Sydney Aquarium & Wild Life World

Saturday 5 March

This is mural made completely from legos! 331,776 legos total.

     We started off the day by having brunch at school and then heading over to Sydney to see the aquarium and Wild Life World. We have to take the ferry to get Sydney and today the water was really rough, so I had my first experience with sea sickness here! Now I don't actually throw-up but I got very nauseous and had to move inside, which really didn't help. I decided to visualize myself on a hammock in Fiji, this didn't help much either. Then we almost got hit by a sailboat, and so that distracted me until we got docked at Circular Quay (pronounced key).

Little penguins that are native to Australia and can even be found by Manly Wharf!

     After we got off we decided to walk to Darling Harbour because the ferry there wasn't coming for a while. It didn't take very long and soon we were at the aquarium! It was huge! We got to see everything from jellyfish to sea horses. There were also all kinds of big Lego figures and murals everywhere! And I even heard someone talking about Lego Land at MOA! They even mentioned MN!!!

DORY!

NEMO! Only one in the whole aquarium!

Jellyfish! They change colors when they are mad. There are red ones in the back that are angry! 

WILD LIFE WORLD

     After the aquarium we went next door to Wild Life World. We saw kangaroos, wombats, snakes, and a ton of bugs. YUCK! They even had more of those Lego figures!

Wombat

Legos!

12 of the 30 most venomous snakes live in Australia! YIKES!

Hunter Valley Wine Tour

Map of Hunter Valley Wineries! 

Saturday 26 February
     Today I had the Hunter Valley Wine tour. On the tour we went to 3 different wineries, a cheese factory and a little village where, of course, I went to the chocolate shoppe! I'll start the story of my day off with a disclaimer. 


DISCLAIMER: The drinking age in Australia is 18. 


     Ok, so now that we all know I'm not breaking any laws I'll tell you about my trip. Hunter Valley is the wine growing region of New South Wales, the state in Australia where I currently reside. This area is about a 2.5 hour drive from Sydney, so we started off by meeting down at the gate as usual for these trips, but this time at 8:15 in the morning. When the bus got to ICMS we all jumped on and were on our way! 

     Our first stop was Drayton's Family Wines. Here we tried 8 different wines! (They also had yummy cheddar cheese and crackers! My real favorite of this winery!) A Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, a Verdelho, a Rose, a Shiraz blend, a Cabernet Merlot blend, and 3 desert wines: a white port, a dark port, and a white chocolate liqueur. I can't remember which was my favorite here because we weren't given a sheet to mark like the others. However, I do remember liking the red wines more than the white. The port wines we extremely sweet, it reminded me of a syrup, and the liqueur smelled amazing but was way too strong for me. 
Actually most of them weren't my taste but I  handled it with class. Most of my tastings went like this: 
Sip 1: Whew! That was really sour. 

Drayton's Wines

Sip 2: Hmm... assessing the taste inside my head. If I liked it I moved to sip 3, if I didn't I moved to step 4.
Sip 3: Decide how much I like it. 
Step 4: Decide who to give the rest to. 
Step 5: Pour remaining contents of my glass into a friend's glass! 

At McGuigan's

     When the tasting was over we had lunch just outside on their property. Then we moved on to our next winery.      
     The next winery was McGuigan's. Here we were rushed inside and started tasting straight off. Here we tried a Semillon, a Pinot Grigio, a Muscato, a Merlot, a Cabernet Shiraz blend, their personal reserve (P/R) Shiraz ’07, and two desert wines: a Late Picked Traminer and a Tawney Port. My favorite of this bunch was the P/R Shiraz '07. Usually they don't even allow tastings of this but for some reason they let us and it was so delicious. There is a reason this one if $50 a bottle! 

     After this one we were rushed next door to the Hunter Valley Cheese Factory where we tried 5 different cheeses! We had a Fromage Spread with Olive Oil, Herbs, & Sun-dried Tomato, Brie, a White Cheddar, a bleu cheese, and a Limburger cheese.  I wasn't too fond of the Brie or Limburger cheeses, but I loved the rest! 
   Our next stop was the Village. Here we had a choice to roam the shoppes or go to another winery. I chose to go to the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company. It was so cute and had all kinds of different candies.  I even found Reese's! But didn't get any because they're expensive and I can get them at home. I did end up getting 3 little chocolates though. I got the "3 sisters" Which was 3 toasted hazelnuts in milk chocolate, a caramel chocolate frog (it looks just like the ones from Harry Potter!), and a "scaredy cat" which was a hallow milk chocolate cat. 

Golden Grapes Estate

     After this we moved on to our last stop of the day. The Golden Grapes Estate Winery. This was my favorite of the day. Not only did they have the best scenery but they had the best tasting drinks. Here we only tasted fortified wines, this just means they are wine liqueurs or liqueurs with wine as the base. We tasted a Strawberry Champagne, a butterscotch schnapps, “love in a bottle” which is a coconut caramel liqueur, a coffee liqueur, and their staple item, Dragon’s Breath Chilli Schnapps. The "Love in a Bottle" was my favorite, but I did finish all of these myself. Yes they were that good! The chili schnapps was pretty hot, and I only finished it because they have a rule, that if you don't, you have to walk to your next stop. And our next stop happened to be home, about 3 hours away. 

Wine Wine Wine Wine Wine Wine

Fortified wines tried at Golden Grapes Estate

   At the end of the day we headed home where we went to dinner at Ivanhoe's. Here I had a delicious steak with honey mustard red wine sauce, garlic mash potatoes and salad for only $10!