"Where women glow and men plunder"

Had to quote that song at some point here... gotta get out the door for a tour in like 10 minutes.

For a man who doesn't really like wine, I've gone on a fair amount of wine tastings in my time. And today was an example of "hey, it seems a good and scenic way to fill a day".

If you're coming to Australia, the two most popular regions to get wine tastings are the Hunter Valley near Sydney (about 2 hours away) and the Yarra Valley, about 45 minutes away from Melbourne. The way I'd heard it was if you care more about experience and scenery, go to the Hunter Valley. If you care more about actually good wine, go to Yarra Valley.

Decision made. Hunter Valley time!

I met my driver Mick and the rest of "Mick's Mob" as he would dub them in front of a nearby hotel at 7 am. This is one case where my remaining jet lag really came in handy. If I had my druthers, waking up before 7 am would be forbidden and severely punished. Anyhow, we piled into a small mini-van-- I think everyone was Australian except for me. 4 large lads on some sort of bachelor party making hilarious and immature comments, 2 couples who found them also funny, and then a mildly horrified but not vocal family.

One passenger was missing-- James. He did not show. We actually scoured the streets, with the driver shouting at several lone men walking by "Are you James???" much to their confusion and our amusement. Well, we never did find him, though we went all the way down to the Lord Nelson where he was staying and back. Believe me, with the large size of these Aussie guys, nobody was crying about one less person in the small bus.

Mick, our driver, was a bit of a character. "One last trip", he proclaimed, since he'd retired from this apparently over a year ago. He initially claimed it was due to shoulder surgery, but constant comments about accidents and speeding tickets and losing points on his license pointed to other possibilities. Here's a selection of some of his top quotes:

-"I've been known to buy a 12 liter box of port and take it home and drink it myself"

-"The bigger the vehicle you have, the more right of way you have"

-"He called her [presumably his wife, possibly his gf] an effing slut in the middle of Harbour Bridge and demanded to be let out of the bus immediately. And then after he left she acted like nothing had happened"

Needless to say, Mick could be a font of endless amusement. However, I did feel bad when he explained that he explained Aussie history, and I was the only foreigner on the bus. But what else was he going to talk about for the 2 hour ride up there anyway? Did I doze off during his talk? Of course. But to be fair, so did a lot of other folks. Here's what I remember from his chat on the way up:

1) Canberra, the capital, was chosen because it was between Melbourne and Sydney, and was a good compromise because both of those cities wanted to be the capital. They chose to call it that because in some Aboriginal language they thought it meant "meeting place", but more correctly, apparently, means "cleavage"... which if you think about it, really is a meeting place anyway.

2) Aboriginals cannot process alcohol as well. I did not fact check this. Mick said it.

3) Aussies love cricket. Jesus, I had no idea what they were talking about, but apparently they were playing Pakistan and at least 30 minutes of "batsmen" and "bowling" and "bales". No wonder I fell asleep.

Anyhow, after a brief toilet stop (Mick by the way, rated the toilets on this trip since "I can't rate the wines, can I...", this one was apparently "4 stars"), we'd finally arrived at our first winery around 10.

Mount View Winery- For my money, the best winery of the day. If I had known this, I would have bought more bottles.

Nice view

Nicer view.

I don't know a lot about wines, but I know what I like. We had about 7 or 8 of them here, and I liked 3. Should have bought bottles of all 3, because spoiler alert, the rest of the wineries were mostly shit. And believe me, I'll explain why. But Mount View was gorgeous, the winery dog was friendly (I have pictures of the others... this one was tiny though so I found him less picture worthy... by the way, apparently there's a coffee table book of dogs of the Hunter Valley wineries!)

Next we went to Blueberry Hill winery.

Normally, I would caption this with Fats Domino lyrics, but this wine was just... atrocious. Tasted like water, and not due to overtasting at the first place (also, shouldn't that make me like subsequent wineries more???). And also, no effing blueberries! I'm tired of these places calling themselves things they don't actually have.

Best part? Winery dog!

"Who's a good boy?"

Somehow, the large australian lads decided *this* place was worthy of buying a pointless membership, so we stayed as they bought copious amounts of crappy bottles... look, I consulted with the couples, and they agreed this wine was shit as well. It's not just my poor taste influencing my decision here. Also, how can you do icewine in a climate that doesn't get ice??? Seems a poor decision.

However, I was very happy with the brief interlude to go to an olive shop for a snack after this. This place had a great setup I hadn't seen before. They give you a bag full of bread bits, and you go around and dip it in various oils, sauces, jams, spices, dukkahs, and hot sauces. I am a huge fan of this.

Like I said, as if I was familiar, the dukkahs you can dip in are amazing, in flavors like "aussie bbq" and lemon pepper"

Wish this was more culturally acceptable stateside as a regular thing.

But also, had to try the hot sauces. You know what? It's been 24 hours almost since this and no digestive problems, so I guess no regrets...

Not as spicy as the name suggested. Because that would have to be pretty spicy.

Anyhow, after tasting all this, and not buying anything (because how on earth would I get that stuff home???), it was time for lunch before our next wine tasting. But on the way out, did manage to see some kangaroos.

Roos in the wild!

Also saw a couple emus but didn't snag any pics. I did enjoy how the Australians in the bus kept pointing them out to me, because they knew I'd be amused while they were nonplussed.

Had a lovely selection of pizzas at the Hunter Valley Resort

Think that's Mick's hand on the right...

Then did a wine and cheese tasting afterwards. I'll be honest, and for those of you who know me this is less surprising-- I did ZERO cheese tasting. Based on the reaction of the rest of "Mick's Mob", this was a mistake, because the wines were not great, but the cheese apparently was amazing, and most people bought some to put in the fridge in the bus for the ride back. By the way, did I mention Mick shouted "Come on Mick's Mob! Time to go!" loudly and hilariously at the end of each tasting?

Anyhow, last, we went to a tasting at Macquarie's Estates, which prided itself on organic wine. I could really not care less about this factoid-- I don't care what pesticides are used, or whatever it takes to get the result. But they really did.

Decent view from there tho

What I did care about was playing with the winery pets! (mostly the dog though)

The dog (Pepper) was enormously fat from eating everyone's leftovers probably, and adorably just turned over on its back for belly rubs whenever anyone approached. #rufflife

The cat really couldn't be bothered.

At this point, most of us had our share, and some irresponsible purchases were made by others... somehow not myself! Much like going out to a bar, apparently I'm really great at buying drinks at the beginning and progressively worse as time goes on.

Not much more to add here-- slept like a rock on the way back and when I got back... no dinner to speak of sadly (money saved!). Big tour of the blue mountains coming up tomorrow!

Random Things:

-The Aussie guys kept calling each other "lollies". Not sure if that's spelled right or whether or not it's appropriate.

Me in a nutshell

- I feel better about wedging in a trip to Brisbane after the Aussie guys told me "Brizzy" or "Brizz Vegas" would be a lot of fun.

Someone should tell me who this guy is. I'm afraid to ask. Feel like it's a politician.

Moment of Zen:

I forgot again. I blame the wine. Will double up tomorrow!