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Experimenting with memoir – Let me know your thoughts

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For some time, I have being collaborating with a fellow creator, Phil (i_am_foggy), on a memoir type book.  Writing a chapter each on how we met, and how our lives took us from Yorkshire, to new homes across the globe.  We are not sure where we will take this, but it is good to go through the process.  The posts are published to our Medium publication, but thought I would share a post here, and see if this kind of thing is of any interest.

A lot has changed over the years.  You notice this more when you get older, and start getting a little introspective.  When I say a little more, I obviously mean a lot more. I was born introspective, and have got worse with the passing of time. Birthdays have a good way of bringing this on.  As do the year ends. And for me, both come within a week of each other. Creating a natural pause in life’s usual rhythm. And it helps that I have time off work. Time to spend with friends and loved ones.  Assessing where I am in life. And making little tweaks, or adjustments to stay on course.

Not that I believe we can totally chart the course of our lives.  Life has a habit of getting in the way of our plans. And sometimes all we can do is roll with it.  But some markers help me set a little direction. And keep me focussed on my life goals.

If you have ever read a self help book, and I have, possibly too many, you will know that the most commonly asked question is a variation of, if tonight is your last night on earth, what would have regretted not doing?  Not what do you regret doing. There is no fixing that, other than learning from the experience. But, what do you regret not doing?  At the end of each year, and with each passing birthday, I allow myself a little time to think about this, and then what can I do to ensure I am not left with these regrets.

This is not to be confused with some kind of existential crisis.  Or the onset of a mid life crisis. Am I too old for this? What would you classify as mid life?  I have images of midlife crises being suffered by men entering their 40s. I’m at the stage of exiting my 40s.  Does this become a two thirds life crisis? Will people in their 50s be suffering midlife crises in a decade from now? No, my problem is not a midlife crisis, I don’t think.  It is simply an acknowledgement that we have one life, we can do what we want with it, so what do I want to do.

Invariably most of my thoughts centre around travel, and my mind scans a mental globe for the places I yearn to go to, and haven’t yet.  And it is a yearning. A deep desire to see as much of the world as possible. I once almost picked up one of those scratch maps of the world, that you can slowly scratch off the countries you visit.  What stopped me was the knowledge, the deep knowledge that I would only get depressed, and start fixating on where I hadn’t been, not where I had.

A by product of some of these travel dreams involve learning a second language.  Not only do I find it incredibly impressive hearing people seamlessly switch between languages, but I also feel ignorant, and lazy, that I know only the one.  One of my travel dreams involves living and immersing myself in the life and culture of a foreign speaking country. Preferably a Spanish speaking country.

I’m not sure I was always like this.  Or if I was, it was a latent, sleeping desire, that I hadn’t unleashed.  And didn’t get unleashed until my early 20s. Up to that point I had only left the UK twice.  Both short haul trips. Both for a period of 7 days. I was hardly Phileas Fogg. But that backpacking trip to Australia, in the summer of 1994, was the trigger.  The point I can look back on and say, you, you are responsible for the wanderlust that has been a big part of my life ever since.

Maybe I was born with a travelling gene.  Perhaps it is somewhere in my family tree.  Some long lost family member who I can attribute this longing to.  Maybe I wasn’t born with it, but subsequently developed it. But whichever way around it was, it no doubt had a large part to play in my finding myself in Dublin, alone, on a wet Monday in April back in 2006.

For most of my adult life I have done whatever I can to ensure my life includes a large element of unconventionality.  Sometimes to the point where I have pressed the self destruct button if I felt things were getting too settled. The status quo unnerves me.  I can’t explain why, only to tell you it does. If life starts to feel too comfortable, too settled, I start to feel very uneasy. Start questioning my every decision.  Start looking for ways to flip the coin again and see how it lands.

Because, heads or tails, life goes on.  Sometimes in a different direction. Sometimes in a better direction.  Sometimes, worse, at least for a while. But rest assured, life does go on.  And by throwing away what I have, opens my life up to what I don’t have. If I keep doing this, how can I possibly experience that, is how my mind works.  To date, my life has been full of amazing experiences. I have had the love of some amazing people. Some still love me. Some would probably prefer I was dead.  Most are probably ambivalent. A lot will have forgotten me. But I have made these choices. And probably will continue to.

I could churn out cliche after cliche for you, but I don’t need to.  I only need to tell you how I feel, and what my life philosophy is. My life could end at any point.  Literally. I hope it doesn’t, but accepting that knowledge frees you to enjoy life more fully. I buy into the Buddhist philosophy that life is just a phase, in the same way that death is a phase.  You can’t have one, without the other. I am reconciled to this knowledge. I am not saying that everyday is a holiday. Or that I don’t have any responsibilities. I do. That is part of living too.  But I like to keep any responsibilities to a minimum. And I like to keep my possessions to a minimum, where possible. And in between working, to pay my way in life, I also like to apportion a large part of my income to travel plans, and life experiences for the next 12 months.  Why 12 months? I believe that this is a manageable horizon to plan against. The next 12 months is close enough to be able to make tangible plans and really believe they will come to fruition. Beyond that, life tends to take over.

Sure, I could try and have grand plans for later years.  Try and provide an answer to the asinine interview question that asks “where do you want to be in 5 years?”  I don’t know, I want to shout. How do any of us? Should I just get my head down for a number of years and enjoy my life when i’m retired?  No thank you. That approach is not for me, for a number of reasons. Amongst them is the number of people, friends and family, I know that have had the same “plan”, only to not then be around to enjoy their freedom.  And if they were, would they be in the physical shape they wanted to be to travel and enjoy the hardships that travel brings?

So for now, my life remains a precarious balance.  I do a job that I would rather not do, just so I can earn the money I need to do the things I like to do.  The ideal scenario is to get a job, or vocation, that I enjoy. And yes, that dream still burns. I would love to get out of the offices that I have spent over 20 years in.  Actually, today is my 29th anniversary of starting work.  Shit, where has that time gone?

I would love to create something. I recently read that the fabulous author, E. Annie Proulx didn’t write her first novel until she was 57. I can still dream. I would love to be my own boss.  As with all my plans, these remain on the list, and hopefully, one New Year’s Eve, when I am pencilling in my plans for the following year, these make the cut.

Would you call these a bucket list?  I do. Even if in the truest sense of the phrase is that you know your destiny, your departure date, and there are things you have a time limit to complete. I call mine my annual bucket list.  Things I want to experience, accomplish, and see before I know i’m dying. Well, I KNOW i’m dying. We all are. We just don’t know when.

I am obviously older than I think, according to a new story published by the Lonely Planet.  Apparently, Thailand have introduced a new level of long stay visa, to attract “seniors” in the autumn of their life.  The starting age for these so called seniors? 50. Yup, in 3 and a bit years I am officially a senior in the eyes of the Thai government.  The jury is still out on whether this is a good thing or not. One thing I do know is that I could live a lot more cheaply in Thailand.  The more I think of it, the more it appeals.

 

Should I put the iron away and travel?

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I have loved travel for most of my life.  And when I say travel, I don’t mean holidays. (Although, I do bloody love holidays).  I mean what I would call real travel.  Not cocooned in some 5 star hotel, plumping my pillows, and bedding down in Egyptian cotton sheets of the highest quality thread count, whilst the locals can’t afford food and drink, let alone shelter.  Not soothed by air conditioning when the locals live in temperatures that could cook an egg.

And not visiting a place, to stay imprisoned within the confines of a resort, owned by an overseas conglomerate, never to venture outside, to interact with the locals.  No.  I want to sample some amazing street food.  I want to smell the spices.  I want to be visually bombarded with colour, and activity.  I want to contribute to the local economy, not the faceless one.

When people tell me they have been to a certain country, when in fact they never left their international hotel resort drives me mad.  If you are going to visit a country, visit that country, its people, and its customs.  India is not best seen through the windows of your air-conditioned tour bus.  You won’t see some of Mexico’s best temples, from early civilisation, from your lounger in a US run holiday resort.  And the UK is not best seen from an open top bus in London.  Whilst I’m on that point, no open top bus is probably good advice, knowing the English weather.

The amount of people I talk to here who tell me they went to the UK and loved London.  The end.  The whole of the UK, and they loved London.  If I had a Bitcoin for every time somebody here asked me “when do you fly to London” whenever I visit the UK, I still wouldn’t understand Bitcoin.  But I would have a lot of them.  By the way, I blatantly stole that one, so if you are reading this, over your freshly baked focaccia with smashed avo, I do heartily apologise.  The blank stares I get when I ask people what they thought of the Lake District, the beautiful Cornish coastline, or the wonders of Edinburgh and Glasgow, confounds me.

One of the greatest travel writers, Paul Theroux, said “tourists don’t know where they have been, travellers don’t know where they are going.”  And that encapsulates the feeling, and the joy of travel.  Waking up one day, not knowing where you will be going to bed.  The unbridled freedom this gives.  Backpacking.  Independent travel.  Whatever label we want to give to it, it is about immersing yourself in a country, and a culture.  Find your favourite local bakery.  Your favourite spot for morning coffee.  Order it in the local language.  OK, I admit this could be difficult in Scotland.  Laugh along when you get it completely wrong.  Walk the streets, smell the smells.   Listen to the cacophony of sounds.  See what the locals do.  Just sit and people watch.  Let your mind wander.  A form of meditation.  Be present.

This is the travel that I have in my heart.  What I yearn for most days.  Trapped in an office, earning the money to be able to escape the office, and go off and do these things feels like a Faustian pact.  Modern life has a way of keeping you in chains.  To enjoy a lot of the things that we want to enjoy, we need money.  And so we sell our services, to the highest bidder.  A roaming troubadour.  A means to an end.

And this is where our life conditioning comes in again.  We are told that we need to work hard, save lots of money in our superannuation, or pension, and then, when we reach retirement age, which seems to keep creeping inexorably up, we can take that money and “enjoy” life.  And I have seen how that works out for a lot of people.  My own father amongst them.  His dream was to retire and move to Spain.  A very modest dream.  And that man worked harder than anybody I have ever known.  But he never got to live out his dream.  Cancer took his dream away.

I read of people who strive every day, struggle every day, ticking off the days to retirement.  Then retirement comes along, and they are suddenly struck down with a fatal heart attack.

OK, OK, I know I have being a little morbid.  And a trifle dramatic.  I am not naive enough to think this happens everyone.  Lots of people do get to retire, and go off and do the things they have dreamt about all their hard-working life.  But is it worth taking the chance?  Every day I bottle up all these feelings.  Keep the lid on them.  Do a job that I feel trapped in.  Office bound.

That I am doing this until some arbitrary date in the future seems pointless.  I have money in the bank.  And I have my health and fitness.  For now.  I have to admit, my knees give me cause for concern most mornings.  So why am I not off travelling?  Living the life I would prefer to live.  Tipping the scales so that the balance is in favour of travel, and less so on work.  There are places in the world I am desperate to see.  Why am I still ironing shirts for work on Sunday afternoons, and not packing my bags?

Only I can answer that.

Transitions back into Australian life

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Transitions

Transitions are difficult. In whatever sphere of life. Adjusting from one way of being, one way of living, to something very different is hard. It is a process. As humans, we usually avoid change. Our brains see it as a threat to the status quo. Our amygdala kicks in. And we resist. Try to cling to the relative safety of the “known”.

List of countries visited

If we don’t move out of the “known”, explore new things, we don’t grow. We stagnate. And I don’t like stagnating. With this in mind, I like to throw everything up in the air and see where it lands. Chart a new course every now and again. And this is what we chose to do when packing up our lives in Australia in June last year to explore the world.

Our travel journey

Many of you came along on the journey. Reading the blogs we shared of our trials and tribulations. The amazing ups and, relatively few, downs of long term travel. You will have seen our pictures, and maybe got a sense of what we saw, and maybe how we felt. It was truly a life changing trip. It changes how you see the world. How you come to realise that we are the same. Part of one big family. Granted, a family with almost 8 billion family members.

You come to realise how arbitrary the borders are. How much of what we take for “geography” is just a social construct. Some countries we have to get visas for. Others, we just jump on a train, leaving one country, and entering another. A bus takes us from France to Spain, with no discernible demarcation of the border between the two countries. In Switzerland we could look across the river in Basel, looking into the windows of apartments on the other side, in France. Look in the other direction and you could throw a stone into Germany. Nothing but a river separating three countries. 

Arriving back in Australia

Ten months later, we flew back to Australia. A country with very strict borders. A country that forbids you to even bring in an apple, woe betide it introduces a threat to the ecosystem. And with our return, we have to re-adjust to a life where we don’t move every few days. Where we have more options of what to wear other than what we have in our backpacks. Deal with the reverse culture shock.

“How much!?”, became a common refrain as we converted the price of a pizza from Australian into Indonesian rupiah. 

The biggest shock was the price of accommodation. In a rental market that is crazy beyond crazy, we had to start out bouncing between AirBnBs. And the cost was killing us. With no money coming in, and lots going out, we needed to find a rental. Fast. This was no easy feat. For each of the four viewings we had in the first week, there were an average of 20 people showing up to view. With a viewing window of only 15 minutes, for everyone, we were like rats running around a maze. Bumping into each other as we all raced to get a good look around, and take a few photos.

Finding a home in Perth

One viewing number five, or was it six, we managed to turn up early and got to view an apartment in relative quiet. It also allowed us to use our well refined stakeholder management skills, chatting to both the owner and her partner. Showing an interest in them and not just the apartment. Asking a few questions and showing our genuine interest. This apartment was above our budget, but with our options dwindling, and with this being a great apartment, we wanted it.

Beaufort Street, Perth, WA
Celebrating our wedding anniversary, in Perth

A phone call whilst we were at yet another viewing brought very good news. We had secured the rental. However, as neither of us were working, our offer of paying the full six months rent up front was accepted. A large chunk of our savings gone, temporarily, but we had a home for the immediate future. A huge milestone in our “settling back into normal life” plan.

Whilst we were looking for a rental, we decided to review our priorities for settling back into Western Australia. And what came out on top was a visit to Margaret River. The wine region that we hold close to our heart, more so we got married there in 2021. We spent a great few days, hunting down new wineries, and checking out a few recent additions to the brewery scene, before heading back to Perth.

Passel Estate, Margaret River, WA
Back in our happy place, Margaret River

In Perth, we are now in a modern two bedroom apartment in a great suburb called Leederville. A suburb full of cafes, bars, and restaurants. And on the bus, only 15 minutes into the city. When we left Perth last year we were living just up the road in Mt Hawthorn. So we know the area very well and love it. If only we weren’t doing “dry May”. It is a killer walking past everyone enjoying a glass of full bodied red wine, or a hazy pale ale. Roll on June!

Rocky Ridge Tap House, Busselton, WA
Better days, Rocky Ridge Tap House in Busselton

Transitioning back to work

Our life plan hit top gear when shortly afterwards, Victoria secured a full time job. Again, at the first time of asking. She has a perfect record of applying for a job, and getting it. Other people must also see how special she is. For me, I had already been back working, albeit part time. A friend runs a consultancy in Perth and I had been partnering to deliver training to some of the companies in Perth. This work is now expanding, and I will be complementing the training with some dedicated coaching and consulting for one of the clients.

My new life involves me trying to work Monday through Thursday. I am keeping Friday free to build up my private coaching practice. To that end, I had a call with a previous client in Sydney and we are having discussions in further developing our working relationship. I hope this could be the start of a new chapter and a new approach to work and life.

As I shift more in to coaching and mentoring I continue to see the benefits that are brought to others. Having a coach, holding the space for you whilst you think through a challenge. Be it professional, or personal, having a thinking partner provides immense benefits. I would love to share more, and even have a coaching conversation if anybody out there thinks they would get value from this.

Is the travel itch scratched?

If you are wondering whether travel features in our new life chapter. Yes. And I would be off again today if I had the money. In fact, if I had the money i would be on the road more than I would be at a “home base”. The experience of travel, the “grabbing life by the balls”, the making the most of every minute becomes ever more important. You never know what life is going to throw at you. When you least expect it. As a family, we have all experienced this over the last year.

Lake Monger, Perth WA
On our weekend walk, around Lake Monger, the “big smoke” in the distance

Seize the day

If you have a bucket list, what is stopping you from doing the things on that list? Tomorrow might never come. Take steps today to get you closer to the things in life that you dream of. We have a short time here, and we never know when the bell is going to ring for us, telling us to come back in, our time is up. Tell those around you that you love them. Tell them every day. You don’t know when your opportunities to do this will end.

With this, I love you. I love you for reading this blog. I love you for sharing our amazing journey over the last year. And I hope you will continue to follow on as we transition back into life in Australia. 

Memento mori.

Are we meant to be nomadic?

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A Life Packed Up

As the last of the boxes gets packed into the truck, ready to be transported to storage, we give each other a forlorn look. Then glance down at what we have left. A 55 litre rucksack, and a small day bag. Each. The sum total of our worldly possessions for the foreseeable future.  It leaves me to ponder, are we meant to be nomadic?

Life in a backpack. Are we meant to be nomadic?
A life, bagged up

How will we cope without our many pairs of shoes, and all the coats we seem to have acquired? What about the glasses we bought for every possible drink imaginable? Did we ever use those jam jars? Not quite the same as when we first had a Pina Colada in that style of glass at a beach bar in Thailand.

Hitting the Road

Ironically, Thailand may be the place that we next get to have the very same drink. We are putting our life into storage and heading out into the world. Or are we? Strictly speaking, we are putting the material possessions we have accumulated into storage. But our life goes on. Here. In the present. And will that life be any less full, or rich, without the accoutrements of modern life to give us a sense that we have made it. 

Do you think the early nomads, perhaps the Eurasian Avars of the 5th and 6th century, had, or needed such modern accoutrements to get through life? I would suspect that even the modern nomads eschew the “benefits” we accrue as part of a capitalistic society. Wikipedia reports that in 1995 there were between 30 and 40 millions nomads across the world. 

Moving either cyclically, or periodically, nomads wander for a number of reasons. To find work. Search for food. And even avoid enemies. We will be joining them, but to look for adventure. The name nomad comes from the Latin nomad-, nomas member of a wandering pastoral people.

Moving for the fun of it

There are even people, and groups, who seem to move just for the hell of it. Some native Indian tribes in British Columbia get to the point where life is just too damn comfortable and they need a challenge. So the whole village ups sticks and starts again. Completely, and from scratch. 

And I wonder whether this is the category that I fall into. I identify with the nomadic culture. At least what we have come to term nomad in the modern age. The term has managed to garner romantic connotations. A life of freedom. And no ties. A life of adventure. Keep moving, like a rolling stone, gathering no moss.

The reality is very different. I know this, having moved numerous times in my life. The reality is that life is hard when you first move. You need to find somewhere to stay. Somewhere for your meagre possessions. Hunt down the best coffee shops. All the important things. Things that take time, and lots of effort. 

The Pay Off

But that effort is paid off. Over and over, with the personal growth you achieve. The things you learn about yourself through the process. The new places you get to explore. The connections you make. The sense of renewal you feel, like a snake shedding it’s skin. 

What is a life without coffee. Even nomads need their daily brew.
What is a life without coffee?

Travelling light, and not weighed down by things we don’t need. Carrying only what you require. And requiring only that which you can carry. When you pare back your life to just the essentials, you soon realise that the list of essentials is small. A change of clothes. A few books. And a means of making fresh coffee. If you want to live the life of a digital nomad, and earn some income whilst you travel, a good wifi connection is a great bonus, allowing you freelance as you go.

The Question

Watching the truck drive away from the apartment, and not knowing when we will see our possessions again, I’m left wondering whether I will even want to? I suddenly feel a lot lighter. Unencumbered. Free. Will I need all those boxes? Maybe just the ones that have items of personal and sentimental value. Maybe the ones that have my book collection. But those cocktail jam jars?

Time to try Chardonnay, again

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How well do you know your Chardonnay?

When we last spoke, I was sharing that I have embarked on my WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) Level 2 qualification. And that I am sharing my journey here, with you. Since civilisation began, wine has played an important role. Wine is history. Wine is story. Here is a little bit of my story.

The chapter we are writing today concerns the grape, Chardonnay. Yes, whilst it is named after a small village in France, Chardonnay is also the name of the grape. And, for those of you paying attention in the previous blog, you will remember that when produced in an “Old World” wine region, such as France, the name of the grape doesn’t go on the label.  Yes, I know, it can get very confusing.

The style of glass in important when drinking Chardonnay

Chardonnay in the 1990s

Which brings me to my introduction to Chardonnay. Kind of. Unlike here in Australia, the supermarkets in the UK sell wine as well as groceries. Here in Australia you have to find a bottle shop. The equivalent of an off licence in the UK. The convenience of being able to pick up a bottle of plonk with my peanuts was a wonder to behold when I started shopping and roaming the shelves of my local Tesco.

Being the late 80s and early 90s, supermarkets in the UK were flooded with wine from the land down under. And, to a little travelled (at the time I had seldom left the UK) Yorkshireman, the wines of Australia were very exotic. Labels with drawings of koalas, kangaroos, and boomerangs. Thankfully, over the years, wine producers have become a lot more inventive and a lot more discerning. These labels promised sunshine in a bottle. A slice of Bondi Beach right at home in Brighouse.

This was where my palate was introduced to Chardonnay. Wine that was almost yellow in the bottle. Overpowering flavours of oak. High acidity, not very well balanced by the fruit. Wine that even now, at a distance of over 30 years still makes me shiver. Maybe I had been put off from Chardonnay for life.

The Chardonnay Renaissance

Or maybe not. In the intervening years wine producers have realised that wine punters can have quite discerning palates. And after decades of wine drinkers declaring themselves as ABC, anything but chardonnay, they are being lured back to expressions of the grape that are sublime. Exquisite. Heavenly.

I am one such person. Being lucky enough to have one of the world’s best wine regions on our doorstep certainly helps. Margaret River produces only a small amount of Australia’s wine, and yet the quality is amongst the highest. If not the very best. And it was Margaret River that reignited my love for Chardonnay.

Margaret River Chardonnay

Gone are the yellow colours. Child like drawings of Australian cliches have left the labels. Long forgotten are the overpowering oak aromas, most probably obtained through the cheaper method of using oak chips, rather than the very expensive French oak barrels that are used today. Now, the wines are smooth. Elegant. Sophisticated. Think you don’t like Chardonnay? Then try one from wineries such as Vasse Felix, Cullen, and Xanadu. You may be converted.

Chardonnay at Vasse Felix

You are not convinced? The oak flavours have ruined Chardonnay for life, for you? OK, I hear you. Bear with me. When you say you don’t like Chardonnay, I suspect it is the buttery flavours, caused by malolactic fermentation, and the oak, as talked about earlier. The secondary and tertiary flavours that are a result of a wine making choice by the wine maker. For a specific style of wine she is wanting to produce.

Chardonnay from France

Which means that the wine maker can equally make a choice to produce a Chardonnay wine without these additional processes. For example, Chablis, from the French village of the same name, produces mostly unoaked Chardonnay. The expression in a Chablis is a lot fresher. Dry and mineral on the palate. Refreshing. Not as one dimensional as an Italian Pinot Grigio, and not as complex as Chardonnay from Mersault in Burgundy, which uses oak barrels and lees contact for that secondary aroma of bread.

What I hope is becoming clear is that Chardonnay is a very versatile grape. Wine regions across the world fall between the 30 and 50 degree latitude, both north and south of the equator. Within that we have cool, moderate, and warm climates. Chardonnay grows well in all of them. With wine that bridges the scale from light bodied all the way to full bodied, with varying levels of acidity, I am convinced that there is a Chardonnay to suit you. 

It is not a time to be monogamous

Whether you like your wines aged, producing notes of hazelnut and mushroom. Or whether you like your Chardonnay young and fresh, displaying hints of apples and pears, this is a wine I encourage you to try. And don’t be monogamous. Shop around. Whether you are in your local Tesco, or in your neighbourhood Dan Murphy’s, see what is on offer.

Good examples can be found from Napa Valley in California. France has Chablis and Mersault, some of the world’s best Chardonnay. And there is Margaret River. Which I would suggest you try first. Just don’t tell the French. And if all else fails, stick to something that the Chardonnay grape does very well. Drink Champagne.

Chardonnay, just one of the grapes that produces this magic

Salut, and until the next time. Live well, drink well.

Hunter Valley wine tour with Kangarrific Tours

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Like wine?  Then come with me on a Hunter Valley wine tour with Kangarrific Tours.
Australia is a country blessed with good wine growing regions, a fact probably borne out by the amount of wine that gets exported, ending up in the supermarkets of the UK.  From the Margaret River in Western Australia, Barossa Valley in Adelaide, South Australia and the Hunter Valley, outside Sydney.
The Hunter was where we were visiting, and after a search on the internet we found Kangarrific Tours.  A relative newcomer to the tour scene, Sam of Kangarrific had already started to build up a solid reputation as somebody who provided an excellent day out.  We would see.
We got picked up in the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney at around 8.00am, ready for the drive north, across the famous Harbour Bridge and up to the Hunter Valley region. 
First stop was at just after 9am, for morning coffee at the Australian Walkabout Wildlife Park, in Calga on the outskirts of the Central Coast.  Entrance fee being included in the very reasonable $99 full day trip price, we were able to get up very close and personal with some of our favourite Aussie wildlife.  Stroking the Koalas, petting the Kangaroos, and keeping a wary distance from the Emus.  This is the sort of place you could spend much longer at be we had somewhere to be and at around 11.15 we got to Lovedale, home of the Hunter Valley Chocolate factory.  A chocolate lovers dream.  Yet still not the highlight of my day.  My reason for coming today was just around the corner, the grapes.  Or more specifically, the stuff that comes from fermenting them.
Meaning “hillside”, Warraroong winery was the first we visited.  A boutique winery giving us the opportunity to sample wines that you wouldn’t find in either the bottle shops, or the big supermarkets, in Australia or overseas.  However, for $10 they do ship to Sydney.  Hmm, hold that thought.
Whilst here we got to try some very good Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (2010 on the Tin Soldier label), Long Lunch white, a 2009 sparkling Moscato, a 2010 Merlot and a Shiraz, finishing with an exquisite Sticky Semillon dessert wine.  The day had officially started for me.
And so we were off to winery number 2.  Much more mainstream, Tempus Two is the sort of winery that does supply the places you are more likely to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home to have with the evening BBQ.  A very corporate affair, the winery incorporates the excellent “Smelly Cheese Shop”, where we had the opportunity to taste some delicious, locally made cheeses.  We were then set free in the deli/shop and I succumbed all too easily to the lure of parting with my dollars.  That said, the cheeses I had picked up would no doubt be perfectly complemented by the Tin Soldier Shiraz I had purchased earlier.
In the afternoon we had winery number three, Wynwood Estate.  Another boutique winery it was here that I tasted, and thoroughly enjoyed, a wine I hadn’t had before.  Originally grown to blend into Shiraz, Chambourcin was now being made and sold as a wine in its own right.  And a bloody good wine it is too, evidenced by my immediate purchase of a bottle.  We also sampled a 2012 Verdelho, a white wine that sits somewhere between a Semillon and a Sauvignon Blanc.  Another purchase was in the form of a Plum Blossom Shiraz, lighter in style than a usual full-bodied Shiraz, so much so that it can be lightly chilled.  Finishing at Wynwood with a dessert wine, an Old Jack Muscat, I was starting to feel the effects of lunch and the amount of wine we had imbibed.  Had there been a hammock knocking about, I could have happily had a snooze in the early afternoon sunshine.
However, we had somewhere else to be and off to the only brewery in the Hunter we went.
The Hunter Beer Company, located at Potters Hotel Brewery resort is open to the public between 10am and 5pm, seven days a week for tastings.  Sam, the amiable and very knowledgeable owner of Kangarrific Tours had arranged a special deal for us and we were able to get two tastings of the various beers for only $3.  I don’t think the lime and coriander infused beer is something that I will be drinking many schooners of.  After a final sour cherry beer it was time to call “last orders” on a very enjoyable day and jump in the bus for the ride back to Sydney.
So my verdict?  An excellent, reasonably priced day out, visiting the Hunter Valley in air conditioned comfort, with a friendly tour guide who obviously knows his beans when it comes to wines.
What are you waiting for?  Salud!