the African tour by Gap (that we were considering) and had decided to stay together as a group and see Australia. The wines were again nice but not amazing but we decided to get a bottle of their Shiraz anyway. Meg will tell about the tragedy at the winery. (My notes indicate that the family was stricken with bad luck. Steve Dreyton's parents were killed in a plane crash, and his brother Trevor was drowned in a vat of wine- I think).

At Ivanhoe all the reds are hand picked. We learned that 70% of all grapes are machine picked which “shakes the hell out of the vines”. (Grape cruelty abounds in Hunter Valley).After the last tragedy they let the vineyard go..but man who is running Ivanhoe now only started in 1999 and by 2000 he won an award, not bad for a thirty-year old. They say their Shiraz goes well with chocolate or mud cake (yum!).

For a break from sipping wine, we visited the Smelly Cheese Store, which had a decent selection and we couldn't resist a blue and a triple cream brie. Meg also got some sweets from the shop next door that reminded her of her childhood (chocolate lady fingers). Our last winery was Mistletoe, whose large yard was covered with whimsical sculptures from a competition they had each year, including a group of tall, coloured poles that were called “Talking Heads” that won the prize in 2010. Other huge structures included giant stiletto heels and gargantuan insects. The wines here were superior, with the best white and an excellent cab sauv and Brian heartily agreed that our choices were fine ones. (Unfortunately at this point I was no longer sober enough to take notes and forgot to write what we bought, but I'm sure it was good. The only thing I noted was that Nick Patterson was considered the best young winemaker in Australia, ed.)

After four wineries we were dropped off at a place that had some more wine, a beer tasting area and a cheese shop, Binori, across the road. We crossed the road and turned to see almost the entirety of our group following us (as we had all reached or excelled our alcoholic intake for the year). This place had the best cheese, with an aged cheddar and some labna (yoghurt balls marinaded in oil and spice), which we ended up buying. (Truly, if you've never tasted labna on a cracker you haven't lived, it is rich and creamy, tart and unforgettable. Or at least Binori Labna was..) The place did very well by our group, as they were generous with their tasting and their Labna was exquisite (and no, we know what you are thinking, but our lack of sobriety did not impair our judgment here).

We crossed the road and some of our group grabbed a beer on the outdoor patio, and the rest of us settled down soaking in the afternoon sun until it was time to go. We spoke to some of the older guests who spoke well of Tasmania and some other places we were going. Back on the bus, we were dropping most people off where they came from except for two young Irish women from our hostel, who were dropped off at Hannigan's Pub. Four wineries and a beer stop, and they were able to saunter in for another round! The rest of the bus was open-mouthed in admiration (those of us who weren't unconscious). We said a fond goodbye to our tour-mates and bestest friend Brian and were dropped back “home”as the sun was setting. Unable to eat much, we made a simple dinner with leftovers, and I did some typing and went to sleep while Meg stayed up late for some reason.

Be glad we weren't driving!

Weds. The Hangover...

A Meg-demanded downtime day (actually by some miracle, WE weren't hung over, but the Irish girls were...). Meg slept in after her late night and then proceeded to watch the two Matrix sequels on the DVD player. I did some shopping, organizing, researching, laundry, typing and hanging out. We spoke to the cleaners, one of which was the owner's wife who taught part time and helped out at the hostel for the other part. Her mom was also there (it's a family business) helping to clean, and babysitting the kids. Meg ratted out some guys who had neglected to clean their breakfast dishes and the owner knew exactly who they were, two British boys. They sheepishly came in to clean them, neither of them calling Meg a rat (I was in witness protection by that point). Later, when their room was cleaned out it was found to be filthy, with thawed frozen pizzas in the room, neglected after they found out that the hostel didn't have a proper oven. The biggest excitement of the day was when we got locked out of our room due to our extending our stay after our key card was programmed. We went for a second run in the same place but this one was much more successful as no one got lost (not that we're naming names here). Since our first run, some construction machines had been busy putting piles of dirt across the road to keep the locals from filling their trucks up with garbage and dumping it in the woods. Also, they had smoothed the dirt road out, which we appreciated.

We made another elaborate dinner with our gourmet acquisitions and finished off the 3^rd and final Matrix movie. Meg had to keep adjusting the volume as the dialogue was very quiet and the chase scenes were super loud but this being a laid-back hostel, no one complained. We went to bed with dreams of Keanu (aka Neo).

Erotic kangaroo statues make more sense after  large amounts of wine.