Mudgee Wine Tour: Delightful, Delicious and...Nutritious?

Mudgee...population: 9,000.  Number of major roads: 2 (from what I saw).  Chance of falling off a cliff while driving there:  Fairly high; especially in rainy weather.  Wineries around:  Upwards of..I'd say about...30..talk about Wine-o heaven.  Amount of fun to be had in town:  A whole lot if you are with Tegan, Amy, Kaycie, Ellie and Yours Truely!




 Saturday we decided to take a trip up to Mudgee (just north of Bathurst) and stay with Tegan's family for the night.  We had previously planned to do our own tour and ride tandem bikes from one winery to the next as there are several in fair proximity to each other.  However, upon waking up to pouring rain and heavy cloud coverage outside in Bathurst that morning, we thought plan B will be taking the tour bus instead!  Couldn't possibly be as much fun as 5 wine happy (drunk) girls attempting to get along on tandem bikes, but it would suffice!  Looking back, we would have been absolutely miserable had we rode bikes despite the weather.  Good thing there were exactly 5 seats left on the only bus tour of the day.



Back Seat Bandits



Driving to Mudgee was an experience.  The rain continued to come down light and that didn't help the dodgey conditions of the road itself.  Regardless, it was beautiful.  A bit dry and somewhat brown, with some random bright green patches - and a small lot of Christmas Trees ... okay, they were just pine trees, but it was the first set of pine trees I've seen since I have been here!  Along the way we came upon an accident.  A car somehow didn't follow the curve of the downhill portion of the road and ended up off the cliff, only saved, thank god, by a lone tree.  When we passed the police were there and the people were standing on the side of the road, giving us the impression that everyone survived.  At that point we told Tegan our lives' were in her hands so she'd better drive safe :) 

Tour Bus!

When we arrived, we weren't sure we would even catch a bus, but we lucked out and had to meet the bus at the end of the drive way right away.  Talk about service, they picked us up and dropped us off right at the house (actually we had to drive to the end of the road on the pick up because she couldn't find it).  We were 1 of 3 groups of people on the bus, and we claimed the back, proclaiming ourselves the "Backseat Bandits".  Yes, be jealous...everyone else on the bus was!  It was quite cozy to say the least, especially after the first 2 wineries!



Inside Peter van Gent



Bunamagoo was our first stop.  It was very modern looking and nice inside.  Nothing too special, but quite good for the first stop.  The lady liked us because she could tell we were amateurs.  Next on the list was Peter van Gent.  This was a gorgeous place.  Aside from the views outside alone, when you walk up to the winery, there were two huge brown doors to open.  When you did, you walked into a large room just filled with humongous casks that line the walkway all the way down to the bar.  Talk about a cool atmosphere, it was beautiful!  We all loved the wine here as it seemed be be a bit sweeter.  As amateurs I'd reckon our palates aren't acquired to the more sophisticated wines quite yet. 

They had several I was keen on including an Angelic White (The style of wine Michael Angelo and Cupid drink together. Bouquet: Citrus ands paw paw characteristics; Palate: Luscious with a crisp fresh finish. Food: Peaches and cream, cheese and dried fruit, raspberry and blueberry tartlets) that was quite tastey, as well as a White Port (Smooth and luscious with nectarous overtones).  The Liquer Muscat was probably my favorite, it was very lovely, made from "Black Muscat grapes grown by some of Mudgee's more colourful characters, this Muscat is very rich, raisiny and deliciously sweet. A great after dinner drink that has been known to find its way into many a dish of ice cream."  If you know me at all, you could assume the reason I liked it was because it is paired well with ice cream. You are probably right!

Frog Rock Winery

Moving along, we went to another one which I can't, for the life of me, remember the name..perhaps I was a few too many drinks in to even recall at this point.  This one was very small and set up like a vintage home from the early 1900's with the vineyards all around.  We took a few tastes of the wine and then decided the vineyards and camera were calling for us to go do photo shoots :)  When the group was ready, we moved along to Frog Rocks.  The room here was set up much more contemporary and even had some bread and loads of different dips and dressings to taste which got the better part of our attention.  After having a few tastes of wines that were good (I should have been taking notes of what they were), we again wen't out and frolicked (love saying that word) on the grass and took pictures among the human size chess board and trees surrounding the winery.  Aboard the bus again, we got lucky and got to stop at one more winery that was not on the list, di Lusso Winery.  This was was no doubt Italian, and was slightly more sophisticated than the others...I'd say it was for those with a much more developed palate, but not to say I didn't like some of them I tried.  They also had some carmelized figs out for tasting and those were quite delicious!

All in all, it was a lovely day out with some great company touring just a few of the wineries in Mudgee.  To top it off, we ate a the local brewery in town and met a couple of guys the girl's knew from school.  You'll never believe that these boys had New Mexicans working with them!  What are the chances of that?!  A small town of 9,000 people, in the middle of Central New South Wales, in Australia, and I run into people who are working with 4 other people from Albuquerque?!  I suggested they invite them out with us so I could be among some fellow foreigners, but they were all having a barbie and the boys didn't know their numbers.  Oh well, just the thought of what a small world it is makes me smile. 

Other things that made me smile this weekend...I found out I am a vegan (according to Tegan)..but no, I really am not.  She just likes to tell her mum silly lies.  The first thing Kaycie and Ellie said when they found out I am from Albuquerque was, "Oh!  I know where that is. High School Musical was filmed there!"  (In fact it was filmed in Utah, but I wen't along with it because the movie does say Abq).  Dutch pancakes (they are like small pancake balls but flat on one side).  Spending quality time with some awesome girl friends...I haven't had that since I left all my ladies back home!  
 

Exercise Science Girls - Me, Amy and Tegan



I'll leave you now with a few things in the making:  1.  Uni starts again this week which means I have to get going on some school work.  2.  I am going to get a job this week.  3.  I am heading up to Forbes with Amy for Easter, so I'll be filling you in on farm life out in Oz next time (Camel races here I come!..I haven't asked Amy if we can go yet, but I saw a commercial that they are happening in Forbes this friday! Haha, She's going to think I'm crazy..).

Hope you have a beautiful and Happy Easter with your families.  I sure wish I could be with mine!  Much love!  xo

Settling Down to a "Normal" Life

Again, I'm getting pretty bad at this blogging thing - Life is getting normal.  I'm starting to settle down here in Bathurst and it's..well...you know, it's everyday life that you probably don't want to read about.  I could tell you that every morning I have been waking up between 5 and 6:30 without an alarm...what the heck?  It's drivin me nuts, I can't even sleep in when I can. And when I can't I'm sure that's all I will want to do.  Why does it work that way?!  I then make a delightful cappuccino and have it with some amazing raspberry jam and toast.  Then I go for a good run (actually usually I run before the cappuccino, jam and toast ritual), come home, watch some of the Today show, which, just so you know is probably my favorite show out here.  I think I have my first real 'celebrity' crush.  One of the guys is sooo cute!  I'll try and find a pic to post :)...anyway depending on the day, there is not much to do after that except read and write and my personal favorite, day dream about the 1 bedroom apartment I want to move into with the puppy I want to get which then encourages me to continue my massive job hunt - and by massive, I mean, this job hunt is so big you couldn't beat it with an amber alert.  Or, if it is Wednesday, I go to school.  Except not this week..or last week, because we are on 'holidays' (break).  And yes, we have only been in school for 1 month.  As my dad said, you could go to Australia and major in taking a break!!  haha, true story.  Let's think about this...literally we have been in school for 1 month and we have a 2 week holiday...how does that even make sense?  Granted, in the Honours program that I am in, we technically don't have holidays because we are just consitantly working on our research studies (or should be anyway), but still..America should seriously consider these holiday schedules...just saying.

Tonight we went to dinner at Church Bar Woodfire Pizza.  Talk about delicious!  There was a large group of us from the Honours/PhD program and we all shared a variety of pizzas - duck, chicken, cherry tomato, salami, spinach, thai, cashews, feta, sweet sauce, you name it - the list goes on.  Combine it all together and all we were missing was the crocodile and kangaroo pizzas (honestly - I really wanted to get one of them, but they all said that we needed to try croc and kangaroo not on a pizza).  We did get to engage in lots of fun conversation topics ranging from our plans for the wine tour we are going on this weekend in Mudgee (we are riding tandem bikes all around the town to the different wineries all day on Saturday!!!), to why Australians call different groups of people funny names - for instance, we Americans are termed the Yanks, British are Pommies or Poms, New Zealanders are Kiwis...the list goes on I am sure.  We especially got to the nitty gritty in our convo about eating strange things such as:  snails, worms, play-do, some kind of chemically induced medicince you put on mozzi bites, dog biscuits, etc...regardless, It was a lot of fun to get to know everyone in our program even better :)

Well if you have been reading my FB posts lately, you would know that my beautiful beach weather and summertime sun has gone away.  The temperature dropped sooo quickly in the last week.  It was 9 degrees yesterday!  I know..cold right?!  Now figure that out in farenheit and you'll think I'm a big baby.  But, let me tell you my rational.  I left the coldest winter we have had in the Burque in a really long time, to come to AUSTRALIA.  I dunno about you, but when I think Australia, I think beach, tanning, gorgeous surfer guys and just plain old bliss.  Bathurst has been quite the contrary this week.  And really, 49 degrees (yes, thats right 49 degrees F) is technically not that cold but here is where the shitty part comes in.  I won't have a summer until next year sometime!  If I finish out the program in October, it is only barely starting to warm up at that point and then I'll probably be going back to winter in the states for a month and a half which means I will miss peak summer season here in Oz!  Oh geez, all forces are working against me on this one.  I'm screwed.  In the meantime I'll continue bundling up.  Although, we finally began to turn the heater on which means that instead of doubling up on every piece of clothing I am wearing I am only doubling up on socks and sweaters which just about does the trick!

What else what else?  Are you bored yet?  Well here is some exciting news.  My beautiful momma is getting married to her wonderful boyfriend (cough cough..and by wonderful I mean weird).  Ha ha just kidding, Mike!  I am very excited for them.  Especially because I am attempting to convince them to have their wedding this summer in the states so I can get out of winter for a short time!  Not that I'm back tracking to that tangent...I'm just sayin..hint hint, nudge nudge to momma if you're reading this!  And to Mike, in all seriousness, it is wonderful to see my mom happy.  And if that means waking up to your lucious head of insanely crazy bed head hair when I come home to visit, hey..more power to ya, and welcome to the family!

Lastly, I'll be putting in my research project to the Ethics Committee for review tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed that everything gets passed this first time around!  Also, I submitted my abstract to ACSMS (Australian Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport) so hopefully it will get accepted and I'll be heading out to Perth towards the end of October to present on the research study I have been helping my professor with since last year!  I won't know until late May about that though. 

Righto well its time to jet.  While you early birds are gettin your day started in ABQ, I'm just gettin ready to hit the hay :)  Hope you all have a fabulous day!  Cheers! xo

Catchin a Break

Hey there!  How ya goin?  Finally I am up writing again. It's been a while.  The last few weeks have been filled with things here and there that are keeping me busy!  I'm certainly not complaining though.  I'm still on the hunt for a job, gosh it's exhausting searching for jobs like this. I'm far from over it.  I know someone who needs a an assistant coach for Rugby.  What do you think??  It's with 7 year olds. Couldn't be that difficult, right??  I can catch and throw a ball on some days anyway, haha.  I'm hoping one of the cafe's or coffee shops I applied to calls back.  I hope anyone calls back, dang it.

Last weekend we took a trip out to Willongong.  It is a coastal town just south of Syndey and it was so beautiful.  The day was actually really over cast and cloudy, it was even raining for a bit, but we got to the beach and went swimming any way.  We brought the boogie boards with us and had a bit of fun in the waves!  Water was so warm and right at the end the sun came out. So perfect.  The waves were great, nice size too. Lots of fun to body surf and boogie board in because they just tossed us all over the place :)  Reminds me of summers in Cali with my wonderful sister and family!  On the drive out there, I wish I got a picture of this, but there was a building (not sure what kind) but it said in big words, "We Love the Gong!"  I love that.

On the way out to Willongong, we stopped out in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to see the incredible vistas from the look outs.  We got to see the Three Sisters, a famous rock formation standing on the side of the mountain among kilos and kilos of vast blue/green tints from the trees that you look out upon.  It is breathtaking.  I can't wait to go back and see what else is hidden in the valleys of the mountains. Waterfalls could be seen and we hiked down a steep incline of stairs to get right up to it.  I can't even explain how gorgeous it is. 

Last week I got to help out a friend with her study.  She is doing a short term and long term training intervention and comparing it between caucasion and aboriginee groups.  It's difficult to do studies with the aboriginees because they are 'government protected' so getting it passed ethics is really tough. Sounds familiar, right?  But they are a huge at-risk population for diabetes/obesity and other sedentary diseases so it's also really important to get them in studies.  Anyway, it was fun helping her set up and being around for the study - part of it included muscle biopsies which was awesome to see. 

It rained off and on here for several days but the last week has been positively gorgeous. It is definitely getting into fall here - it is quite chilly in the morning/afternoons and there is usually a crisp fall air during the days.  We had dinner at a the receptionist, Jenny's, house last night.  She made us a delicious roast with potatoes and sweet potatoes and green beans.  It was very delicious.  We also went to Amy's house the other night for dinner - she made us burritos!!!!  That was the first taste of New Mexico I've had since I left, and I have to say they were mighty good!  Of course, I could have used a bit of green chile, but hey, at least it was something!  How weird is this though - they put cucumbers on burritos.  Now that's just not normal to me! haha!

Well I know more things have been happening, but nothing else stands out for me to go on and on about.  I'll leave you with some fun new sayings that I've heard. 

Last week Dr. Roberg's mum (mom) was in town and she was hilarious.  At one point when we were driving to Willongong, he was saying that he had a secret place that he was going to take us.  We asked his mom, Evy, if she knew what the secret was.  She laughed and said, in a very endearing, elderly lady type of way, "oh no, Rob doesn't tell me things like that I'll bubble over!".  I thought that was the cutest thing ever!  Don't tell someone a secret if they are going to bubble over :)

Later that day, Dr. R. was reversing out of a parking spot and he had to do a three point turn.  We were standing outside the car and Evy says, in a somewhat annoyed/sweet way (if that is possible), "Oh, he's going to have to take a couple bites out of the cherry on this one".  So cute.  It was lots of fun hanging out with her, though it made me miss my grandma and grandpa quite a bit! 

Needless to say, I'll be anxious to come home the first time.  Missing you all a lot, but  I love it here so much.  I couldn't possibly be happier with school and that, of course, is the whole reason I am here :)  So I'm gonna keep on keepin on, livin and lovin it.  Rightio, lots of love and cheers to a good week ahead!  xo