We left Bawley Point and Terry and headed north. We made a stop in Newcastle off the coast then headed inland to Nulkaba into the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley is the oldest wine making region in Australia. It’s far and secluded from anything else but the hostel there is nice and clean. We booked our first tour of this trip, a wine tour of course :) We visited four different wineries and a cheese shop, we all warmed up by the second visit! This region is well known for their Semillon grape, I’ve never heard of this grape before... It’s a white grape. I discovered that there is such a thing as a sparkling Shiraz, hmm, how weird is that. The taste is far from weird though it was really good. In this region, they also mix the Semillon with all kinds of other grapes, it was interesting because I’ve never seen these mixes in Canada. Another good wine they make is the Botrytis wine, this desert wine resembles an ice wine, my kind of wine. Did you know to make an ice wine, you need seven consecutive days of sub minus 5 degrees before you pick them? That’s why good old Canada makes great ice wine in the Niagara Falls.
Our next leg of the trip was to go visit the Stoddart family in Brisbane - I used to coach Maddie and sometimes Steph before their family moved to Brisbane. Maddie was nice enough to come pick us up and it was great to see her again after more than one and a half years... She hasn’t changed. Her face matured, but still looks the same :) In case you know the Stoddarts and are wondering how they are doing, well they are doing marvellously well. They look really good, they enjoy Brisbane and are well settle in. They live in a beautiful house on the hill in a nice neighbourhood. They treated us like royalty and it was a wonderful visit. It was great to get to know them in a “normal” environment, aka away from the pool :)
Brisbane is a very charming city and the people were supper nice!! Everywhere we went, people came to us offering help when we had a confusing tourist look on our face. This city is by far our favourite so far. Maddie took us on a ferry going to the downtown core and the perspective of the city from the water was splendid. Stewart gave us a private guided tour of the town after work and it was great to see him speak so passionately about his new town. Mary gave us the idea of hiking up Mount Cootha, a park right in the heart of Brisbane with a 360 lookout of the city. On Saturday morning, with our courage in hand we were going to DRIVE to the trailhead for the hike. Yes, I drove for the first time in Australia :) It was nerve wracking because everything is opposite from the Canadian way. Thank goodness the pedals are the same. Other than the occasional turning on the wipers when I wanted to signal right or left, I did ok, I didn’t make the 6 o’clock traffic news and didn’t cause an international incident.
That, night we tried kangaroo meat for the first time. We bought a marinated roast and threw it in the oven. It was good. The cut we had was not the best because the arteries and tendon were rubbery but the meat tasted really good. In Brisbane, we toured around a little bit and we mainly hung out at the house the rest of the time because it was too darn hot! Queensland is definitely warmer than the New South Whales where Sydney is. I attempted to work out a few times, I think I easily lost 10 pounds of sweat each time. Thank goodness for the swimming pool at the 5-stars Stoddart Resort :)
On a side note: check out the Brisbane Youth Hostel if you ever plan to travel there, it’s really nice, big, clean and the staff is fantastic! We stayed there the last night because our plain to Cairns left very early the next morning.
In Cairns, Gen and I decided we would spend some time apart because she didn’t want to stay in a city, while I wanted to see what Cairns was like. The plan was for her to head straight to Mission Beach and I would join her the next day. This plan was perfect for both of us, we hadn’t spent any time apart since we left Canada on Nov 16. We were both excited to get some “me” time. We learn that travelling with someone can be tiring sometimes because you always consult each other for everything: when are we eating? what are we eating? do you want to do this?... Spending time apart and making decisions for yourself without outside influence will in a way, give you your identity back. It’s an empowering feeling. I think we both needed to feel that again.
I had a great time being by myself, in Cairns. Having only a half day to visit, I was limited to what I can see and do. I decided to go for a hike on Mt. Whitfield Conservation Park with Selena and Blair, a couple from Toronto I had met earlier. We had a good time hiking in the very HUMID climate, if I thought it was hot in Brisbane... The view from the top was not great but the workout and making new friends made up for it. We then rushed back to the hostel because I had to get myself ready because I had plans for the evening. I had plans to meet up with an old friend whom I haven’t seen in almost 10 years, I was very excited. Manon and I met for dinner to catch up on lost times. Manon, it was really great to see you again, and thanks for treating me out! - She hadn’t changed since I last saw her. We had a great time walking around town and dinner was excellent. We had a drink at a bar at her hostel (Gilian’s) and oh my god! This place was like an all inclusive hotel in Mexico. The hostel was a huge hotel type accommodation with its own bar which had a water fountain running into the pool with a giant screen next to it showing music videos and of course party people from all parts of the world. Definitely a place to go if you’re looking to party it up! Not us, we went for a walk instead.
The next morning, I had another early departure at 7am. I caught the bus to Mission Beach where Gen spent her day alone. The hostel in Mission Beach is pretty great. The room are ok but the staff and the people here sure make up for it. It has a swimming pool that we all feel blessed to have because it is stingrays season here so swimming in the ocean in this area is out of the question. I t was good to see Gen again, she looked as happy as I was to have had an opportunity to be alone and to find myself/herself again. Gen was simply enchanted to be here among the great travellers at this backpacker. We met so many nice people from Ireland, Holland, Sweden and Canada! There isn’t much to do around here unless you’re on an adventure-travel type budget like going skydiving and diving in the Great Reef Barrier. We simply contented with chilling out at this really relaxing place and play dinking games at night :) Today (Dec 12), we went on a 3-hour hike on Dunk Island, a tropical island across the water from Mission Beach. It was three of the longest 3-hours ever, the humidity is just overwhelming here. Much worse than what we experienced in Brisbane and Cairns. Most of our friends departed this morning, moving on to other destinations. Tomorrow it will be our turn, yes ANOTHER early departure! This is starting to not feel like a holiday :) We’ll be heading inland, to Alice Springs where we booked a tour to visit both Alice Springs and Uluru. Uluru is this giant red rock (mountain) you might have seen in books or postal cards from Australia. We’ll be introduced to the aboriginal history and way of life. I think this is going to be a very fun tour.
