We left at a reasonably-early hour in the morning, grabbed a comfy Audi from the car rental down the street, and started off toward the Harbour Bridge. Without a single snag of traffic (I've never hit any heading up there), we were up there at an hour that, in any sort of civilized context, would have been considered far too early to begin drinking. Undaunted, we soldiered on, with me soberly bringing up the rear.
The 3 Lush-keteers - Aisling, Nicola,
and of course, Caitriona, who is never very far
away when there's wine to be had.
We started off at the delicious and equally-scenic Iron Gate winery, which is actually my favorite I've found so far in the whole valley (though I am open to new favorites, a suitable contender has yet to be found). I should also mention that on this day it was hot hot hot, and not purely due to my lovely company. After a short visit to each winery, the black leather seats in the car were not just warm, but where-am-I-going-to-get-a-skin-graft-at-this-time-of-day-hot.
Because sometimes the blurry action shots are
the best.
During her time visiting Australia, Nicola had not yet seen a kangaroo, which set us on a quest of paramount importance to track one down for her. We decided to continue our search for them at the bottom of more wine glasses. This bought us to Petersons.
Something novel: Aisling mugs for the camera,
and Nicola watches as Caitriona does what she
does best. Ended up getting what Aisling
promises is an amazing bottle of Shiraz from
here...
Desperate for a tasty lunch, we had made a booking at Leaves and Fishes, a quirky little establishment with a great vibe (half patio, half cafe, with no real theme to the decoration). I had been here before for lunch and was quite impressed, so we decided to give it another go. Needless to say (Why does everyone always say this, by the way? If there's no need to say it, don't say it...), by the end of the meal, we were all happily stuffed.
That bucket of seafood didn't stand a
chance. Also pictured: fish and chips, and
a delicious mezze platter. Oh, and wine, of
course. Mmm.
Believe it or not, this picture was actuallyto scale - Nicola was sitting in a giant basket
of fish and chips. Despite our best efforts,
we couldn't get her to stop smelling of
tartar sauce for the remainder of the day.
We had a long, leisurely lunch, and chatted a fair bit with our waiter, who was quite a character. He was admittedly gay, in his late teens, and divulged to us that he had recently dressed up as Snooki for a recent fancy dress party (this last confession came after one of the girls complimented him on his tan, which he then explained used to be considerably more orange). Bill paid, we set off again in search of more wineries to ransack.
We drove for a tiny bit toward the final winery, until some movement off the side of the road caught our eyes.
Ok, I realize this looks like an obsessed stalker
photo, but to be fair, that's essentially what we
were doing.
Our final tasting of the day was at Scarborough, which had a proper sit-down environment, including a placemat featuring circles for roughly 12 (!) tasting glasses, including a bonus pamphlet with a 13th (!!) circle on it for a seasonal wine. I tried a few of these, but left most of my glasses untouched. The ladies, on the other hand, took their time, and managed to finish most, if not all, of their wines.
The last winery closing, we set out back toward Sydney, but not before one final stop.
More kangaroos, only, these ones were closer,
and there was no fence between us and them...
...which of course inspired the ladies tocreep on the kangaroos like they'd never
creeped before.
Aisling makes her move, cleverly disguisedas the giant Australian lavender plant.
Caitriona tries a different approach andattempts to blend in, but sadly, the lack of
joey for her pouch was her downfall.
Spotted.
Our cover blown, the kangaroos headed for cover.But at least Nicola got to see one.
