Sunday, February 25, 2007

Mudgee revisited

Those of our avid regular readers (right!) will remember that Kel and I took a trip to Mudgee in Jan 2006... we enjoyed it so much we headed back, this time with a special guest. Luca is a dream passenger - four and half hours in the car with a brief stop for a feed and not a word out of him - although he loves the Waylon Jennings live CD and sings up a storm everytime we put it on - advanced musical taste for his age, we'll just bypss the Wiggles thanks.

There's some good country driving out to Mudgee, no highways for the last 100 miles but with good visiability and rolling hills it is enjoyable. Some areas are really dry out there ... we're having a rain issue in inland Austalia at the moment.

Mudgee is an up and coming wine region and Kelly and I really enjoy a couple of the wines from out there ... so a visit to these vineyards was on the cards as was a visit to a couple of olive oil places that were closed last time we went. We stayed at this crazy B&B, the Beverley House... crazy because it is decorated with such ostentacious random stuff that some how works when put all together, we slept on a four post bed with statues all around us ... they added a pool during the past year which was a real bonus as it is usually in the high 90's F this time of year.

Anyways... we get in at 2pm, get the little man settled and head straight out to the main olive oil place we wanted to visit the last time ... closed again, they don't re-open until the first weekend in March (next week!), this story was repeated at every olive oil place around - next time we go it will be March or later. That was the bad, the good was that we saw Kangaroos jumping around in the wild again and our favorite vineyard was having a huge sale for their wine club members, which we are ... an added reason to come visit us, nice wine for dinner every night!

The whole trip was fun, we mixed it up on the way back driving down a few goat tracks to get to some seriously small towns with a ton of character - Lue & Kandos. And to top it all off we get back to Sydney and it has been raining solidly - the rain dances I have been doing since we got our new water tank have worked - I'm the only reliable white shamen working the northern beaches of Sydney!

We live in a land down under where women glow and men thunder! Cheers.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A face only a mother could love...

Luca is a remarkably good baby, cries on average less than 5 min. each day. He is super happy little boy full of smiles. On the rare occasion he does cry Mark and I usually can't help but laugh because he pulls the funniest faces. Here is one recently caught on camera! - kel

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Baptism BBQ

Sunday Luca was baptized at the Catholic church here in Curl Curl. Similar to church services in Australia, it was short and sweet, at times I thought the priest may have thought he was in a speed reading contest. None the less it was a nice ceremony. After the service we had our first BBQ at the house with about 50 of our friends and family. Luca slept through the entire event! The pool was a big hit with the kids, Mark christened the new BBQ with a huge feast and it was fantastic to finally see the house box free and fully unpacked! -kel

Monday, February 05, 2007

Port Stephens


We took a well earned break from painting, cleaning, unpacking and re-packing to get away for a couple of days three hrs north of Sydney in Port Stephens. We buckled the little man up and he travelled like a champion on his first vacation - barely a peep out of him, although I swear we caught him singing along with the Waylon Jennings CD a couple of times.

Port Stephens is awesome, as Kelly said it is hard to believe it is so close to Sydney you really feel like you are on an island somewhere (yeah, I know Australia is an island ... you know what I mean). We stayed in Nelsons Bay but also checked out a couple of other spots near by and we really liked those ... Shoal Bay and Fingal Bay are really, really beautiful.

Although there are Koala crossing signs on the roads we didn't see any although Kel gave it her best shot and probably has a kink in her neck still from all the time she spent looking up in the trees as we drove and walked around. It was a pretty chilled time we did little more than go to the beach (Luca was automatic with his screaming as soon as I put his feet in), walk around the waterfront, eat well and have a few beers. Kelly made lunch reservations on the way back at the Wonganella Winery - cool place, nice food and I hear the wine is good although I was happy with a vanilla milkshake.

We took the scenic route back to Sydney through Newcastle and I entertained(?) Kelly with stories about my previous trips to the area. It was great to get away and hopefully we'll make it back up to Port Stephens sometime soon. 2007 is off and flying, I can't believe it is February already!