Happy Australia Day!

This past Tuesday was Australia Day. Which meant that we had the day off! It also meant that there was lots of fun stuff going on in the city, so we decided that we'd just stay around and see what fun activities we could find.  We started our day off with a little walk down to the harbor with a coffee and banana bread. The harbor was starting to pick up, even that early. 

Looking a bit rainy, but it cleared up!

  One of the best things about Australia Day, for me anyway, is how people go all out to show their patriotism. They get really creative, or just over the top. For example, the people at the bakery had their "Aussie Aussie Aussie" shirts on. 

And the outfits just got better from there. 

 

"Made in 'Staya"

Another approach is to attach a flag any which way you can

 

Or you can just make sure every item of clothing is flag-themed

  We decided to walk across the bridge in time to see the ferry race start. Basically on Australia Day, things happen all day long in the harbor: ferry races, tall ship races, boat parades. It goes on and on!  

The ferry race, surprisingly, is not very fast or tense. But there were plenty of other boats to check out in the harbor.   

 

This is just a floating bar that gets pushed around by a tug

Across the bridge and down by the Rocks, there were plenty of fun things going on! Like croquet on the street and lots of little food stands. 

 

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Plenty of places to stock back up on your Aussie gear

 

 

There were lots of military flyovers through the day. 

 

 

 

We got some food and walked around checking out the different stalls and music stands. There were lots of concerts to sit and listen to.  After a while, T powered down.

  So we headed home and enjoyed the rest of our day at home. It was probably the perfect Australia Day: hot, sunny, and full of happy Aussies! A good day!

 

A day trip to Hunter Valley

When I changed roles at work a few months ago, the team I left gave Toby & me and gift certificate for a day tour to Hunter Valley. It was such a thoughtful gift, so I booked in our tour for the weekend after my bday - just to extend the fun a bit longer!

Our tour left the CBD a little bit before 8 on Saturday morning. We got lucky and were on a tour with just two other people: a mom and daughter from Connecticut. They have been here since Christmas to watch the brother/uncle race in the Sydney to Hobart race. They were nice and it was great being a small group because we got extra snacks and wine at all the stops!

 

 

Our guide for the day was named Jim. He was hilarious and also really knowledgeable. He told us he's always wanted to visit Tennesee, specificially Chattanooga. He said his fascination with Chattanooga comes from his love of soul music, and I think he was a little disappointed that we didn't know any Chattanooga facts to discuss with him. He shared plenty with us throughout the day though! He also called me Christine, Christina, and Caroline interchangeably, so we just rolled with it.

 

We visited three wineries during the day. These were smaller, independent wineries that aren't part of some of the big company-owned ones in the valley. At each one, we had a nice little seating area and got to taste five or six wines. Some of them were really nice and then some of them weren't to our taste.

 

 

 

It had been raining for almost a week before our trip to the Hunter, and we learned it was really bad timing for the grapes. Most of the varieties are almost ready for harvest, but the rain and warm weather = mold on the vines. Obviously moldy vines are bad, so the wineries we visited told us that they anticipated throwing out most of their crop. It was very sad, but they are hoping for some hot, sunny weather over the next few weeks that will help recover some of vines. 

 

 

For lunch we stopped at a little village full of shops and cafes. We found the Australian version of Cracker Barrel and had our lunch there.

 

 

 

We've yet to make a trip to Hunter Valley without seeing some kangaroos, and even this short day trip was no exception! Toward the end of the day, we saw a group of them hanging out under some trees. It was the perfect way to cap off our fun little day out of the city. 

 

Although sometimes, after a full day of activities away from the apartment, this can happen. 

 

Often this can be cured by a macaroni and cheese dinner. So that's what we did! 

Happy bday on Q Station

I had some birthday and Christmas money saved up, and an item that's been on my "want to do" list for a while. So I decided that my birthday weekend was the time to bring those things together! And it ended up being such a perfect and fun weekend!

My "want to do" activity was going to the Quarantine Station hotel in Manly. So the Friday before my birthday, we caught the ferry after work and headed to Manly. From there, we caught a cab up to the fenced-off historic area of the North Heads, where all the travelers suspected of having disease used to be quarantined. Now all of the old lodgings have been refurbished and turned into nice lodgings for families and the like. The other old buildings, like the kitchens, hospitals, and administration buildings have either been turned into museums or part of the hotel.   

T checking out a map of the grounds

No outside cars are allowed on the grounds, so we got from the front gate to our our room via shuttle. 

Here we go!!!

I didn't really know what to expect. I'd booked a room online, but I wasn't prepared for how much of a camp it looked like.

The old second class lodges

But our room was really fun! In keeping with the original structure, the bathrooms were across a little walkway and separate from our rooms. We had a key for our own bathroom area; just like the olden days, I guess.

  

That walkway between our room and bathroom

One of the reasons I was super excited about our stay here was because a lot of the old buildings have been turned into museums. There are lots of signs describing how the buildings were used in the 1800 and 1900s, when immigrants were housed there after arriving in Sydney. 

The ladies sewing area in the First Class passenger lodging

First Class kitchens in the lounge room

During our stay, we learned that the station was built in the 1830s, when smallpox was the biggest threat to Australia. At that point, any ships that were suspected of having smallpox or other disease on board had to go into the quarantine cove instead of the main Sydney harbor. The station started off very small, but was built up to hold hundreds of people. And not just hundreds of people, but all "classes" of people: the First Class passengers got the biggest rooms of course, but even the Third Class lodgings were pretty decent. A lot of the immigrants that stayed there felt like it was a holiday, having three square meals a day, going to the beach, etc. Of course, for the really sick people, I'm sure that it was not; about 600 people died at the quarantine station through the years. And most surprising to me, the station only closed in 1984. Of course it hadn't had massive groups of people staying there for many years, but I still was surprised it was closed so recently.

One of the restaurants on the hotel grounds was called the Boilerhouse. It was, unsurprising, in the old boilerhouse building, which had been redone inside so it was very cool. We ate a birthday dinner on Friday night, and we had a table where we could look down into the kitchen and watch them prepare food. It was too fun!

The view of the restaurant from outside

The only downside of the restaurant? Since it was by the water, we had to walk back up these stairs to get to our room after we ate.

But a lovely view waited for us at the top!

We had all day there on Saturday. It was kind of fun to be hanging out near the city like a true tourist. We did a lot of activities, like going down to Quarantine Beach and getting a little swim in...

Visiting the museum about the quarantine station...

The old incinerator - a little creepy!

Hanging out on our porch, checking out all the fun on the harbor...

Catching the ferry into Manly for some lunch...

Don't worry, we gave a BIG WAVE!

 

Going full tourist for the day!

Watching all the kookaburras around the grounds...

And enjoying the evening down by the beach....

It was just the perfect bday weekend: swimming, ferry rides, fun food, history museums, and chilling out by the harbor!

Farewell to the 'roos

Our last day on KI was pretty cool and windy, so we decided to spend some time indoors. Which meant going to some of the farms and checking out their little shops and displays. Basically the island is made up of farms, and some of them grow unique things and have started supplementing income by selling to the tourists. It was, as you'd expect, an adventure and an interesting peek into how some of the local people live.  

Our first stop was the Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery. This one made me laugh the most because we had barely walked in the door, when the woman who runs the distillery and shop came up to us and promptly ushered us into this coach and started a DVD about eucalyptus and the distillery. Luckily she offered to take our picture to capture the moment. Definitely not what we had expected for our eucalyptus oil distillery visit!  

The eucalyptus video and shop was actually pretty interesting. The man who co-runs the distillery started it when he was out of work as a sheep shearer. He did some research about how eucalyptus oil used to be distilled (basically by boiling a bunch of eucalyptus plants and then skimming the oil off the top), and decided to try and make a living from all the eucalyptus that is basically everywhere around the island. And it worked! So now the distillery makes about 3% of the eucalyptus oil used in Australia.
 

An emu hanging around

Next we headed down the road to a honey farm. This was cool because they had an indoor hive where the bees could go in and out, so we could watch them working.

The movie area didn't have a coach to sit in though. Bummer!  

 

The honey farm was interesting because it's Ligurian bees. They were brought over from Italy in the 1880s. And because the island is too far for other kinds of bees to fly to, the hive is isolated and pure. And there are a lot of restrictions about what you can bring to the island, which helps keep the bees safe from diseases that are affecting them elsewhere.  

The bee farm and gift shop

Our final farm stop was a lavender farm. 

The lavender farm

 

Not an exaggeration - the ONLY place to get a coffee

The farm was up on the northern side of the island, so we made a stop by one of the northern bays too.   

While we were driving around on the northern edge of the island, we came across this giant white flat in the middle of nowhere. It was very curious, so we pulled off to have a look.   

Our best guess that it was a salt lake. And it was indeed. We know for sure because T tasted it. 

Past the muddy edge, it got a little bit more solid but still quite soft

It was really a pretty big lake, and from what we could tell as far as we walked out on it, it was fairly dried up. So interesting!

We spent the last part of our day chilling out at one of the wineries. We had some lunch, but mainly just sat and listened to the music and enjoyed the view. It was the perfect way to end our holiday!

The winery dining room

Not surprisingly, when we returned the rental car the next day, the Hertz man remembered us and asked us whether we'd done all the things he'd recommended. We could honestly say we'd done most of them! Then it was time to wave farewell to the 'Roos and their island, and wave hello again to lovely Sydney.


Until next time, roos!