This tasting started pretty much the same as the majority of the tastings I have been doing. True there was a Christmas office party going on on the patio with the participants dressed up as toffs from a century or more ago. They eventually went in to their lunch in the winery restaurant and I got going on my tasting, the sole punter in the tasting room which is how I prefer it.
The first tasting was a Riesling which was sweet, like a dessert wine, but was being promoted as an aperitif wine. True it is made differently to a dessert wine but in the end is is a sweet Riesling and I am afraid I just did not get it. I then went trough the standard whites which were just a little bit different from everybody else’s, particularly when you smelt them. Then we came to the first Pinot Noir. It had been made more like a white wine and had never seen oak. It was being promoted as a light quaffable wine served cool. It was OK but hey there are enough wines covering that slot in the market why add to it, Oh yes, that would be because every one wants to drink Pinot Noir. It is fashionable.
What was going through my mind right now was that Alanna was a very commercial winery which was interested only in the drink now market. This didn’t make much sense though given their 2006 standard Pinot Noir wine. That had to have been made for the cellaring market, it was a few years from being at its best. I was beginning to try and understand what was going on and then the young lady, Victoria I think was her name, who was doing the tasting and who was very knowledgeable shot out and came back carrying a 2007 Pinot Noir (standard) hot of the bottling line and not for sale for some time. Again another serious wine. I was trying to get to the bottom of this when a guy with purple hands walked in to the tasting room. After a short while of me asking questions Victoria introduced purple hands to me, Alan Parker, the wine maker.
The next 20 or so minutes were another of the magic moments of the trip. He was able to explain exactly what he was up to and why. There is no way I can repeat what Alan told me, I would be here for ages and I would probably get the detail wrong. The reasons for both the aperitif Riesling and the Pinot Noir light were much the same so briefly for the Pinot Noir the winery has a big block of a particular Pinot Noir clone but they have too much of it. He needs it to make the serious Pinot Noirs but not too much so he has an over supply. Today’s market place is all about fashion and drink now. Pinot Noir is fashionable but not normally drink now. Alan has discovered that his over supply of that Pinot Noir can be used to make a highly competitive drink now quaffable wine. Every body is a winner with this approach. Alan gets to make the serious wines he wants to and the winery gets increased cash flow and the majority of buyers can get a Pinot Noir which drinks easily and they do not have to wait.
It really is great when you can talk to the wine makers and understand the problems and opportunities as they see them. Oh and by the way the reference earlier to purple hands. It is remarkable how many wine makers have purple hands. There is even a childrens book entitled “My Dads Got Purple Hands“.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Rimutaka Hill, Wellington - Martinborough
Thursday, 18th December is definitely get Ian day, or rather get Ian’s adrenalin day. First as described in another Post we have the 25 minute ride in a 12 seater, light as a feather Cesna 208, flown up and over very pointy hills by a pilot who has barely started to shave and who is still in short trousers and after that then there is the Rimutaka Hill.
Everything is organised to fool you, or at least those who have a strong dislike of anything high. Take the name. What can be more benign than “hill”. Note, not pass, not mountain, not even steep hill, just “hill“. Further, the roads leading to the ”hill” are wide and inviting, meant for touring and then suddenly and almost without warning they turn into monstrous, snaking, curving, wrongly cambered devils only out there to throw you off into the deep cavernous void on the left.
I was driving. Normally when we drive on this type of road it is better for all concerned, Marion, me and all other drivers, if Marion drives, but sometimes I get caught out as I did today and at least I have to continue until there is a safe spot to change drivers. Today, I was further caught out because I had been assured many time by South Islanders that once out of South Island everything is much easier, no adventure stuff, no adrenalin events just pipe and slippers stuff.
They lied!
We did not pass anything like this in South Island. True the road down from Queenstown to Cromwell has the gorge on the left but for me it was not like the “hill”. They have the Millford road but that is nothing compared to the”hill” either.
Because of this South Island spin plus the name “hill”, I just assumed this would be a short sharp hill and it would all be over soon. So, we continued up the hill with me cutting all the blind right hand corners making Marion, rightly, worried that we might just meet one of those immense truck and trailer jobs barrelling down. Now we have two people worried, me for something the rest of the world thinks is great fun and the other Marion, for very good and sensible reasons.
Just before I was about to pass out from white knuckle fatigue, I found a spot to change drivers. At least one of us now felt happier and did they but know it so should have all other drivers on the “hill” at that time. Mind you it still wasn’t good. The void was on the left so now sitting in the passenger seat I was even nearer to the void as they drive, sensibly, here in New Zealand, on the left. I spent the rest of the “hill’ both up and down, yes you guessed it, it was just as bad descending as ascending, leaning heavily to my right so Marion was forced to drive with me in her way.
Well I pen this Post sipping a fresh Sauvignon Blanc in our very nice hotel, The Martinborough Hotel, clearly my fears were completely unfounded.
Everything is organised to fool you, or at least those who have a strong dislike of anything high. Take the name. What can be more benign than “hill”. Note, not pass, not mountain, not even steep hill, just “hill“. Further, the roads leading to the ”hill” are wide and inviting, meant for touring and then suddenly and almost without warning they turn into monstrous, snaking, curving, wrongly cambered devils only out there to throw you off into the deep cavernous void on the left.
I was driving. Normally when we drive on this type of road it is better for all concerned, Marion, me and all other drivers, if Marion drives, but sometimes I get caught out as I did today and at least I have to continue until there is a safe spot to change drivers. Today, I was further caught out because I had been assured many time by South Islanders that once out of South Island everything is much easier, no adventure stuff, no adrenalin events just pipe and slippers stuff.
They lied!
We did not pass anything like this in South Island. True the road down from Queenstown to Cromwell has the gorge on the left but for me it was not like the “hill”. They have the Millford road but that is nothing compared to the”hill” either.
Because of this South Island spin plus the name “hill”, I just assumed this would be a short sharp hill and it would all be over soon. So, we continued up the hill with me cutting all the blind right hand corners making Marion, rightly, worried that we might just meet one of those immense truck and trailer jobs barrelling down. Now we have two people worried, me for something the rest of the world thinks is great fun and the other Marion, for very good and sensible reasons.
Just before I was about to pass out from white knuckle fatigue, I found a spot to change drivers. At least one of us now felt happier and did they but know it so should have all other drivers on the “hill” at that time. Mind you it still wasn’t good. The void was on the left so now sitting in the passenger seat I was even nearer to the void as they drive, sensibly, here in New Zealand, on the left. I spent the rest of the “hill’ both up and down, yes you guessed it, it was just as bad descending as ascending, leaning heavily to my right so Marion was forced to drive with me in her way.
Well I pen this Post sipping a fresh Sauvignon Blanc in our very nice hotel, The Martinborough Hotel, clearly my fears were completely unfounded.
Picton - Wellington
The pilot, I think, was probably young enough to be my grandson. His uniform is a white shirt with his rank flashes on his shoulder and a pair of khaki shorts. Once on board it is he who ensures that you are strapped in correctly and who gives you the safety briefing which includes the ominous words, “it is going to be a bit bumpy today over the Sound”.
Now I have, conservatively, flown 6000 hours and more probably over 10,000 on all types of aircraft, but not so much on small planes like the Cesna 208 we were now in and my recollection of “bumpy” in small aircraft is a whole different world. I was already a tad concerned because I omitted to tell you, in the Picton Airport Post, that Picton Airport nestled in the hills, or more properly mountains, between Blenheim and Picton town. In essence the plane took off directly towards mountains. I do not normally get my height thing when flying. Seems crazy really, totally illogical, but then the height thing itself is illogical. However, in this instance it was beginning to kick in and I do not know why.
Anyhow we rolled down the runway, turned round, reved up and charged down the runway and were off the ground in seconds. I knew we were off the ground when the plane suddenly lurched to right. My “grandson” in the front left hand seat corrected and kept the ascent going. Now bumps in a small aircraft going through the mountains are entirely different to those experienced in a 747. First you can really feel them and second you can really see them as the close by mountains give your view a point of reference. I, of course, gave the pilot every assistance by taking a firm grip on the seat in front and lifting, or was that just holding on.
The flight was only scheduled for 20-25 minutes so our trip through the mountains did not last that long and clearly my lifting had worked because we were soon over the Cook Straight which was much more pleasant and I could look around properly, as opposed to taking furtive glances as I did in the mountains, and I could see the fast approaching North Island and soon Wellington. The bumpiness subsided and we gradually approached Wellington descending on what I thought was a pretty steep glide path but my “grandson” in the front did a good job and brought us in very gently in spite of a cross wind and we kissed down right at the start of the runway and immediately turned right to get the Sounds Airways parking spot which of course was in a corner behind all the bigger aircraft.
I later reflected that none of the other passengers had been in the least concerned by the “bumpiness“. The young 12 year old lad in front, clearly a seasoned traveller on this route, was just deeply miffed that he had not been allowed to sit in his normal seat on the right at the front because it was too bumpy. Every one else looked out all the way or just continued their conversations. Ironic really because, when I thought about it, I had probably flown more hours than everybody else, including the pilot, put together.
Now I have, conservatively, flown 6000 hours and more probably over 10,000 on all types of aircraft, but not so much on small planes like the Cesna 208 we were now in and my recollection of “bumpy” in small aircraft is a whole different world. I was already a tad concerned because I omitted to tell you, in the Picton Airport Post, that Picton Airport nestled in the hills, or more properly mountains, between Blenheim and Picton town. In essence the plane took off directly towards mountains. I do not normally get my height thing when flying. Seems crazy really, totally illogical, but then the height thing itself is illogical. However, in this instance it was beginning to kick in and I do not know why.
Anyhow we rolled down the runway, turned round, reved up and charged down the runway and were off the ground in seconds. I knew we were off the ground when the plane suddenly lurched to right. My “grandson” in the front left hand seat corrected and kept the ascent going. Now bumps in a small aircraft going through the mountains are entirely different to those experienced in a 747. First you can really feel them and second you can really see them as the close by mountains give your view a point of reference. I, of course, gave the pilot every assistance by taking a firm grip on the seat in front and lifting, or was that just holding on.
The flight was only scheduled for 20-25 minutes so our trip through the mountains did not last that long and clearly my lifting had worked because we were soon over the Cook Straight which was much more pleasant and I could look around properly, as opposed to taking furtive glances as I did in the mountains, and I could see the fast approaching North Island and soon Wellington. The bumpiness subsided and we gradually approached Wellington descending on what I thought was a pretty steep glide path but my “grandson” in the front did a good job and brought us in very gently in spite of a cross wind and we kissed down right at the start of the runway and immediately turned right to get the Sounds Airways parking spot which of course was in a corner behind all the bigger aircraft.
I later reflected that none of the other passengers had been in the least concerned by the “bumpiness“. The young 12 year old lad in front, clearly a seasoned traveller on this route, was just deeply miffed that he had not been allowed to sit in his normal seat on the right at the front because it was too bumpy. Every one else looked out all the way or just continued their conversations. Ironic really because, when I thought about it, I had probably flown more hours than everybody else, including the pilot, put together.
Adventure Airport - Picton Airport
I knew we were in for an experience when collecting our Hertz car in Blenheim the good lady who handled the paperwork informed us there was no Picton Airport and that really it was Blenheim airport. I was pretty certain that there were two airports not one and that she was wrong. However, it is pretty difficult to argue with a local but since Blenheim airport is only a hop, step and a jump from the Hertz office and on the way to the Cloudy Bay Winery we could check it.
I was right. One up for the tourists. I was to discover that very few people know of Picton airport and those that do call it something like Kaiwakara and certainly not Picton. Having resolved as far as we were concerned I now had to make sure that Hertz knew where I was going to drop the car. I won’t trouble the reader with this histoire of our attempts to inform Hertz. Suffice it to say that multiple trips were required to get this bit of information over to the local Hertz office and oh yes, to inform them that while we had a new car with only 48km on the clock it decided that it would not start from time to time, once inconveniently in the middle of junction, which caused a passing New Zealand driver to stop and advise me it was not a good place to park!
Back to Picton Airport. We checked its location and decided that we would have to leave a little early to ensure we found it. We found it with ease, though it is not immediately obvious where the terminal buildings are though, actually, we found them with out problems.
What we had here was the next step up from a grass strip and hut. The waiting room was a small homely room with the check in desk a hole in the wall with the weighing machine in the doorway just to the left. In good weather the garden with seats and tables and wonderful roses doubles as an alternative waiting room. The runway is a relatively short and narrow piece of tarmac and I am not sure I spotted any runway lights. Actually, I think the airport terminal is really someone’s house.
Clearly the airport is used frequently because there were a number of cars in the car park and Sounds Airways must do 5 or 6 flights a day between Picton and Wellington and vice versa. Booking in is everything the experienced air traveller craves for. No hassle with bags, no security checks , no x-ray machines, and no long walk to the gate. What gate? It is a 5 barred metal gate that the aircraft pulls up to and and embarking is done when the pilot says “OK folks lets go” after he has finished assisting the loading of the cases.
I was right. One up for the tourists. I was to discover that very few people know of Picton airport and those that do call it something like Kaiwakara and certainly not Picton. Having resolved as far as we were concerned I now had to make sure that Hertz knew where I was going to drop the car. I won’t trouble the reader with this histoire of our attempts to inform Hertz. Suffice it to say that multiple trips were required to get this bit of information over to the local Hertz office and oh yes, to inform them that while we had a new car with only 48km on the clock it decided that it would not start from time to time, once inconveniently in the middle of junction, which caused a passing New Zealand driver to stop and advise me it was not a good place to park!
Back to Picton Airport. We checked its location and decided that we would have to leave a little early to ensure we found it. We found it with ease, though it is not immediately obvious where the terminal buildings are though, actually, we found them with out problems.
What we had here was the next step up from a grass strip and hut. The waiting room was a small homely room with the check in desk a hole in the wall with the weighing machine in the doorway just to the left. In good weather the garden with seats and tables and wonderful roses doubles as an alternative waiting room. The runway is a relatively short and narrow piece of tarmac and I am not sure I spotted any runway lights. Actually, I think the airport terminal is really someone’s house.
Clearly the airport is used frequently because there were a number of cars in the car park and Sounds Airways must do 5 or 6 flights a day between Picton and Wellington and vice versa. Booking in is everything the experienced air traveller craves for. No hassle with bags, no security checks , no x-ray machines, and no long walk to the gate. What gate? It is a 5 barred metal gate that the aircraft pulls up to and and embarking is done when the pilot says “OK folks lets go” after he has finished assisting the loading of the cases.
Whats in a Name - Hotel D'Urville, Blenheim
When putting together the trip I liked the sound of the name. I was looking for quirky, different town hotels and I loved what I though was a New Zealand play on the French name Hotel de Ville, which of course is not a hotel at all but a town hall. The web site seemed to back up my thoughts with its description of the hotel which was a restored former trust building where important papers and valuables could be stored.
The hotel sits right in the centre of Blenheim, a big white imposing building in a shopping street of normal New Zealand timber framed two story buildings. It has a delightful entrance leading to a bar on the right and a dining room on the left all of which gave the feel of an individually styled hotel.
We arrived early and our room was not ready so we dumped our bags with reception and shot off to get our hire car and then to do a couple of quick tastings.
We arrived back 2 or 3 hours later and found that our bags had been moved to our room which we were now shown to and which turned out to be thoughtfully and tastefully decorated, but in a somewhat quirky style. You see I was right about that name, it was a sure give away.
We unpacked and I did a little blogging. We decided upon a bar meal which turned out to be a good choice as the restaurant was pretty much taken over by an office Christmas party. Anyhow we were feeling really stuffed so a full blown meal would have been over the top for us and we got the bar to ourselves. Whatever it was we had, I think mine was oysters, we washed it down with a good bottle of the local Sauvignon Blanc.
Breakfast, like all New Zealand breakfasts can be as substantial as you like and so we decided on a no lunch strategy for the day. We were a bit disappointed to have missed out on a full meal the previous night as the hotel enjoys a good reputation for food so we really wanted to make sure we did not miss out in Martinborough.
While we were booking out I was looking at some large scale maps of the Marlborough Sound and there sitting there as the northern most island was the Island of D’Urville, so much for my guess work!
www.durville.com
The hotel sits right in the centre of Blenheim, a big white imposing building in a shopping street of normal New Zealand timber framed two story buildings. It has a delightful entrance leading to a bar on the right and a dining room on the left all of which gave the feel of an individually styled hotel.
We arrived early and our room was not ready so we dumped our bags with reception and shot off to get our hire car and then to do a couple of quick tastings.
We arrived back 2 or 3 hours later and found that our bags had been moved to our room which we were now shown to and which turned out to be thoughtfully and tastefully decorated, but in a somewhat quirky style. You see I was right about that name, it was a sure give away.
We unpacked and I did a little blogging. We decided upon a bar meal which turned out to be a good choice as the restaurant was pretty much taken over by an office Christmas party. Anyhow we were feeling really stuffed so a full blown meal would have been over the top for us and we got the bar to ourselves. Whatever it was we had, I think mine was oysters, we washed it down with a good bottle of the local Sauvignon Blanc.
Breakfast, like all New Zealand breakfasts can be as substantial as you like and so we decided on a no lunch strategy for the day. We were a bit disappointed to have missed out on a full meal the previous night as the hotel enjoys a good reputation for food so we really wanted to make sure we did not miss out in Martinborough.
While we were booking out I was looking at some large scale maps of the Marlborough Sound and there sitting there as the northern most island was the Island of D’Urville, so much for my guess work!
www.durville.com
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Christchurch
We arrived in Christchurch after an uneventful 2 hour drive from Timaru. We went straight to our hotel, the Clearwater Resort on the edge of Christchurch, booked in, unloaded and then charged back to the airport which we had passed to drop off our rental car before we had to pay the extra day. Having dropped the car we then took the shuttle bus down to Christchurch city centre.
By this time, it was about 4 o’clock, we only had a couple hours maximum for going round end displays or exhibitions etc., so after a quick visit to the tourist information centre we elected to a tram around the city centre. The trams existence is pretty much for tourists now and there is only one route a circular route which passes many of the city centre attractions that one might visit, but better than that it gives the visitor a very goof feel for the layout of the city. There is a commentary from the driver, another budding New Zealand comic, as you go round. Your ticket allows you stop off when you want and where you want and is valid for the whole day. If we were spending the whole day in the city we would simply have used the tram to take us from one place to the other. There is more than enough to occupy the tourist on this tram route.
When we had completed one cicuit we decided to alight and go back to couple of interesting streets we had seen and the to explore the cathedral square. By this time our stomachs were beginning to think iur throats had been cut so we decided to take an early city centre pub dinner and the go back to our hotel and put our feet up on the balcony of our room at the Clearwater Resort.
Christchurch, although it is the largest city in South Island is still only some 350m in population. It spralls a little and does not have an easily understood road system, but it is a delightful city with a residual colonial, and dare I say it, British feel about it.
By this time, it was about 4 o’clock, we only had a couple hours maximum for going round end displays or exhibitions etc., so after a quick visit to the tourist information centre we elected to a tram around the city centre. The trams existence is pretty much for tourists now and there is only one route a circular route which passes many of the city centre attractions that one might visit, but better than that it gives the visitor a very goof feel for the layout of the city. There is a commentary from the driver, another budding New Zealand comic, as you go round. Your ticket allows you stop off when you want and where you want and is valid for the whole day. If we were spending the whole day in the city we would simply have used the tram to take us from one place to the other. There is more than enough to occupy the tourist on this tram route.
When we had completed one cicuit we decided to alight and go back to couple of interesting streets we had seen and the to explore the cathedral square. By this time our stomachs were beginning to think iur throats had been cut so we decided to take an early city centre pub dinner and the go back to our hotel and put our feet up on the balcony of our room at the Clearwater Resort.
Christchurch, although it is the largest city in South Island is still only some 350m in population. It spralls a little and does not have an easily understood road system, but it is a delightful city with a residual colonial, and dare I say it, British feel about it.
Cromwell
Unfortunately, we spent less than 24 hours in Cromwell, the major town in the Central Otago wine region. I must admit that until I spoke to Len Thwaite, our host when we would stay in the Timaru area, I really did not even know of Central Otagos wine existence. Up until then my sum knowledge of Otago was that it had a rugby team and had produced many All Blacks. I quickly researched Central Otago from a wine perspective and it soon became clear that while very new it was gaining a considerable reputation for its wine, particularly for its Pinot Noir.
Cromwell turned out to be a very pleasant town. Nestling in one of those typically wide glacier carved valleys on the side of a lake, Lake Dunstan, it was once a mining town aand up until the advent of wine was known as a mjor fruit producer.
The Central Otago has promoted itself as one of only three places in the world that can, for terroir and climatic reasons, grow the Pinot Noir grape, a notoriously hard grape to grow and get great wine from. The other two place incidentally are Orego in the USA and of course Burgundy, France, the home of great Pinot Noir wines. In the few hours we were in Cromwell we were able to taste several of the local wines and can say that subject to may more hours of future tasting their claim may well be true, well at least the part that says they can produce good Pinot Noir wine.
We did not arrive in Cromwell so we just booked in to our hotel The Golden Gate Lodge, and set about looking for somewhere to eat. To cut a long story short we ended up by eating in the Lodge. (see The Golden Gate Lodge Post)
The next morning after an excellent breakfast we booked out and we went first to Old Cromwell, which has been left or restored to how it was in the old mining days. We spent a very pleasant three quarters of an hour in the town and on the lakeside upon which it sits before moving on to do some wine tastings at the Wooing Tree and Rockburn.
We finished up at the Big Picture which is a sort of Restaurant/Café and a wine retail outlet with a fil based wine tasting experience. We just want a quick lunch before getting under way to Timaru our next port of call. While waiting for lunch I managed to do a little tasting of a couple of Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay.
I would really have liked to have spent more time in the Cromwell area as I think the wines merit much more time.
Cromwell turned out to be a very pleasant town. Nestling in one of those typically wide glacier carved valleys on the side of a lake, Lake Dunstan, it was once a mining town aand up until the advent of wine was known as a mjor fruit producer.
The Central Otago has promoted itself as one of only three places in the world that can, for terroir and climatic reasons, grow the Pinot Noir grape, a notoriously hard grape to grow and get great wine from. The other two place incidentally are Orego in the USA and of course Burgundy, France, the home of great Pinot Noir wines. In the few hours we were in Cromwell we were able to taste several of the local wines and can say that subject to may more hours of future tasting their claim may well be true, well at least the part that says they can produce good Pinot Noir wine.
We did not arrive in Cromwell so we just booked in to our hotel The Golden Gate Lodge, and set about looking for somewhere to eat. To cut a long story short we ended up by eating in the Lodge. (see The Golden Gate Lodge Post)
The next morning after an excellent breakfast we booked out and we went first to Old Cromwell, which has been left or restored to how it was in the old mining days. We spent a very pleasant three quarters of an hour in the town and on the lakeside upon which it sits before moving on to do some wine tastings at the Wooing Tree and Rockburn.
We finished up at the Big Picture which is a sort of Restaurant/Café and a wine retail outlet with a fil based wine tasting experience. We just want a quick lunch before getting under way to Timaru our next port of call. While waiting for lunch I managed to do a little tasting of a couple of Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay.
I would really have liked to have spent more time in the Cromwell area as I think the wines merit much more time.
The Golden Gate Lodge - Cromwell
This turned out to really be a Motel. Our room was very good, large and with all the facilities it was really great value for money. As I mentioned in my Cromwell Post we found ourselves having dinner at the Lodge in the evening. Cromwell does not appear to be over endowed with good restaurants at night. Independent of that it turned out to be a good choice with well prepared food, good service and aat least one good wine. The wine list looked pretty reasonable and my guess is that it would prove to be a good value wine list. We drank a 2007 Pinot noir from the Wooing Tree which was good with none of the darkest colours, almost Barossa shiraz like, for a Pinoit Noir that I gad ever tasted.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Riding with Skip
We were picked up by a taxi arranged by Real Journeys, our hosts for our overnight trip to Millford Sound, from Browns Boutique Hotel, and taken down to their main office in Queenstown. The taxi had already picked up a couple who came from Greenwich Village, New Youk. We squashed in and were soon down in Queenstown. Not soon after our coach arrived and we were invited to leave our bags at the rear of the coach and find seats on the coach. We were soon off by way of a couple of further stops to pickup others who were joining the trip.
As we left Queenstown along the side of Lake Wakatipu the driver introduced himself as Skip, went over the safety rules of travelling on the bus and told us what he would be doing to make our journey of 8 hours pass in the best way for us. I can not recall what he said but it soon became clear that we had not so much a driver as a very well informed teacher/commentator with a very drole sense of humour.
Skip was, I would say, in his 30s and an Australian from the north beaches of New South Wales who had arrived over in New Zealand to play footie which somehow now seems that I misheard. It doesn’t really matter though because the outcome of whatever he was doing was that he broke his leg, had time to get to know New Zealand and I think began to find the adrenalin loaded life of the South Island to his liking. From talking with him and listening to his commentaries it seemed that he had tried all the things New Zealand had to offer and was continuing to do so on a regular basis. I think he structured his life around these activities so for instance could be found in the winter season driving tourists up to the ski fields so that he could get in some snow boarding in between trips.
Over the years he had clearly come to like New Zealand and had become a fairly hard line conservationist. He was passionately against any form of development in Fiordland and was delighted that now it was a world heritage site this meant that the area was fully protected. In many places on the journey we could see miles of fields with a beautiful carpet of lupins which to Skip were a “noxious weed” since they were an imported arrival from abroad.
Skip would give us a commentary on everything that was interesting that we “did travel’ through. I digress here to explain “did travel”. Skip had a most delightful way of phrasing something in the past, he would use the verb “to do” to express the past tense. For example he would say, “ he did change his opinion” or “they did arrive in town”. This manner of speaking seemed to give a certain preciseness and colour to all he said, and in doing so made his commentary more colourful and interesting.
Skip's fund of knowledge was immense and covered , history, politics, conservation, flora, fauna, geology, etc etc. His explanations for what we were seeing and indeed sometimes what we were not seeing were detailed but never ever boring. He could make the 20 or so, was it, ice ages seem exciting and important to what we were looking at. He could show us that mans interference in nature has, certainly in New Zealand’s case, not always been to New Zealand's advantage. Hence his view that lupins are a noxious weed, that the 8o million or so possums are blight and should be culled asap and that movements such as those who speak out against the use of all fur for clothing are wrong.
We would stop frequently so that we could see and inspect something of interest or just so we could get good photographs, when incidentally Skip turned into a photographer. We stopped to see a steam train, mirror pools, kias, pristine pastures, chasms, interesting wooden bridges and of course for bio breaks and for lunch. The views and countryside along the way were fantastic. We learnt the history of the making of the Millford Road and the Homer Tunnel.
The eight hour journey past in a flash and before we knew we were in Millford Sound boarding our boats. Skip had “magiced” away the time in the most interesting of ways.
The key now was could this trick be performed on the way back, after all Skip had given us exhaustive explanations on the way down. Somehow, Skip managed it. We did one or two photo stops and we got some further explanations but Skip announced that he would not be doing so much commentating on the way back as he knew we wanted to sleep. We duly obliged went to sleep and woke up back in Queenstown, well it seemed like that.
When you get down to it the overnight Millford Sound trip takes 32 hours, of which 16 hours is spent on the coach but all daylight hours, and 16 hours is spent on the boat 8 hours of which is spent asleep. It follows that the success of the trip is not just about the beauty of Millford Sound but is at least equally about the coach journey. This journey could so easily ruin the whole experience but Skip not only avoids this but actually enhances the trip to the point that I personally will remember the coach trip at least as fondly as Millford Sound and maybe more and all down to the professionalism of Skip.
www.realjourneys.co.nz
As we left Queenstown along the side of Lake Wakatipu the driver introduced himself as Skip, went over the safety rules of travelling on the bus and told us what he would be doing to make our journey of 8 hours pass in the best way for us. I can not recall what he said but it soon became clear that we had not so much a driver as a very well informed teacher/commentator with a very drole sense of humour.
Skip was, I would say, in his 30s and an Australian from the north beaches of New South Wales who had arrived over in New Zealand to play footie which somehow now seems that I misheard. It doesn’t really matter though because the outcome of whatever he was doing was that he broke his leg, had time to get to know New Zealand and I think began to find the adrenalin loaded life of the South Island to his liking. From talking with him and listening to his commentaries it seemed that he had tried all the things New Zealand had to offer and was continuing to do so on a regular basis. I think he structured his life around these activities so for instance could be found in the winter season driving tourists up to the ski fields so that he could get in some snow boarding in between trips.
Over the years he had clearly come to like New Zealand and had become a fairly hard line conservationist. He was passionately against any form of development in Fiordland and was delighted that now it was a world heritage site this meant that the area was fully protected. In many places on the journey we could see miles of fields with a beautiful carpet of lupins which to Skip were a “noxious weed” since they were an imported arrival from abroad.
Skip would give us a commentary on everything that was interesting that we “did travel’ through. I digress here to explain “did travel”. Skip had a most delightful way of phrasing something in the past, he would use the verb “to do” to express the past tense. For example he would say, “ he did change his opinion” or “they did arrive in town”. This manner of speaking seemed to give a certain preciseness and colour to all he said, and in doing so made his commentary more colourful and interesting.
Skip's fund of knowledge was immense and covered , history, politics, conservation, flora, fauna, geology, etc etc. His explanations for what we were seeing and indeed sometimes what we were not seeing were detailed but never ever boring. He could make the 20 or so, was it, ice ages seem exciting and important to what we were looking at. He could show us that mans interference in nature has, certainly in New Zealand’s case, not always been to New Zealand's advantage. Hence his view that lupins are a noxious weed, that the 8o million or so possums are blight and should be culled asap and that movements such as those who speak out against the use of all fur for clothing are wrong.
We would stop frequently so that we could see and inspect something of interest or just so we could get good photographs, when incidentally Skip turned into a photographer. We stopped to see a steam train, mirror pools, kias, pristine pastures, chasms, interesting wooden bridges and of course for bio breaks and for lunch. The views and countryside along the way were fantastic. We learnt the history of the making of the Millford Road and the Homer Tunnel.
The eight hour journey past in a flash and before we knew we were in Millford Sound boarding our boats. Skip had “magiced” away the time in the most interesting of ways.
The key now was could this trick be performed on the way back, after all Skip had given us exhaustive explanations on the way down. Somehow, Skip managed it. We did one or two photo stops and we got some further explanations but Skip announced that he would not be doing so much commentating on the way back as he knew we wanted to sleep. We duly obliged went to sleep and woke up back in Queenstown, well it seemed like that.
When you get down to it the overnight Millford Sound trip takes 32 hours, of which 16 hours is spent on the coach but all daylight hours, and 16 hours is spent on the boat 8 hours of which is spent asleep. It follows that the success of the trip is not just about the beauty of Millford Sound but is at least equally about the coach journey. This journey could so easily ruin the whole experience but Skip not only avoids this but actually enhances the trip to the point that I personally will remember the coach trip at least as fondly as Millford Sound and maybe more and all down to the professionalism of Skip.
www.realjourneys.co.nz
Michael Linton, An English Eccentric
On a side street, just off the main road in Geraldine is a shop rejoicing in the name “ The Giant Jersey “. On entering the shop on the wall to the left there it is, the worlds largest jersey and as you would expect surrounded by shelves full of jerseys. However, as you look around and then through an open door to the rear you can see a continuous picture on the wall that looks like the Bayeux Tapestry. On seeing me looking, the lady behind the counter, who turned out to be Michael’s wife, said if you hurry you can catch Michael explaining it. I quickly enter and there is Michael explaining to Marion and Molly how he made what indeed is a copy of the said tapestry plus.
Michael’s explanation is pure magic. It turns out he works with knitting machines and there is a circular part of a knitting machine which has many 2x2mm approx metal “bits” . These bits are a sort of silver/grey/black colour and I think are removed to control patterns. Michael retrieves these useless bits and painstakingly places them on sticky backed rolls of paper. This however is only the beginning because now, using the resulting “cloth” as a canvas, he paints, with an incredibly fine brush so as not to get the paint leaking down between the metallic bits, the Bayeux Tapestry in faithful detail.
Twenty five years later he finishes the task but then realizes that the original Tapestry was incomplete and so takes an educated guess at what the complete Tapestry might have contained and adds that. The result is fantastic, but this is not the end of the saga.
Firstly, Michael has discovered that the original Tapestry did not include several events in the time line that one can view. Michael of course has researched all the missing events and is now going to find a way to include them.
Listening to all this is quite exhausting and mind blowing but curiously is only a part of the total picture. Michael is into number and alphabetic puzzles so he has combined this with the computerised picture of the tapestry. Throughout the tapestry he has placed a certain pattern of metallic bits which using this computer picture of the tapestry you are invited to find these petterns. On clicking on these “keyholes” an alphanumeric puzzle will be revealed and through solving it you are invited to find a secret word which will have something to do with a film, another hobby of Michaels. There are many of these puzzles spread throughout the Tapestry and you are invited to solve them all and then contact Michael and then he will put your name in lights on his web site.
Now, if this isn’t enough he has invented some other puzzle games and these along with some old favourites like Scrabble and Soduko are all to be found on his CD which contains the copy of the Tapestry.
Since I am an absolute sucker for numeric puzzle games I have of course got my CD and no doubt I will eventually load it on my PC. I daren’t do it now as I can tell you if I did this would positively be the last Post for this Blog.
Finally, Michael has named all the figures and events in the picture and by clicking on the character or the event on the computer copy you have an explanation of the person or the event.
My mind is still boggling at the sheer dedication that Michael has put into all he does and oh by the way his family, wife, son, and daughter are all involved in one way or another.
It was a wonderful hour or so going over all this with Michael and I hope one day to return and see the updated Tapestry. In the meantime I expect I am going to “mis-spend “many hours solving his puzzles.
www.1066.co.nz
www.giantjersey.com
Michael’s explanation is pure magic. It turns out he works with knitting machines and there is a circular part of a knitting machine which has many 2x2mm approx metal “bits” . These bits are a sort of silver/grey/black colour and I think are removed to control patterns. Michael retrieves these useless bits and painstakingly places them on sticky backed rolls of paper. This however is only the beginning because now, using the resulting “cloth” as a canvas, he paints, with an incredibly fine brush so as not to get the paint leaking down between the metallic bits, the Bayeux Tapestry in faithful detail.
Twenty five years later he finishes the task but then realizes that the original Tapestry was incomplete and so takes an educated guess at what the complete Tapestry might have contained and adds that. The result is fantastic, but this is not the end of the saga.
Firstly, Michael has discovered that the original Tapestry did not include several events in the time line that one can view. Michael of course has researched all the missing events and is now going to find a way to include them.
Listening to all this is quite exhausting and mind blowing but curiously is only a part of the total picture. Michael is into number and alphabetic puzzles so he has combined this with the computerised picture of the tapestry. Throughout the tapestry he has placed a certain pattern of metallic bits which using this computer picture of the tapestry you are invited to find these petterns. On clicking on these “keyholes” an alphanumeric puzzle will be revealed and through solving it you are invited to find a secret word which will have something to do with a film, another hobby of Michaels. There are many of these puzzles spread throughout the Tapestry and you are invited to solve them all and then contact Michael and then he will put your name in lights on his web site.
Now, if this isn’t enough he has invented some other puzzle games and these along with some old favourites like Scrabble and Soduko are all to be found on his CD which contains the copy of the Tapestry.
Since I am an absolute sucker for numeric puzzle games I have of course got my CD and no doubt I will eventually load it on my PC. I daren’t do it now as I can tell you if I did this would positively be the last Post for this Blog.
Finally, Michael has named all the figures and events in the picture and by clicking on the character or the event on the computer copy you have an explanation of the person or the event.
My mind is still boggling at the sheer dedication that Michael has put into all he does and oh by the way his family, wife, son, and daughter are all involved in one way or another.
It was a wonderful hour or so going over all this with Michael and I hope one day to return and see the updated Tapestry. In the meantime I expect I am going to “mis-spend “many hours solving his puzzles.
www.1066.co.nz
www.giantjersey.com
Friday, December 12, 2008
Queenstown - Adrenalin Capital of the World
We were only in Queenstown for a short overnight stay. Actually Queenstown is a little like the Olympic cities, lots or even most of the events take place outside the city itself. So no people jumping of bridges or tall buildings with elastic tied to their legs, instead lots of shops offering you the thrill of a lifetime. Queenstown is on the banks of New Zealand’s third largest lake, and we did see a couple of high speed jet boats that operate on or from the lake and one lonely boat towing two people paragliding.
The town is a pleasant enough lakeside town with a lot of construction going on, so no recession here then, or maybe the news just takes a long time to reach the lower end of New Zealand. This thought is enhanced by the sheer volume of estate agent shops in town with some pretty pricey property on show further backed up by the number of restaurants available. Then there are a few art shops with some very pricey pictures for sale. Finally there are a large number of shops catering to the adrenalin junkie either offering activities or clothes and equipment to do activities.
We wandered around looking at which restaurant we might choose for our evening meal and generally getting the lay of the land. I of course couldn’t resist the art shops, well that was until I saw the prices. Wow! We watched the paragliders and one of the jet boats come in and generally covered the ground. It was interesting and we found ourselves having to decide whether we went back to the hotel or just got a very early dinner as opposed to coming back down. We elected for the easy option, the early meal and went off to the fish restaurant, The Fishbone. We had a very pleasant meal of fish and chips washed down by a Riesling, not exectly like a traditional English fish and chips but then I think this was the first time I had a Riesling with fish and chips, actually not a bad combination.
Back at the hotel I managed to get my e-mail only to discover that the fax sent from Jo’burg relating to the fraud had never reached the bank so no reimbursement of my money. It was a good job we had eaten early as it took more than an hour just to sort that out. I am hopeful now that I will be reimbursed as I received confirmation from my bank the next morning that they were going to pay.
The next morning we were up reasonably early to await collection to commence our next activity, the journey to Milford Sound.
There is a postscript to this post. The next day having completed our safari to Milford Sound and having collected our Hire Car we were on our way to the Otago wine area when about 10 miles out of Queenstown we crossed a bridge over a very high gorge and seconds later spotted the bridge where bungy jumping had started and was actually going on right then. We had to stop and watch for a few minutes, well give my height thing I just found a spot where I could see them leap but not see where they leapt. Marion ventured down to the look out platform and was away so long that I half thought I would be seeing her step out with elastic tied to her legs. In the event she decided against it, perhaps she had never really considered it anyhow!
The town is a pleasant enough lakeside town with a lot of construction going on, so no recession here then, or maybe the news just takes a long time to reach the lower end of New Zealand. This thought is enhanced by the sheer volume of estate agent shops in town with some pretty pricey property on show further backed up by the number of restaurants available. Then there are a few art shops with some very pricey pictures for sale. Finally there are a large number of shops catering to the adrenalin junkie either offering activities or clothes and equipment to do activities.
We wandered around looking at which restaurant we might choose for our evening meal and generally getting the lay of the land. I of course couldn’t resist the art shops, well that was until I saw the prices. Wow! We watched the paragliders and one of the jet boats come in and generally covered the ground. It was interesting and we found ourselves having to decide whether we went back to the hotel or just got a very early dinner as opposed to coming back down. We elected for the easy option, the early meal and went off to the fish restaurant, The Fishbone. We had a very pleasant meal of fish and chips washed down by a Riesling, not exectly like a traditional English fish and chips but then I think this was the first time I had a Riesling with fish and chips, actually not a bad combination.
Back at the hotel I managed to get my e-mail only to discover that the fax sent from Jo’burg relating to the fraud had never reached the bank so no reimbursement of my money. It was a good job we had eaten early as it took more than an hour just to sort that out. I am hopeful now that I will be reimbursed as I received confirmation from my bank the next morning that they were going to pay.
The next morning we were up reasonably early to await collection to commence our next activity, the journey to Milford Sound.
There is a postscript to this post. The next day having completed our safari to Milford Sound and having collected our Hire Car we were on our way to the Otago wine area when about 10 miles out of Queenstown we crossed a bridge over a very high gorge and seconds later spotted the bridge where bungy jumping had started and was actually going on right then. We had to stop and watch for a few minutes, well give my height thing I just found a spot where I could see them leap but not see where they leapt. Marion ventured down to the look out platform and was away so long that I half thought I would be seeing her step out with elastic tied to her legs. In the event she decided against it, perhaps she had never really considered it anyhow!
Browns Boutique Hotel - Queenstown
A small very nicely planned and put together little B&B in english terms. The proprietors were always on hand and very helpful on where everything in the town was situated. It was located only a downhill 5 minute walk from Queenstown. They have free wi-fi and also for those not carrying their own laptop they have free internet access on one of their machines, a Mac no less, available to all. They also had a book of menus for local restaurants which we are beginning to think is an absolute must for all hotels or B&Bs. Our only regret was that our stay was so short.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk
Tuesday was the day we would come down from Robert and Eveline’s Blue Mountain Idyll and Marion would challenge herself by going up on the Bridge Walk. No, I was not joining the height thing being the problem. Instead I had my own challenge, just getting out of the Megalong Valley! It is a 20km ride from Glyn Newydd the last kilometre of which is switch backs which the local council having run out of money have not provided any protective barriers. Scary stuff!
Back to the real point of this Posting, Marion’s Bridge Walk. Robert had originally suggested we might like to do the Walk and that he would come with us. Marion took him up on the offer so Robert booked the places including two extra for his daughter Lottie and her friend Molly.
We drove down in convoy from the Blue Mountains and went straight to the Harbourview Hotel where Marion and I were staying and Robert and the girls shot off to go and look at the Circular Quay area. Marion I had lunch and Marion then had a little snooze, didn’t she have any nerves, before leaving for the walk.
I can not tell you anything about the walk other than when Marion returned she was very excited about the whole event. While it is physically not a doddle, there are well over 1000 steps to climb and the to descend, the views are spectacular, they had been particularly lucky to be up on top while a very large cruise liner had passed under the bridge. The whole event takes a little over 3 hours. A lot of this time is spent in preparation and ensuring that everybody is tuned into all aspects of safety, you are in special one piece suits, long hair must be tied up, no one can carry anything with them and everybody is attached to the bridge at all times. The Walk was an unqualified success.
While on the Walk the leader takes photographs of the participants and so Marion has some photographs and a certificate. I will try find a way to get them into the photo albums in due course.
www.bridgeclimb.com/default.htm
Back to the real point of this Posting, Marion’s Bridge Walk. Robert had originally suggested we might like to do the Walk and that he would come with us. Marion took him up on the offer so Robert booked the places including two extra for his daughter Lottie and her friend Molly.
We drove down in convoy from the Blue Mountains and went straight to the Harbourview Hotel where Marion and I were staying and Robert and the girls shot off to go and look at the Circular Quay area. Marion I had lunch and Marion then had a little snooze, didn’t she have any nerves, before leaving for the walk.
I can not tell you anything about the walk other than when Marion returned she was very excited about the whole event. While it is physically not a doddle, there are well over 1000 steps to climb and the to descend, the views are spectacular, they had been particularly lucky to be up on top while a very large cruise liner had passed under the bridge. The whole event takes a little over 3 hours. A lot of this time is spent in preparation and ensuring that everybody is tuned into all aspects of safety, you are in special one piece suits, long hair must be tied up, no one can carry anything with them and everybody is attached to the bridge at all times. The Walk was an unqualified success.
While on the Walk the leader takes photographs of the participants and so Marion has some photographs and a certificate. I will try find a way to get them into the photo albums in due course.
www.bridgeclimb.com/default.htm
Dinner at La Grillade
When I used to travel a lot to Sydney I would frequently go to La Grillade particularly if we were celebrating something. The long-time reader will recall that one of the original objectives of the tour was to meet with friends and colleagues who had had an impact on our lives. With the dinner at La Grillade we were starting to accomplish this objective.
Robert and Marion were a little late getting back from The Bridge Walk so it was rush, rush, rush to change and get out the door of the hotel. We got to the restaurant just a little late by which time everybody was there and so it was all hellos and greetings plus grabbing a quick drink at the bar. There were twelve of us ; Keith, Kasugi, Jamie, Neal, Joanne, Josette, Ian, Paul, Allison, Robert, Marion and myself. The connection point for this group was that we had either worked for SPSS Inc or were the partner of some who had done so.
In my experience people who have worked together for long periods of time almost always seem to pick up conversations where they had left off years before. This was the case with this group. Of course new subjects were gradually introduced and we were all able to catch up with the latest events in peoples lives.
Eventually we moved to our table and ordered our meals. I have not the slightest idea what everybody ordered. Suffice it to say that what I had was very good and we can chalk up yet another splendid dinner on our tour. Others seemed to enjoy what they had ordered and we washed it down with Leuuwin Estate Art 2008 Sauvignan Blanc and a 2004 Charles Cimicky Reserve Shiraz, both went down very well.
The evening broke up quite late, much later than we had planned as we had an early start the next morning as we were on our way to New Zealand.
www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister
www.lagrillade.com.au/
Robert and Marion were a little late getting back from The Bridge Walk so it was rush, rush, rush to change and get out the door of the hotel. We got to the restaurant just a little late by which time everybody was there and so it was all hellos and greetings plus grabbing a quick drink at the bar. There were twelve of us ; Keith, Kasugi, Jamie, Neal, Joanne, Josette, Ian, Paul, Allison, Robert, Marion and myself. The connection point for this group was that we had either worked for SPSS Inc or were the partner of some who had done so.
In my experience people who have worked together for long periods of time almost always seem to pick up conversations where they had left off years before. This was the case with this group. Of course new subjects were gradually introduced and we were all able to catch up with the latest events in peoples lives.
Eventually we moved to our table and ordered our meals. I have not the slightest idea what everybody ordered. Suffice it to say that what I had was very good and we can chalk up yet another splendid dinner on our tour. Others seemed to enjoy what they had ordered and we washed it down with Leuuwin Estate Art 2008 Sauvignan Blanc and a 2004 Charles Cimicky Reserve Shiraz, both went down very well.
The evening broke up quite late, much later than we had planned as we had an early start the next morning as we were on our way to New Zealand.
www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister
www.lagrillade.com.au/
Monday, December 8, 2008
More on the Blog and Photos
I must apologise for the somewhat chaotic order in which both the Blog Posts and the Photos on Picasaweb are published. Marion and I write and manage the photos when we can, and we tend to work on the latest thing and work backwards from there. It seems that in both the Blog program and in Picasa I am not able to order Blogs or Albums, they are listed as the are entered. In the case of the photos there is a date in the Album name so you can get a fair sense of order of the photos. It is pretty near impossible to caption all the photos, there is just not enough time, but the breakdown into albums is at a reasonable level of granularity. For some reason I didn't date the Blogs. When I have time i will edit the titles and put dates on the and if I am lucky I will see if I can prepare a summary sheet. If there is any one who wants a schedule please ask and Iwill forward one. If you want to make comments you can but you have to sign on as a follower.
Wine - Where I am coming from
For my own reasons as much as anything else I will be making some comments about what I have seen and what I have tasted in the "New World". In order that you, the reader, has some point of reference to understand my comments I will try to paint a picture of where I am coming from.
We drink about 120 -150 bottles per year of wine at home. I aim to spend no more than Pnd 15 per bottle and I rarely spend less than Pnd 6 per bottle. Occasionally I will pay more but I can not remember ever having spent more than Pnd 40.
Both Marion and I like wine and are interested in drinking good wine. There are in my mind two ways in which I can improve the quality of the wine we drink, viz A) Drink older and more mature wines. To this end I can store up to perhaps 2000 bottles in good conditions, and B) Find wines that are good value for money. This means finding unknowns or largely unknowns or mis-appreciated in terms of wine makers and wine areas and that means being prepared to spend a little time and effort on our part. Its hard work but somebody has to do it!
My view of wines is coloured completely by the above. I may at some time be interested in investment wines but for the time being it is my intent to drink every bottle. Yes i know that this impossible if the above is executed but I think you can follow my thinking.
I am not interested in new wines like sweet reds or sparkling reds or indeed strange new blends, though I will always try them in case someone make a break through that is likely to last as opposed to just be another fashion.
So when reading any comments that I might make on future blogs please remember the above. What I am looking for in wine is one thing what you the reader may want is completely different and for certain what I want to do flies in the face of current commercial practices.
We drink about 120 -150 bottles per year of wine at home. I aim to spend no more than Pnd 15 per bottle and I rarely spend less than Pnd 6 per bottle. Occasionally I will pay more but I can not remember ever having spent more than Pnd 40.
Both Marion and I like wine and are interested in drinking good wine. There are in my mind two ways in which I can improve the quality of the wine we drink, viz A) Drink older and more mature wines. To this end I can store up to perhaps 2000 bottles in good conditions, and B) Find wines that are good value for money. This means finding unknowns or largely unknowns or mis-appreciated in terms of wine makers and wine areas and that means being prepared to spend a little time and effort on our part. Its hard work but somebody has to do it!
My view of wines is coloured completely by the above. I may at some time be interested in investment wines but for the time being it is my intent to drink every bottle. Yes i know that this impossible if the above is executed but I think you can follow my thinking.
I am not interested in new wines like sweet reds or sparkling reds or indeed strange new blends, though I will always try them in case someone make a break through that is likely to last as opposed to just be another fashion.
So when reading any comments that I might make on future blogs please remember the above. What I am looking for in wine is one thing what you the reader may want is completely different and for certain what I want to do flies in the face of current commercial practices.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Lunch Al Fresco and Wine Tasting at Dryridge Estate
Robert arranged for us to do a little wine tasting at Dryridge Estate. Bob and Barbara Tyrrell are Robert and Eveline's close neighbours, that is they lived on a property about 5km by road from Glynn Newydd, and they are the proprietors of the Dryridge Estate Vineyard which is right on the locally well known 46km Six Foot Track which runs from Katumba to the Genolan Caves.
Robert, Marion and I went on ahead and when we arrived at the Six Foot Track we parked up and walked the last 2.5km to the vineyard. Even for that short distance you know you have been walking as the track follows the land up hill down dale. The benefit is that you are just in the most beautiful countryside with incredible vistas.
When we got to the homestead we discovered that Bob and Barbara were out amongst the vines pruning and pulling off the new but useless shoots. They soon arrived back, Eveline and her parents arrived with our picnic at the same time and we ensconced ourselves at the tables to the side of the homestead overlooking the vines and looking out towards Katumba on the top of the escapement, a similar but different panorama to that from Glyn Newydd.
Bob produced two bottles of his remaining wines, a 2008 Rose and a 2008 Riesling and described them and left, leaving us to taste them and then drink them as accompaniment to the excellent picnic that Eveline had prepared. The wines were just right with our picnic and we had to go and get some more.
Bob and Barbara have had many vicissitudes in getting their vineyard going but it really seems as if things are now moving forward very well. They have a very good take up of their production and they are now beginning to win medals at competitions. The Megalong Valley is not known for wine or olives but Bob, another neighbour who has planted vines and Robert and Eveline are trying to change that. They will not be able to do any large scale production for some time so quality product has got to be their strategy.
Just towards the end of our picnics the wind changed and short time later we felt the large rain drops of a brief but heavy shower. We quickly packed up the picnic and took refuge with Barbara in the homestead until the worst had past and then made our way back to Glyn Newydd.
www.dryridge.com.au
Robert, Marion and I went on ahead and when we arrived at the Six Foot Track we parked up and walked the last 2.5km to the vineyard. Even for that short distance you know you have been walking as the track follows the land up hill down dale. The benefit is that you are just in the most beautiful countryside with incredible vistas.
When we got to the homestead we discovered that Bob and Barbara were out amongst the vines pruning and pulling off the new but useless shoots. They soon arrived back, Eveline and her parents arrived with our picnic at the same time and we ensconced ourselves at the tables to the side of the homestead overlooking the vines and looking out towards Katumba on the top of the escapement, a similar but different panorama to that from Glyn Newydd.
Bob produced two bottles of his remaining wines, a 2008 Rose and a 2008 Riesling and described them and left, leaving us to taste them and then drink them as accompaniment to the excellent picnic that Eveline had prepared. The wines were just right with our picnic and we had to go and get some more.
Bob and Barbara have had many vicissitudes in getting their vineyard going but it really seems as if things are now moving forward very well. They have a very good take up of their production and they are now beginning to win medals at competitions. The Megalong Valley is not known for wine or olives but Bob, another neighbour who has planted vines and Robert and Eveline are trying to change that. They will not be able to do any large scale production for some time so quality product has got to be their strategy.
Just towards the end of our picnics the wind changed and short time later we felt the large rain drops of a brief but heavy shower. We quickly packed up the picnic and took refuge with Barbara in the homestead until the worst had past and then made our way back to Glyn Newydd.
www.dryridge.com.au
Granges!
I should have become suspicious when Robert said he thought it an apropriate time to open the wine that Jamie had told him was quite good, a Penfolds wine. I recalled that Penfolds have several good wines so it could be any one of those, but no one would have said they were thinking of opening a good Penfolds when in fact they were going to open a bottle of that Aussie icon of a wine, Grange. No one, that is, unless you were unaware of Grange. Jamie was the clue here, a former colleague of both Robert and I, who really liked his wine.
I was there as Robert opened the box and took out the dusty bottle. It really is quite hard to mistake the rather plain label of a Grange but I held my breathe until I actually read the label.
Wow!, we were not going to just taste the Grange but to drink it with our Sunday dinner. Fabulous.
Robert opened the wine fairly quickly and put it on the side to breathe. Eventually dinner was served and the wine was poured at pretty much the optimal temperature. The wine wasa deep Shiraz red in colour, and smelt of fruit and something a little sharper, probably pepper. The taste was very fruity with a good hint of pepper, was very balanced and very full. You just knew you were drinking a really good Australian style Shiraz, It was a 1997 and unfortunately it was the only one.
I was there as Robert opened the box and took out the dusty bottle. It really is quite hard to mistake the rather plain label of a Grange but I held my breathe until I actually read the label.
Wow!, we were not going to just taste the Grange but to drink it with our Sunday dinner. Fabulous.
Robert opened the wine fairly quickly and put it on the side to breathe. Eventually dinner was served and the wine was poured at pretty much the optimal temperature. The wine wasa deep Shiraz red in colour, and smelt of fruit and something a little sharper, probably pepper. The taste was very fruity with a good hint of pepper, was very balanced and very full. You just knew you were drinking a really good Australian style Shiraz, It was a 1997 and unfortunately it was the only one.
Idyll in the Blue Mountains
I am blogging, while looking out at Marion talking with Eveline Schuyff's parents on the veranda of Robert and Eveline”s Blue Mountain Homestead. The ground in front of the veranda falls away quite quickly through some horse paddocks, where I can just see the backs of a couple of horses, occasionally their heads as they take a break from grazing, to the tops of a forest of trees into the much bigger Megalong Valley beyond. In the distance I can see the townships of Blackheath and Katumba atop a very long escarpment, frequently sheer of sheer rock These two townships are approximately 15km distant as the crow flies and about 1000 ft higher. The escarpment flattens out to my left and there is a mixture of green paddocks and fields and darker green woods where as under the escarpment it appears to be all woods. The only way into the valley is via Blackheath and as one looks at Blackheath it is difficult to imagine how the road can possibly lead up such a steep mountain side, but it surely does testing as it goes my phobia of vertiginous roads.
In the foreground just to the left of the horse paddock is a horse manege where Eveline and her daughter Lottie school the horses when it is not too hot. Behind the homestead is a grove of olives which Robert has planted and which is now productive and managed by Eveline. They produce top quality early picked Olive oil which they sell either directly at the homestead door or via a few retail outlets. To the side of the homestead there is a small cottage which is let out.
Getting here from the Hunter Valley was a four and half hour drive through some very beautiful country side. We seemed to cross two mountain ranges before climbing into the Blue Mountains themselves. Passing through some vines lots of woods and latterly some quite extensive fruit farms.
Robert runs his worldwide business from the homestead. Just a few short years ago this would not have been possible but the advent of broadband has changed all that and distance working is a real fact.
We are staying with Robert and Eveline for a couple of days before returning to Sydney and then on to New Zealand.
www.glyn-newydd.com
In the foreground just to the left of the horse paddock is a horse manege where Eveline and her daughter Lottie school the horses when it is not too hot. Behind the homestead is a grove of olives which Robert has planted and which is now productive and managed by Eveline. They produce top quality early picked Olive oil which they sell either directly at the homestead door or via a few retail outlets. To the side of the homestead there is a small cottage which is let out.
Getting here from the Hunter Valley was a four and half hour drive through some very beautiful country side. We seemed to cross two mountain ranges before climbing into the Blue Mountains themselves. Passing through some vines lots of woods and latterly some quite extensive fruit farms.
Robert runs his worldwide business from the homestead. Just a few short years ago this would not have been possible but the advent of broadband has changed all that and distance working is a real fact.
We are staying with Robert and Eveline for a couple of days before returning to Sydney and then on to New Zealand.
www.glyn-newydd.com
Restaurants of the Hunter
A pretty grandiose title when all we went to were two but they maintained the high standard of restaurants we have become used to on this trip. On the Friday night we went to the Cracked Pepper and on Saturday night we ventured to the Leaves and Fishes. I think the former was fairly near Pokolbin which you could argue is in the heart of the lower Hunter and the latter was between Cessnock and Brandock more on the northern edge of the Lower Hunter.
Neither restaurant was a grand or elegant set up though the Leaves and Fishes was in a very pleasant setting. At both the food was very good, well prepared and well presented. Service was good at both and personality wise was excellent at the second. The Leaves and Fishes was run by Sharon and two of her three children, Jacob and Madeleine. They were very good at handling the punters, lightly irreverent but all the time able to discuss knowledgeably the food and how it is sourced and prepared. Oh yes and they were not afraid to make recommendations.
The menu at the Cracked Pepper was pretty general and I had a stand out starter based on quail. The main, as it is called down here, was pork belly which was also very good and only suffered by being too large. On the other hand the Leaves and Fishes is overtly a fish restaurant given away by its name and the great big man made fish pond in front of the restaurant. The stand out there was the seafood bucket along with the oysters.
There is a great tradition of BYO (Bring Your Own) in Australian restaurants. Indeed in many restaurants unless this custom existed you would not get wine with your meal as many restaurants do not have Liqueur Licence . We availed ourselves of this custom in both restaurants and made good in actually drinking, as opposed to tasting, Di and Peters’ Waverley Estate wines. On the Friday we drank the 93 Hermitage followed by the 91 Cabernet Sauvignon,, both went very well with what I was eating with perhaps the Hermitage being just a touch overpowering for the quail. On Saturday we started with a 2000 Semillon followed by the 200 Chardonnay. Both were really good and gone in the bat of an eye. We followed these with I think a 98 Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon. Again, they were really good wines. Indeed you could argue too good after already consuming two very good whites between the four of us.
It would be fair to say the Saturday evening was the more memorable because of the Saturday night crowd and the very charismatic service of the Leaves and Fishes. I am splitting hairs a bit because I am certainly up for either at any time.
www.leavesandfishes.com
www.cracked-pepper.com.au
Neither restaurant was a grand or elegant set up though the Leaves and Fishes was in a very pleasant setting. At both the food was very good, well prepared and well presented. Service was good at both and personality wise was excellent at the second. The Leaves and Fishes was run by Sharon and two of her three children, Jacob and Madeleine. They were very good at handling the punters, lightly irreverent but all the time able to discuss knowledgeably the food and how it is sourced and prepared. Oh yes and they were not afraid to make recommendations.
The menu at the Cracked Pepper was pretty general and I had a stand out starter based on quail. The main, as it is called down here, was pork belly which was also very good and only suffered by being too large. On the other hand the Leaves and Fishes is overtly a fish restaurant given away by its name and the great big man made fish pond in front of the restaurant. The stand out there was the seafood bucket along with the oysters.
There is a great tradition of BYO (Bring Your Own) in Australian restaurants. Indeed in many restaurants unless this custom existed you would not get wine with your meal as many restaurants do not have Liqueur Licence . We availed ourselves of this custom in both restaurants and made good in actually drinking, as opposed to tasting, Di and Peters’ Waverley Estate wines. On the Friday we drank the 93 Hermitage followed by the 91 Cabernet Sauvignon,, both went very well with what I was eating with perhaps the Hermitage being just a touch overpowering for the quail. On Saturday we started with a 2000 Semillon followed by the 200 Chardonnay. Both were really good and gone in the bat of an eye. We followed these with I think a 98 Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon. Again, they were really good wines. Indeed you could argue too good after already consuming two very good whites between the four of us.
It would be fair to say the Saturday evening was the more memorable because of the Saturday night crowd and the very charismatic service of the Leaves and Fishes. I am splitting hairs a bit because I am certainly up for either at any time.
www.leavesandfishes.com
www.cracked-pepper.com.au
The O'Keeffe's of Melbourne
While in Melbourne we stayed with Clare and David O’Keeffe in their delightful house in Hampton, one of the bay side communities just outside central Melbourne. Clare is my cousin, her mother and my father being sister and brother, so we share grandparents. I do not think that Clare and David ever intended to end up in Melbourne, or indeed Australia. They just ended up there as David pursued his career as a ship broker. It has not been a bad journey for them and they certainly enjoy a very nice lifestyle.
We did all of our normal tour activities and they were good enough to join us and show us where everything was. David is into wine so when not driving he joined me at the wine tasting and Marion, who was pretty much wine tasted out, was able to go off with Clare and look round the winery gardens.
We did some tasting in both the Mornington Peninsular and the Yarra Valley. I will recount the tasting in some future posts when I can spend the time in reviewing my scribbled notes suffice it to say that this is the region which has taken on the challenge of growing the pinot noir grape. I am not sure they have succeeded though I did like the wines of the Moorooduc Estate in the Mornington. We also visited several gardens and Melbourne itself all of which I will be writing up in some future posts.
We did not do any evening eating out, though we did have several lunches out at the wineries and one memorable lunch at Miss Marples Restaurant in the Dandenong Mountains, which was excellent and incredibly filling. The size of the ice cream deserts in this restaurant is something to behold and they must do the best bread and butter pudding in the southern hemisphere. Clare preferred to cook all our evening meals and we ate like kings. I think it must be something in the genes because Clare’s catering reminded me of the meals my Grandma Durrell used to provide on Sunday afternoons, wonderfully prepared, very rich and very filling. As a result of eating in we ended up consuming a fair amount of David’s wines which were excellent. I wish I had made notes of what we had consumed but alas I didn’t.
While with Clare and David we were lucky enough to have one day when Lucinda their daughter was there. She left on the Saturday night for China where she was doing a short assignment to a Panda breeding colony as part of her degree course. We heard back from her that she had arrived safely so I am sure she will have a good time.
Our time passed all too quickly with the O’Keeffe’s. We managed to get some of the mundane things done like laundry and we recharged our batteries both literally and figuratively for the next stage of the tour.
We did all of our normal tour activities and they were good enough to join us and show us where everything was. David is into wine so when not driving he joined me at the wine tasting and Marion, who was pretty much wine tasted out, was able to go off with Clare and look round the winery gardens.
We did some tasting in both the Mornington Peninsular and the Yarra Valley. I will recount the tasting in some future posts when I can spend the time in reviewing my scribbled notes suffice it to say that this is the region which has taken on the challenge of growing the pinot noir grape. I am not sure they have succeeded though I did like the wines of the Moorooduc Estate in the Mornington. We also visited several gardens and Melbourne itself all of which I will be writing up in some future posts.
We did not do any evening eating out, though we did have several lunches out at the wineries and one memorable lunch at Miss Marples Restaurant in the Dandenong Mountains, which was excellent and incredibly filling. The size of the ice cream deserts in this restaurant is something to behold and they must do the best bread and butter pudding in the southern hemisphere. Clare preferred to cook all our evening meals and we ate like kings. I think it must be something in the genes because Clare’s catering reminded me of the meals my Grandma Durrell used to provide on Sunday afternoons, wonderfully prepared, very rich and very filling. As a result of eating in we ended up consuming a fair amount of David’s wines which were excellent. I wish I had made notes of what we had consumed but alas I didn’t.
While with Clare and David we were lucky enough to have one day when Lucinda their daughter was there. She left on the Saturday night for China where she was doing a short assignment to a Panda breeding colony as part of her degree course. We heard back from her that she had arrived safely so I am sure she will have a good time.
Our time passed all too quickly with the O’Keeffe’s. We managed to get some of the mundane things done like laundry and we recharged our batteries both literally and figuratively for the next stage of the tour.
A Town with no Cheer
One of the followers forwarded the poem below as he felt the post on The Overlander reminded him of the poem. I had a passing aquaintance with poem but certainly had no recollection of its connection to The Overlander. Go to the address below to read Tom Waits poem.
http://www.lyricsdir.com/tom-waits-town-with-no-cheer-lyrics.html
http://www.lyricsdir.com/tom-waits-town-with-no-cheer-lyrics.html
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Wine Dogs of Australia
There is a popular book which you find at many wineries throughout Australia entitled “Wine Dogs of Australia”. It is a fun book and in its latest revision is over 300 pages. One of the stars of this tome turns out to be Peter and Di’s dog Jack. There he is on page 257 listed as having an obsession for kangaroos and his favourite pastime is identifying spoilt wine, an important job in an estate that specializes in aged wines.
Actually this brings in the inevitable discussion about screw tops versus cork. There is now no doubt that by far the majority of Australian wines will have screw tops soon, even the most prestigious of estates are gradually moving to them. Apart from the problem of obtaining high quality cork as one estate manager put it to me, “With all the competition around I can not afford to chance a buyer of my wine getting bad wine, and besides the majority of wine is drunk within hours of leaving the retail outlet and we know for sure that wine tops do not make any difference over such a short time”.
I guess that when the bottle top has completely taken over then Jack will be out of a job, but for the time being he has more than enough gainful employment as a partner in the Waverley Estate set up. You can see his pictures in his own album on www.picasweb.google.co.uk. .
Actually this brings in the inevitable discussion about screw tops versus cork. There is now no doubt that by far the majority of Australian wines will have screw tops soon, even the most prestigious of estates are gradually moving to them. Apart from the problem of obtaining high quality cork as one estate manager put it to me, “With all the competition around I can not afford to chance a buyer of my wine getting bad wine, and besides the majority of wine is drunk within hours of leaving the retail outlet and we know for sure that wine tops do not make any difference over such a short time”.
I guess that when the bottle top has completely taken over then Jack will be out of a job, but for the time being he has more than enough gainful employment as a partner in the Waverley Estate set up. You can see his pictures in his own album on www.picasweb.google.co.uk. .
Friday, December 5, 2008
Waverley Estate Wine Tasting
Let me first declare an interest. The managers, Di and Peter Daniell, of this Hunter Valley Winery are very old friends. In fact Peter and I go back even further than the 40 years of my marriage as we first met as 18 year olds when we roomed together for our first term at the Sandhurst, the UK Military Academy. Actually, I am going to digress here, and go over the circumstances of how we got back together again.
After we were commissioned in August 1962, we both went our separate ways. Peter was joining the Sappers and I was joining the Royal Signals. It was always theoretically possible that our paths would cross at some time but I chose to leave the Army after 5 years and so even that possibility became very unlikely. I did hear occasionally of Peter via mutual friends but even that was running out as I progressed in civvy street.
Fast forward to 1991 when I had recently joined a new software company and was responsible for their International Operations. I was doing one of my trips to Singapore where we had an office. I had finished there and was about to fly to Sydney when just prior to leaving to catch my flight I fell into conversation with a couple from Australia. As I was talking to them, someone reminded me that I had a plane to catch and must leave. I made my excuses and turned to leave and as I did so I heard the wife say to her husband, “ Doesn’t he sound like Pete Daniell” . Bells rang immediately and I turned back questioned them about “Pete Daniell” and decided he may THE Pete Daniell and got Peter’s telephone number , which happened to be in Sydney. Of course I called when I got into Sydney and ever since then we have been in contact. In fact we actually did some work together and we were instrumental in bringing the our direct associates from Sandhurst together for several reunions over the succeeding year. Funny old world isn’t it?
Let me get back to yesterday which turned out to be a pretty exceptional wine tasting. Of course I am going to be accused of bias but here is why I use the word exceptional. This is the first tasting, and we did the tasting available to everybody, where I was offered vertical tasting and we did four of them and secondly it was the first tasting where I was tasting wines older than 2000, the oldest being a Cabernet Sauvignon 1991. In fact we tasted nine wines out of 14 that were older than 2000. This was great fun as we were able to see the development of the wines.
We tasted four varietals from the Waverley range; Semillon, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, three wines of each from three different years, from youngest to oldest. The wine tasting was led by Sandra who has been in the Hunter Valley wine trade for some time. We also tasted a new label wine, “Birds of the Valley”, which was a Verdelho 2007. This is the brand which will allow Waverley to add a range of wines that can be sold earlier than the Waverley range which is uniquely, or almost uniquely, aged for 6 to 7 years before being offered to the public. We also tasted a port type wine.
The last 2 wines are significant because I think they herald a new strategy for the Estate and one that is more obviously commercial. The new wines were good and I think will sell well and will protect the Estate and allow it to capitalize on its USP (unique selling point), the sale of aged wines.
However, that USP doesn’t matter if the wines are not up to it. In spite of the age we did not taste any wine that was “off”. All were good. I am not a great lover of aged white wine, I rarely taste it, I am talking about non dessert wines, and find that the fresh fruit taste that you get from white wines has gone in the older wines. I thought that the best wine was the 2000 Chardonnay which was fresh and lively and all in all a very good wine. It was the reds that really got my attention. I found all six be very good with the three Cabs being en masse better than the Shiraz, but I would be happy with any of them in my cellar.
www.waverleyestate.com.au
After we were commissioned in August 1962, we both went our separate ways. Peter was joining the Sappers and I was joining the Royal Signals. It was always theoretically possible that our paths would cross at some time but I chose to leave the Army after 5 years and so even that possibility became very unlikely. I did hear occasionally of Peter via mutual friends but even that was running out as I progressed in civvy street.
Fast forward to 1991 when I had recently joined a new software company and was responsible for their International Operations. I was doing one of my trips to Singapore where we had an office. I had finished there and was about to fly to Sydney when just prior to leaving to catch my flight I fell into conversation with a couple from Australia. As I was talking to them, someone reminded me that I had a plane to catch and must leave. I made my excuses and turned to leave and as I did so I heard the wife say to her husband, “ Doesn’t he sound like Pete Daniell” . Bells rang immediately and I turned back questioned them about “Pete Daniell” and decided he may THE Pete Daniell and got Peter’s telephone number , which happened to be in Sydney. Of course I called when I got into Sydney and ever since then we have been in contact. In fact we actually did some work together and we were instrumental in bringing the our direct associates from Sandhurst together for several reunions over the succeeding year. Funny old world isn’t it?
Let me get back to yesterday which turned out to be a pretty exceptional wine tasting. Of course I am going to be accused of bias but here is why I use the word exceptional. This is the first tasting, and we did the tasting available to everybody, where I was offered vertical tasting and we did four of them and secondly it was the first tasting where I was tasting wines older than 2000, the oldest being a Cabernet Sauvignon 1991. In fact we tasted nine wines out of 14 that were older than 2000. This was great fun as we were able to see the development of the wines.
We tasted four varietals from the Waverley range; Semillon, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, three wines of each from three different years, from youngest to oldest. The wine tasting was led by Sandra who has been in the Hunter Valley wine trade for some time. We also tasted a new label wine, “Birds of the Valley”, which was a Verdelho 2007. This is the brand which will allow Waverley to add a range of wines that can be sold earlier than the Waverley range which is uniquely, or almost uniquely, aged for 6 to 7 years before being offered to the public. We also tasted a port type wine.
The last 2 wines are significant because I think they herald a new strategy for the Estate and one that is more obviously commercial. The new wines were good and I think will sell well and will protect the Estate and allow it to capitalize on its USP (unique selling point), the sale of aged wines.
However, that USP doesn’t matter if the wines are not up to it. In spite of the age we did not taste any wine that was “off”. All were good. I am not a great lover of aged white wine, I rarely taste it, I am talking about non dessert wines, and find that the fresh fruit taste that you get from white wines has gone in the older wines. I thought that the best wine was the 2000 Chardonnay which was fresh and lively and all in all a very good wine. It was the reds that really got my attention. I found all six be very good with the three Cabs being en masse better than the Shiraz, but I would be happy with any of them in my cellar.
www.waverleyestate.com.au
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Country Link, Melbourne - Sydney
We got off to an early start and beat the Melbourne rush hour thanks to my cousin Clare. we were looking forward to another train trip, hopefully one similar to The Overlaander. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The Overlander was an event, this was just another railway journey, a twelve hour one at that, and just to keep it completely authentic it started some 40 minutes late. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad trip and we weren't bored, it just wasn't The Overlander.
The first class carriage was more normal and while we had enough room we did not have the spaciousness of our last journey. The service was good, but not personal. The announcements were fine but not informative of general points and certainly not witty, and horror of horrors there were no power points.
The countryside for the first nine alternated between rolling hills to flat plains, from predominantly stock raising to arable farming, from harvesting cereal crops to hay making. One thing is for sure, Australia has some wonderful farming country. There were cattle in belly high grass and sheep almost lost completely in the tall grass. There were horses all over the place, some alpacas and even a camel. There are some great Australian farmers who put their plastic coated round hay bales in neat rows and patterns, just right for a somewhat compulsive obsessive who is only happy when his clothes are hung on identical hangars and they are all facing the same direction.
We were intrigued by the early 20th century architecture of all or mostly all of the stations on route bringing back memories of some Aussie films and art. Oh yes, why have many of the horses got coats on in the height of summer? Must be the flies I guess. There was one incongruous vision of a white horse in the middle of a large golden coloured field with a pink coat on. And then there was always the fields in many shades of gold and yellow and some times a little green, pock marked by gum trees or stands of gum trees, the occasional dry creek and the omni-present man made water holes in the stock fields.
About three hours from Sydney the countryside changes to be more hilly and wooded. It also looked as if it might have more residential houses for perhaps weekenders from Sydney. Certainly, there seemed to be some affluence around.
As the light faded so to did the wooded hills and gradually we started to move through the outer suburbs of Sydney, first residential and then light industrial through to a full urban environment. We were always well informed of the times but they were always accompanied by "due to circumstances beyond our control'. No accountability there then, and then we finally rolled into Sydney central station an hour late to find all the taxis gone, but thats another story.
The first class carriage was more normal and while we had enough room we did not have the spaciousness of our last journey. The service was good, but not personal. The announcements were fine but not informative of general points and certainly not witty, and horror of horrors there were no power points.
The countryside for the first nine alternated between rolling hills to flat plains, from predominantly stock raising to arable farming, from harvesting cereal crops to hay making. One thing is for sure, Australia has some wonderful farming country. There were cattle in belly high grass and sheep almost lost completely in the tall grass. There were horses all over the place, some alpacas and even a camel. There are some great Australian farmers who put their plastic coated round hay bales in neat rows and patterns, just right for a somewhat compulsive obsessive who is only happy when his clothes are hung on identical hangars and they are all facing the same direction.
We were intrigued by the early 20th century architecture of all or mostly all of the stations on route bringing back memories of some Aussie films and art. Oh yes, why have many of the horses got coats on in the height of summer? Must be the flies I guess. There was one incongruous vision of a white horse in the middle of a large golden coloured field with a pink coat on. And then there was always the fields in many shades of gold and yellow and some times a little green, pock marked by gum trees or stands of gum trees, the occasional dry creek and the omni-present man made water holes in the stock fields.
About three hours from Sydney the countryside changes to be more hilly and wooded. It also looked as if it might have more residential houses for perhaps weekenders from Sydney. Certainly, there seemed to be some affluence around.
As the light faded so to did the wooded hills and gradually we started to move through the outer suburbs of Sydney, first residential and then light industrial through to a full urban environment. We were always well informed of the times but they were always accompanied by "due to circumstances beyond our control'. No accountability there then, and then we finally rolled into Sydney central station an hour late to find all the taxis gone, but thats another story.
The Overlander, Adelaide - Melbourne
If you want to travel stress free take "The Overlander" from Adelaide to Melbourne and let "the train take the strain" for the eleven hour journey. It was a tonic.
In putting together the trip I had reasoned that we should at least try to see as much of the countryside of the countries we were visiting as was possible. So where reasonable we would take the train or drive if that was unavoidable. As the faithful reader will already know we started with the Premier Classe trip which had been a qualified success. I think both Marion and I would say The Overlander was pretty much a full success, well with a couple of caveats.
Actually, it did not meet expectations because the countryside was not what I thought it would be. I had reviewed the trip on my my small screened pc and the map seemed to indicate that the rail, road and coastline were pretty much all together for much of the journey. Wrong! The rail line at least runs quite a long way inland and shortly after leaving Adelaide you leave behind the coast completely and the vast majority of the trip is through open countryside, sometimes flat, sometimes rolling and when you get nearer to Melbourne sometimes hilly when you can see the Grampians in the distance. But this did not matter because the joy of the trip was that it is truly relaxing.
It starts by handing in your bags at the relatively new station in Adelaide. There is a welcoming waiting area with shops and restaurant and then you get on the train about a half hour before it leaves. You are shown to your assigned seat by the hostess and the hostess remains with you for the full trip. The first class carriage is truly spacious and you have acres of personal space. The train manager constantly keeps you informed of where you are and points out interesting things en route. We were really lucky in that our manager a great sense of Aussie humour and used it well in his announcements. Meals were well catered and you could take them in your seat or go to the restaurant car. We stayed put in our seats. I later discovered that the restaurant car had power points so extended use of the ubiquitous pc was possible. We caught up on some blogging, some photo organization, some sleep, but mostly we just relaxed.
During one of my blogging sessions I had a long discussion on all things pc, software and general computer with a fellow pc user who turned out to be an IBMer from upstate New York who was implementing an SAP system at Telstra, the Australian telecoms company. We managed this in spite of the frequent interruptions of an inebriated South Australian social worker who finally moved away to bother someone proclaiming "he could not understand what we were talking about". Turns out computereese has it uses!
It was a great trip and glory be the train rolled into Melbourne Southern Cross station right in time and stopped right in front of my cousin and her husband with whom we were staying for the next few days.
In putting together the trip I had reasoned that we should at least try to see as much of the countryside of the countries we were visiting as was possible. So where reasonable we would take the train or drive if that was unavoidable. As the faithful reader will already know we started with the Premier Classe trip which had been a qualified success. I think both Marion and I would say The Overlander was pretty much a full success, well with a couple of caveats.
Actually, it did not meet expectations because the countryside was not what I thought it would be. I had reviewed the trip on my my small screened pc and the map seemed to indicate that the rail, road and coastline were pretty much all together for much of the journey. Wrong! The rail line at least runs quite a long way inland and shortly after leaving Adelaide you leave behind the coast completely and the vast majority of the trip is through open countryside, sometimes flat, sometimes rolling and when you get nearer to Melbourne sometimes hilly when you can see the Grampians in the distance. But this did not matter because the joy of the trip was that it is truly relaxing.
It starts by handing in your bags at the relatively new station in Adelaide. There is a welcoming waiting area with shops and restaurant and then you get on the train about a half hour before it leaves. You are shown to your assigned seat by the hostess and the hostess remains with you for the full trip. The first class carriage is truly spacious and you have acres of personal space. The train manager constantly keeps you informed of where you are and points out interesting things en route. We were really lucky in that our manager a great sense of Aussie humour and used it well in his announcements. Meals were well catered and you could take them in your seat or go to the restaurant car. We stayed put in our seats. I later discovered that the restaurant car had power points so extended use of the ubiquitous pc was possible. We caught up on some blogging, some photo organization, some sleep, but mostly we just relaxed.
During one of my blogging sessions I had a long discussion on all things pc, software and general computer with a fellow pc user who turned out to be an IBMer from upstate New York who was implementing an SAP system at Telstra, the Australian telecoms company. We managed this in spite of the frequent interruptions of an inebriated South Australian social worker who finally moved away to bother someone proclaiming "he could not understand what we were talking about". Turns out computereese has it uses!
It was a great trip and glory be the train rolled into Melbourne Southern Cross station right in time and stopped right in front of my cousin and her husband with whom we were staying for the next few days.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Abbotsford Country House - Barossa Valley
We struck it lucky once again with our choice of Abbotsford for our accommodation, though as we travelled up the dirt roads on the last bit of our journey from Adelaide Airport we did wonder if we had got it right this time. We needn't have worried because we found ourselves at a custom designed homestead for what we English would call Bed & Breakfast, but this is B&B on steroids.
There is the main Homestead which the Maul family, four in all, lives in along with golden retriever Cooper. The building is well designed and so well laid out that we never did see either of the Maul children.
Guests take their breakfast in the enormous family kitchen with its very reassuring AGA cooker and the guests also have full use of an enormous lounge. For instance I set my computer up on a desk and left it there for the duration of our stay. There is wi-fi so you can remain connected to the world outside and I was able to begin the catch up process for the updating of my blog and photograph files. Breakfasts are excellent and whatever you want including heart attack fried bread with your fry up which by the way can include haggis if you want.
The guest rooms are in two custom built annexes which both contain four rooms. The rooms are big, have everything you want and have en suite bathroom which should more properly be called a wet room. Again the size is on a grand scale.
Abbotsford is located in the middle of the fields but in reality is not far off the main road and very handily placed for the local town of Lyndoch. You can see the vines from the Homestead along with fields of grass and cereals and with cattle, even highland cattle, alpacas and kangaroos all in neighbouring fields. This is the heart of Barossa, you can not get closer.
With vineyards like Charles Cimicky and Burge Family Wineries very close by you are very well placed for local wine tasting. Indeed it is no trouble to get to anywhere in the Barossa very quickly. The Eden valley can be reached in about 35 - 40 minutes if you do not get lost and use the dirt roads, and it is about an hour and quarter to Clare in the Clare Valley.
The Mauls have an extensive knowledge of all things local. They have personal contacts with all the restaurants and for me more importantly the vineyards. This local knowledge was invaluable and made for a really great stay.
There is the main Homestead which the Maul family, four in all, lives in along with golden retriever Cooper. The building is well designed and so well laid out that we never did see either of the Maul children.
Guests take their breakfast in the enormous family kitchen with its very reassuring AGA cooker and the guests also have full use of an enormous lounge. For instance I set my computer up on a desk and left it there for the duration of our stay. There is wi-fi so you can remain connected to the world outside and I was able to begin the catch up process for the updating of my blog and photograph files. Breakfasts are excellent and whatever you want including heart attack fried bread with your fry up which by the way can include haggis if you want.
The guest rooms are in two custom built annexes which both contain four rooms. The rooms are big, have everything you want and have en suite bathroom which should more properly be called a wet room. Again the size is on a grand scale.
Abbotsford is located in the middle of the fields but in reality is not far off the main road and very handily placed for the local town of Lyndoch. You can see the vines from the Homestead along with fields of grass and cereals and with cattle, even highland cattle, alpacas and kangaroos all in neighbouring fields. This is the heart of Barossa, you can not get closer.
With vineyards like Charles Cimicky and Burge Family Wineries very close by you are very well placed for local wine tasting. Indeed it is no trouble to get to anywhere in the Barossa very quickly. The Eden valley can be reached in about 35 - 40 minutes if you do not get lost and use the dirt roads, and it is about an hour and quarter to Clare in the Clare Valley.
The Mauls have an extensive knowledge of all things local. They have personal contacts with all the restaurants and for me more importantly the vineyards. This local knowledge was invaluable and made for a really great stay.
Basildene Manor - Margaret River
We spent a delightful three nights at the Manor. It has a very beautiful setting and I doubt I will ever stay in a more beautiful place. You must go to the pictures on www.picasaweb.google/idurrellmeister to get a better view than I can give you in words.
Unfortunately there are no pictures of the inside of the Manor House but I can assure you that it has been delightfully restored to its original 1912 state with of course modern amenities added tastefully.
The style of the Manor is for the organization and staff to be as unobtrusive as possible so that the guests can really "chill out" and regenerate their batteries.
In principle the Manor only caters breakfast which is excellent. However, they do organise events and while we were there they organized a wine tasting by Brookwood Wines and then provided dinner afterwards. A really good evening.
The location of the Manor is excellent, being very close to the town of Margaret River, close to many wineries, next door to Cape Mentelle for instance, and only 10 or 12 minutes from the coast.
I did have one big complaint and that was that there was no wi-fi and hence no direct connection for my pc to the Internet. Without this direct connection it is difficult to manage both the blog and the photographs.
Having said that I would return in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately there are no pictures of the inside of the Manor House but I can assure you that it has been delightfully restored to its original 1912 state with of course modern amenities added tastefully.
The style of the Manor is for the organization and staff to be as unobtrusive as possible so that the guests can really "chill out" and regenerate their batteries.
In principle the Manor only caters breakfast which is excellent. However, they do organise events and while we were there they organized a wine tasting by Brookwood Wines and then provided dinner afterwards. A really good evening.
The location of the Manor is excellent, being very close to the town of Margaret River, close to many wineries, next door to Cape Mentelle for instance, and only 10 or 12 minutes from the coast.
I did have one big complaint and that was that there was no wi-fi and hence no direct connection for my pc to the Internet. Without this direct connection it is difficult to manage both the blog and the photographs.
Having said that I would return in a heartbeat.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Abbotsford Pack
Before going any further let me make it clear before Julian and Jane Mawl proprietors of the Abbotsford Country House get lynched by their neighbours for harbouring foxes the foxes are not actually on Abbotsford land and were indeed several fields distant when we saw them first. Foxes you understand are not welcome friends but vermin as far as local farmers are concerned.
We saw them from the road playing just beside a dry stream with a hedge and a large tree with branches to the ground for cover nearby. There were a vixen and three small cubs when we first saw them. When we stopped the three cubs disappeared under the tree and the vixen watched us very carefully. I left Marion there with her camera and drove quietly off. After a little time the cubs started to reappear and play again and Marion was able to get some photographs which you can view on www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister .
Having advertised their presence that the local farmers Will by now have laid poison down to kill them as they take a large number of lambs each year. Incidentally, in thus regard in the field next to Abbotsford there was a flock of alpacas which are kept and used for guarding sheep. Apparently they are far more effective than dogs and have the merit of producing extra revenue from their highly prized wool.
We saw them from the road playing just beside a dry stream with a hedge and a large tree with branches to the ground for cover nearby. There were a vixen and three small cubs when we first saw them. When we stopped the three cubs disappeared under the tree and the vixen watched us very carefully. I left Marion there with her camera and drove quietly off. After a little time the cubs started to reappear and play again and Marion was able to get some photographs which you can view on www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister .
Having advertised their presence that the local farmers Will by now have laid poison down to kill them as they take a large number of lambs each year. Incidentally, in thus regard in the field next to Abbotsford there was a flock of alpacas which are kept and used for guarding sheep. Apparently they are far more effective than dogs and have the merit of producing extra revenue from their highly prized wool.
The Basildene Mob
When we had arrived at Basildene and been taken round the property on an introduction to the property it was explained that sometimes in the evening we could see some kangaroos in the fields on the opposite side of the little valley upon which the property was located. These roos were members of a much larger mob which inhabitted the area.
One late afternoon we were coming back to Basildene when Marion spotted some roos in a field just before we reached Basildene. We quickly stopped to watch and then realised that there were enormous number of them. Like the size of the fish you just caught I suppose there is a natural tendancy to overestimate the number in the mob but I seriously can not see it as being less than fifty and perhaps as much as a hundred. I got out and quietly moved nearer to them. They watched me nervously but went back to there activities when I was halted permanently by the fence. I took some photos, which you can find on www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister . Though they do not show the size of the mob well but they do show a few at play and eating.
One late afternoon we were coming back to Basildene when Marion spotted some roos in a field just before we reached Basildene. We quickly stopped to watch and then realised that there were enormous number of them. Like the size of the fish you just caught I suppose there is a natural tendancy to overestimate the number in the mob but I seriously can not see it as being less than fifty and perhaps as much as a hundred. I got out and quietly moved nearer to them. They watched me nervously but went back to there activities when I was halted permanently by the fence. I took some photos, which you can find on www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister . Though they do not show the size of the mob well but they do show a few at play and eating.
Blog Comment
Thanks to one of the followers who spotted references to non existing events we discovered that two blogs were missing. Fortunately I had copies in my word processor and so with a couple of quick copy and pastes I was able to resurrect them. I have no idea what happened to the originals. This means that the two posts before this shoud be read in the context of an earlier part of the trip. Actually, posts being out of order will be come more and more common as I catch up on earlier events.
Johannesburg
Jo’burg was never intended to be a destination in our trip. It enjoys a very poor reputation for tourists, indeed, as you try to make bookings you find yourself forced to consider alternatives like Pretoria. Further, my original intention was to arrive in Jo’burg at midday and fly out to Perth in the early evening. However, the Perth flight was full so an overnight stay was mandated. This turned out to be fortuitous as it was here that we discovered the fraud covered in another post, probably at least 24hours earlier than if we had flown on directly to Perth because our guest house in Margaret River did not have wi-fi so it would have been very difficult to have done all the things I had to do related to the fraud let alone discover the fraud in the first place.
We stayed at The Grace Hotel at Rosebank. This is perhaps more used to handling business travellers but it has the benefit of being in a relatively secure area. It is also connected to a very good shopping mall so shopping is also secure.
We had already decided that we would use Johannesburg as a rest day so we just anticipated using the time to catch up on blogging plus some telephone calls via Skype. In the event things turned out somewhat differently.
In the early afternoon we went round the mall which was sort of OK. On arriving back at our room I decided that I would follow up on my promise to the guy who had let us on to the train to Jo’burg to get as many details of our payment and forward them to him. This is when we discovered the fraud, which is covered in one or our other posts. Suffice it to say that I was on the phone for some considerable time. Thank heavens for Skype! If I had had to use my mobile or the hotel phone the costs would have been horrendous, I shudder to think. We pretty much got the fraud issue put to bed in a couple of hours. All I had to do was to wait for a fax, get both Marion and I to sign it and return it to our bank. This we got done before we went to dinner. What we did not complete was getting all the information on my payment to the train company. To do this we would have to go to the Jo’burg agent of the bank tomorrow and retrieve a fax with giving the required information, the bank not being allowed to fax it to me direct at the hotel.
In the meantime we decided to take evening dinner in the hotel. We went down to the restaurant only to discover we were the only guests, not a good omen we thought. However, no excuse for bad service at least and we quickly had our menus. The menu turned out to be one of those upmarket hotel pretentious menus which baffled you with what you were actually being offered by using an almost totally unknown vocabulary. Why is it that restaurants feel obliged to baffle the punter with obscure terms in a different language which when translated still do not make sense and often which their own waiters can not translate.
This was exacerbated by an overpriced wine list which was headed by a wine recently released and which I had tasted three days earlier and had found no great merit in. It cost R1,650 or Sterling 120 in real money. While this wine is being promoted by the winery that produced it as something stellar in my view it is reasonable but nothing spectacular. It is all very well a winemaker trying to do something new, in this case blend I think it is 9 grape types, some from the Bordeaux region and several more from the hotter Mediterranean regions. Perhaps I am wrong but at Sterling 120 a bottle and a very poor tasting I am not impressed
and I am a little surprised that any sommellier worth his salt is buying it. Wine makers should be allowed to experiment but sommelliers should protect the public from their less successful experiments.
Actually we ended up by having a pretty reasonable meal and with a good red wine whose name seems to have escaped my notes. And so to bed.
Next morning we caught up on some blogging and e-mails after which we had to go to the banks partner in Jo’burg to get my fax. I assumed I would need to be at the bank for a maximum of 30 minutes. Wrong! A bank seems incapable of doing anything in reasonable time. It turned out that the fax machines in the UK and Jo’burg were incompatible and so in the end e-mails had to be used which caused some security hiccups to start off with. Thirty minutes turned into about ninety,
We waited in a visitors room in one those very quiet visitor offices in a beautiful designer building in a landscaped environment. All the employees moved about quietly and with quiet intent written in their step and demeanour. The dress code was very business oriented and the young lady we were looked after by was the sole of discretion and efficiency. She kept us informed of what was happening and eventually triumphed having used her intelligence to produce a better solution to my problem than had originally been envisaged.
Back at the hotel we hurriedly faxed the bank details to the railway manager, we grabbed a quick late lunch, made a few necessary small purchases and got back to our rooms to collect our bags and book out. We were on our way to Perth.
We stayed at The Grace Hotel at Rosebank. This is perhaps more used to handling business travellers but it has the benefit of being in a relatively secure area. It is also connected to a very good shopping mall so shopping is also secure.
We had already decided that we would use Johannesburg as a rest day so we just anticipated using the time to catch up on blogging plus some telephone calls via Skype. In the event things turned out somewhat differently.
In the early afternoon we went round the mall which was sort of OK. On arriving back at our room I decided that I would follow up on my promise to the guy who had let us on to the train to Jo’burg to get as many details of our payment and forward them to him. This is when we discovered the fraud, which is covered in one or our other posts. Suffice it to say that I was on the phone for some considerable time. Thank heavens for Skype! If I had had to use my mobile or the hotel phone the costs would have been horrendous, I shudder to think. We pretty much got the fraud issue put to bed in a couple of hours. All I had to do was to wait for a fax, get both Marion and I to sign it and return it to our bank. This we got done before we went to dinner. What we did not complete was getting all the information on my payment to the train company. To do this we would have to go to the Jo’burg agent of the bank tomorrow and retrieve a fax with giving the required information, the bank not being allowed to fax it to me direct at the hotel.
In the meantime we decided to take evening dinner in the hotel. We went down to the restaurant only to discover we were the only guests, not a good omen we thought. However, no excuse for bad service at least and we quickly had our menus. The menu turned out to be one of those upmarket hotel pretentious menus which baffled you with what you were actually being offered by using an almost totally unknown vocabulary. Why is it that restaurants feel obliged to baffle the punter with obscure terms in a different language which when translated still do not make sense and often which their own waiters can not translate.
This was exacerbated by an overpriced wine list which was headed by a wine recently released and which I had tasted three days earlier and had found no great merit in. It cost R1,650 or Sterling 120 in real money. While this wine is being promoted by the winery that produced it as something stellar in my view it is reasonable but nothing spectacular. It is all very well a winemaker trying to do something new, in this case blend I think it is 9 grape types, some from the Bordeaux region and several more from the hotter Mediterranean regions. Perhaps I am wrong but at Sterling 120 a bottle and a very poor tasting I am not impressed
and I am a little surprised that any sommellier worth his salt is buying it. Wine makers should be allowed to experiment but sommelliers should protect the public from their less successful experiments.
Actually we ended up by having a pretty reasonable meal and with a good red wine whose name seems to have escaped my notes. And so to bed.
Next morning we caught up on some blogging and e-mails after which we had to go to the banks partner in Jo’burg to get my fax. I assumed I would need to be at the bank for a maximum of 30 minutes. Wrong! A bank seems incapable of doing anything in reasonable time. It turned out that the fax machines in the UK and Jo’burg were incompatible and so in the end e-mails had to be used which caused some security hiccups to start off with. Thirty minutes turned into about ninety,
We waited in a visitors room in one those very quiet visitor offices in a beautiful designer building in a landscaped environment. All the employees moved about quietly and with quiet intent written in their step and demeanour. The dress code was very business oriented and the young lady we were looked after by was the sole of discretion and efficiency. She kept us informed of what was happening and eventually triumphed having used her intelligence to produce a better solution to my problem than had originally been envisaged.
Back at the hotel we hurriedly faxed the bank details to the railway manager, we grabbed a quick late lunch, made a few necessary small purchases and got back to our rooms to collect our bags and book out. We were on our way to Perth.
Were They Connected?
Not everything is going to go right on a trip like this and it didn’t. I woke up Monday morning and went to the computer to get any e-mail and to update photos and maybe do another blog posting. I switched on and immediately got a message saying the system could not load windows. The message said it may be possible to repair but I would need to reload windows from the original disks. No chance of that then. Who carries their windows disks with them on their travels.
This was pretty serious stuff since I do virtually everything with or through the computer but fortunately not a complete brick wall. I knew I had copies of all major major files back on hard disks at home and I could get all my e-mail providing I could find a way onto the Internet. Also fortunately I had copies of all bookings for the trip and everything else about the trip, calendar, itinerary accounts, photos and blogs were in the clouds so I could get them via the Internet.
The Summerwood let me use their computer for that mornings e-mail. The solution was to buy another computer ASAP and I would within limits be back in business. This I would do when we went to Cape Town.
The second problem occurred the next day when we went to book in for the Premier Classe trip. They had no record of my booking and worse still no record of my payment. The papers I did have were enough in the end to persuade them to let us go anyhow. However, the manager asked that when I could get to my bank accounts that I provide him with as much payment information as possible so he could trace our payment. He gave me his fax number and I promised I would do my best.
Fast forward to The Grace Hotel in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening having booked in and with a few minutes time before dinner I decided to go into my bank accounts and look for the transaction in my bank statements online. I knew the date that I thought I had paid as I had written that on my booking confirmation form. By this time I had a new computer and so I could easily connect to the Internet. I had no problem getting in but unfortunately could not get back far enough to see the statement. I was about to log out when I thought that my account total was somewhat lower than I would have expected. On closer inspection I could see 2 transfers that made no sense and were for a fair amount of money. Further, they were to a payee I did not recognise. Alarms were now ringing very loud. I called the bank back in England and after going through their call centre and giving the information they wanted I was called back within minutes by the fraud department who were able after perhaps 10 minutes to confirm my worst suspicions that 5the transfers were indeed fraudulent. They actually were to someone in Australia. When the fraud executive discovered that my pc had gone down on the same morning that the first transfer was made she said that there was a strong likelihood that the fraud was perpetrated through the use of a virus and that the virus had then wiped out the machine.
So were the three problems connected? Certainly if I did not have the problem with the train booking I would not have been looking at my bank account and so would not have found the fraudulent transfer entries in my account. And if the fraud executive is to be believed then the pc crash was as a result of the virus used for the fraud and the three misadventures were connected. Time may tell us if we were right particularly as in this case the first payment was made only 2 days before I found it and the second on the day I found it.
Oh in case any of you were wondering the bank says no matter what happens I will get my money back.
This was pretty serious stuff since I do virtually everything with or through the computer but fortunately not a complete brick wall. I knew I had copies of all major major files back on hard disks at home and I could get all my e-mail providing I could find a way onto the Internet. Also fortunately I had copies of all bookings for the trip and everything else about the trip, calendar, itinerary accounts, photos and blogs were in the clouds so I could get them via the Internet.
The Summerwood let me use their computer for that mornings e-mail. The solution was to buy another computer ASAP and I would within limits be back in business. This I would do when we went to Cape Town.
The second problem occurred the next day when we went to book in for the Premier Classe trip. They had no record of my booking and worse still no record of my payment. The papers I did have were enough in the end to persuade them to let us go anyhow. However, the manager asked that when I could get to my bank accounts that I provide him with as much payment information as possible so he could trace our payment. He gave me his fax number and I promised I would do my best.
Fast forward to The Grace Hotel in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening having booked in and with a few minutes time before dinner I decided to go into my bank accounts and look for the transaction in my bank statements online. I knew the date that I thought I had paid as I had written that on my booking confirmation form. By this time I had a new computer and so I could easily connect to the Internet. I had no problem getting in but unfortunately could not get back far enough to see the statement. I was about to log out when I thought that my account total was somewhat lower than I would have expected. On closer inspection I could see 2 transfers that made no sense and were for a fair amount of money. Further, they were to a payee I did not recognise. Alarms were now ringing very loud. I called the bank back in England and after going through their call centre and giving the information they wanted I was called back within minutes by the fraud department who were able after perhaps 10 minutes to confirm my worst suspicions that 5the transfers were indeed fraudulent. They actually were to someone in Australia. When the fraud executive discovered that my pc had gone down on the same morning that the first transfer was made she said that there was a strong likelihood that the fraud was perpetrated through the use of a virus and that the virus had then wiped out the machine.
So were the three problems connected? Certainly if I did not have the problem with the train booking I would not have been looking at my bank account and so would not have found the fraudulent transfer entries in my account. And if the fraud executive is to be believed then the pc crash was as a result of the virus used for the fraud and the three misadventures were connected. Time may tell us if we were right particularly as in this case the first payment was made only 2 days before I found it and the second on the day I found it.
Oh in case any of you were wondering the bank says no matter what happens I will get my money back.
Wine Tasting
Marion and I have managed to do about 22 separate wine tastings of over 150 separate wines, mostly at what in Australia is called the cellar door. I'll write a little more on each of the wine tastings on other blogs.
Originally, I had intended to write up my tasting notes which I have religiously kept for all tastings, pretty much as I did for the Rustenberg post, in this Blog. However, looking at my notes they are boring and in many ways full of all the normal pretentious bs that you can read about in any wine in the wine books or wine columns and so what I will do is try to keep my wine tasting posts simple and pretty much just say what we liked about the wine(s) and the tasting(s).
As a sort of mid term report let me just say we haven't tasted a bad wine, and we have tasted some exceptional wines. You already will know of our Hentshke tasting when we tasted the Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone wines. We have also tasted the Chardonnay from Leeuwin Estate and the Armagh from Jim Barry wines. These are world class wines and it would be invidious to choose between them.
It is easy to write about these iconic wines but not very profitable as I am only repeating what can be read in any wine magazine or book. What is better in many ways is coming across wines that I did not know before or perhaps only knew of one example from a winery. I am thinking now of the wines from Charles Cimicky and Charles Melton in the Barossa Valley, the excellent wines that I tasted only this afternoon from the Moorooduc Estate in the Mornington Peninsular, the very good Cabernet Sauvignon from Brookward in the Margaret River, and what I think will be a great Cabernet Franc from Rainbows End in Stellenbosch. It was also a little sad to taste at the winery whose wine had got me on to Barossa Shiraz style wines back in the mid '90s where the wines did not match up to my memories. Actually we then drank an older version of their wine in the restaurant the evening of the tasting and that was in no way disappointing.
We have one more tasting day down here in the Melbourne area and then one day in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney and then on to New Zealand. We are looking forward to these tastings, it is dirty work but some one has to do it, and I will write another summary report after that. In the meantime I will try to catch up on posting write ups on the individual tasting events.
Originally, I had intended to write up my tasting notes which I have religiously kept for all tastings, pretty much as I did for the Rustenberg post, in this Blog. However, looking at my notes they are boring and in many ways full of all the normal pretentious bs that you can read about in any wine in the wine books or wine columns and so what I will do is try to keep my wine tasting posts simple and pretty much just say what we liked about the wine(s) and the tasting(s).
As a sort of mid term report let me just say we haven't tasted a bad wine, and we have tasted some exceptional wines. You already will know of our Hentshke tasting when we tasted the Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone wines. We have also tasted the Chardonnay from Leeuwin Estate and the Armagh from Jim Barry wines. These are world class wines and it would be invidious to choose between them.
It is easy to write about these iconic wines but not very profitable as I am only repeating what can be read in any wine magazine or book. What is better in many ways is coming across wines that I did not know before or perhaps only knew of one example from a winery. I am thinking now of the wines from Charles Cimicky and Charles Melton in the Barossa Valley, the excellent wines that I tasted only this afternoon from the Moorooduc Estate in the Mornington Peninsular, the very good Cabernet Sauvignon from Brookward in the Margaret River, and what I think will be a great Cabernet Franc from Rainbows End in Stellenbosch. It was also a little sad to taste at the winery whose wine had got me on to Barossa Shiraz style wines back in the mid '90s where the wines did not match up to my memories. Actually we then drank an older version of their wine in the restaurant the evening of the tasting and that was in no way disappointing.
We have one more tasting day down here in the Melbourne area and then one day in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney and then on to New Zealand. We are looking forward to these tastings, it is dirty work but some one has to do it, and I will write another summary report after that. In the meantime I will try to catch up on posting write ups on the individual tasting events.
Photographs
Photographs that are related to this Blog can be found on http://www.picasaweb.google.go.uk/idurrellmeister . They are up to date as of 29 Nov 2008. There are some 36 albums, many very small, each relating to some event or series of events on the trip.
There is a coding structure to each album name. You can ignore the first 2 sections of the album name,they are always the same. The third section is the date in the form of mmdd . The fourth section is a code for the type of event: WT = wine tasting, ES = wine estate views, GD = garden views, HO = hotel views, JO = journey views, SC = general views. This is then always followed by a plain English name of the specific view.
I am much farther ahead in managing the photographs than the Blogs. I hope to catch up on the Blogs in the next week as well as keep up to date with publishing the photographs
There is a coding structure to each album name. You can ignore the first 2 sections of the album name,they are always the same. The third section is the date in the form of mmdd . The fourth section is a code for the type of event: WT = wine tasting, ES = wine estate views, GD = garden views, HO = hotel views, JO = journey views, SC = general views. This is then always followed by a plain English name of the specific view.
I am much farther ahead in managing the photographs than the Blogs. I hope to catch up on the Blogs in the next week as well as keep up to date with publishing the photographs
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
A Great Day (plus a bit)
We arrived at Adelaide airport off a none too pleasant Quantas flight, a packed 737, late off the ground, bumpy off the ground, bumpy on landing and over zealous cabin attendants. However, our bags were pretty quick, the car hire office found easily, a second clerk materializes out of thin air so no wait and to cap it all an upgrade. The drive out to Barossa was straight forward and although our final destination, Abbotsford Country House, was up dirt roads, and it had turned dark, we had absolutely no problem in finding it. Great instructions.
A cheese and meat platter awaited after we had been introduced to a very spacious room in one of two custom built annexes for guests. The repas was served over in the main homestead in a delightful and enormous living room which must be 150sq metres in size and is pretty much only for the use of guests. We were asked if we wanted to take a bottle of wine with the meal and with the help of Julian Mawl chief assistant to his wife, Jane, the guiding light to the guest house side of the Mawl family fortunes, we chose a Yalumba 2006 Shiraz. Great choice! The Yalumba was a real Barossa wine. Deep dark crimson, bags of fruit and very smooth for a two year old wine. It complemented the cheese and meat plate wonderfully.
The only sour note was that Julian had major problems with his wi-fi and it was unavailable. However, if we needed to get to our e-mails then we could do it at the local library for free. While that did not help much with my blogging exploits it would at least mean I could communicate.
After a very comfortable nights sleep, I actually did not get up until past 8:30am, we went across for breakfast to an enormous kitchen where Jane was preparing breakfast for another English couple. They were tucking in to a very English breakfast and we were not slow in joining them.
Chris and Patty were from the Isle of Man and were out visiting their daughter and were taking a couple of days off to renew acquaintances with Barossa wine. He had been an International Banker and we swapped wine inspired travel and work experiences interspersed with conversations about where we might go and what we should plan to see, all aided and abetted by Jane.
Our new found friends soon left and we quickly followed. As the wi-fi still did not work we went down to Lyndoch and found the library where I was able to do my e-mail and also to finally get my post on our Rainbows End wine tasting of over a week ago actually on to the blog.
Leaving Lyndoch we decided to first visit Bethany wines in Bethany. Bethany wine was the first Australian wine that I had knowingly drunk. I loved it and bought quite a lot more over the years. Wonderfully sited just above the old German village of Bethany with commanding views over the Barossa, the wine tasting takes place in a down to earth building exactly right for tasting and not connected to the actual winery itself. I did a tasting of several wines, all reds except for the one Riesling desert wine. Actually, I was a bit disappointed and all the wines and with exception of the Riesling which just tasted sweet to me , they all tasted sharp and lacking in fruit. I began to suspect it was me rather than the wine. Do not get me wrong they were good wines but just not as good as I was expecting.
We decided to move on from Bethany to Henschke wines. This is the winery that is famous for the iconic Hill of Grace wine. Bethaney had not let me taste their top three reserve wines so I figured my chances of sampling Hill of Grace were slim to none. Nevertheless we decided that it was worth the trip, we could but ask!
Henschke wines is really outside the Barossa but I guess that they are so famous that Barossa is pleased to include them in the Barossa wine maps. They sit out there by themselves in the hills and the ride to get there is beautiful, much of it over and through the hills on dirt roads. We stopped a couple of times to take in the views or stop to look at the animals. Eventually we arrived at what is a nice, clearly prosperous winery but all understated.
We alighted and quickly found our way to the tasting room which turned out to be right next door to the open fermentation vats and the other storage vats. Marion was not tasting to day so wandered of round the grounds as she had done at Bethaney. I was the only punter in the tasting room. I was quickly given a wine card and was asked what I wanted to taste. What a question! “ I would like to taste the one you won’t let me taste” I lightly rejoined. “How do you know what we will let you taste. You never know! Now what is it you would like to taste”, “Hill of Grace of course, is that possible?” “We will see” and she disappeared. I heard a muted conversation in the back office and what I took for the senior wine tasting person, a lady called Sussana, appeared and said she understood I wanted to taste the Hill of Grace. Where did I want to start. I said that I wasn’t so interested in either the whites or the fun reds but I was keen to taste the serious reds. It was then that I saw a pinot noir and thought it to be so out of place in the home of the iconic Hill of Grace. I said lets start with that out of interest and then go to the serious reds, five wines in all.
You can read about the wines in my tasting posts when I produce them. Suffice it to say that the pinot was really a fun wine but the four serious wines were super. Starting with Euphonium, then the Growers Shiraz, then Mount Eddlestone and then holy of holys the Hill of Grace. Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. The fruit both in the nose and to the taste of both the last two was fabulous and there was a special perfume to the Hill of Grace which was sublime. This from 100 year old grapes for the first and 150 year old grapes for the Hill of Grace itself. What a day it was turning into.
We then decided to have an afternoon tea in Angaston a local Barossa town, but we would go by the actual Hill of Grace vines. A short journey found us in front of the small church which stands at the bottom of the Hill of Grace vines. These were 150 year old vines all by themselves and not with any other vines anywhere near them. Not a big area, it looked like 5 or 6 acres to me but I expect that information is available somewhere else. All the vines had straw piled around them to help preserve as much water as possible. The Barossa does have a problem with water from time to time and where the Hill of Grace is located even more so. This year is particularly bad around the Hill of Grace location and indeed where most of the Henschke wines from, We took our pictures and then left.
When we got to Angaston we discovered a little sort of deli café and ordered tea and cakes and then as we ate and drank them I availed myself of the public internet PC that the café owner had installed for the townsfolk’s use. Something about helping drag them into the 21st century. I caught up on my e-mails.
The deli owner turned out to be a real character and gave us a really good update on the history of the town. After telling us about the history of his building and those other buildings we could see around us, he also told us of a couple of buildings we should visit and then mentioned an old cemetery which was about 100m from where we were standing. He said that was worth a visit as indeed it was.
The plaque in front of the cemetery had a list of all who were buried there. There were some 223 people that had been laid to rest there between 1843 and 1869. Over 60% of them were children. We could only count 6 people who had reached an age greater than that of ourselves. It was sobering to think that it was highly unlikely that anyone buried there had seen their ruby wedding anniversary. How things have moved on. We should be thankful for small mercies.
We returned to Abbotsford. We prevailed upon the Maul’s to suggest a restaurant for us. They suggested “Tonic” a restaurant that was part of a motel. We were just a tad concerned but they reassured us that the food was good and it had the merit of being close by. They were right. We had a really good meal, complimented by 2006 Cimicky Shiraz which turned out be really good. We met the chef ,a lady, who with her husband and two others had recently bought the property from its long time owner. Apparently, there is much to do and the property comes with a 15 acre rose garden which I am absolutely certain Marion will visit before we leave. A port was offered and accepted and the chef Kas and her daughter in law, the waitress, stood and told us tales of the Barossa and its wines.
On returning to Abbotsford I needed to at least get something productive done on the blogging and photo recording front. Switched on my PC and “voila” the wi-fi is working. I was able to catch up on lots of things including make some necessary calls back to UK using Skype. In the spirit of the day there was some good news related to unfinished business back there.
After the calls I managed a little blogging and a long conversation with Julian Mawl on wine and in particular S. Australian wine for which he seemed to have a pretty encyclopaedic knowledge. We discussed the Hill of Grace tasting and he remarked we were the first non press customer who had stayed with them in six years who had had such a tasting.
Off to bed, it had been a great day.
A cheese and meat platter awaited after we had been introduced to a very spacious room in one of two custom built annexes for guests. The repas was served over in the main homestead in a delightful and enormous living room which must be 150sq metres in size and is pretty much only for the use of guests. We were asked if we wanted to take a bottle of wine with the meal and with the help of Julian Mawl chief assistant to his wife, Jane, the guiding light to the guest house side of the Mawl family fortunes, we chose a Yalumba 2006 Shiraz. Great choice! The Yalumba was a real Barossa wine. Deep dark crimson, bags of fruit and very smooth for a two year old wine. It complemented the cheese and meat plate wonderfully.
The only sour note was that Julian had major problems with his wi-fi and it was unavailable. However, if we needed to get to our e-mails then we could do it at the local library for free. While that did not help much with my blogging exploits it would at least mean I could communicate.
After a very comfortable nights sleep, I actually did not get up until past 8:30am, we went across for breakfast to an enormous kitchen where Jane was preparing breakfast for another English couple. They were tucking in to a very English breakfast and we were not slow in joining them.
Chris and Patty were from the Isle of Man and were out visiting their daughter and were taking a couple of days off to renew acquaintances with Barossa wine. He had been an International Banker and we swapped wine inspired travel and work experiences interspersed with conversations about where we might go and what we should plan to see, all aided and abetted by Jane.
Our new found friends soon left and we quickly followed. As the wi-fi still did not work we went down to Lyndoch and found the library where I was able to do my e-mail and also to finally get my post on our Rainbows End wine tasting of over a week ago actually on to the blog.
Leaving Lyndoch we decided to first visit Bethany wines in Bethany. Bethany wine was the first Australian wine that I had knowingly drunk. I loved it and bought quite a lot more over the years. Wonderfully sited just above the old German village of Bethany with commanding views over the Barossa, the wine tasting takes place in a down to earth building exactly right for tasting and not connected to the actual winery itself. I did a tasting of several wines, all reds except for the one Riesling desert wine. Actually, I was a bit disappointed and all the wines and with exception of the Riesling which just tasted sweet to me , they all tasted sharp and lacking in fruit. I began to suspect it was me rather than the wine. Do not get me wrong they were good wines but just not as good as I was expecting.
We decided to move on from Bethany to Henschke wines. This is the winery that is famous for the iconic Hill of Grace wine. Bethaney had not let me taste their top three reserve wines so I figured my chances of sampling Hill of Grace were slim to none. Nevertheless we decided that it was worth the trip, we could but ask!
Henschke wines is really outside the Barossa but I guess that they are so famous that Barossa is pleased to include them in the Barossa wine maps. They sit out there by themselves in the hills and the ride to get there is beautiful, much of it over and through the hills on dirt roads. We stopped a couple of times to take in the views or stop to look at the animals. Eventually we arrived at what is a nice, clearly prosperous winery but all understated.
We alighted and quickly found our way to the tasting room which turned out to be right next door to the open fermentation vats and the other storage vats. Marion was not tasting to day so wandered of round the grounds as she had done at Bethaney. I was the only punter in the tasting room. I was quickly given a wine card and was asked what I wanted to taste. What a question! “ I would like to taste the one you won’t let me taste” I lightly rejoined. “How do you know what we will let you taste. You never know! Now what is it you would like to taste”, “Hill of Grace of course, is that possible?” “We will see” and she disappeared. I heard a muted conversation in the back office and what I took for the senior wine tasting person, a lady called Sussana, appeared and said she understood I wanted to taste the Hill of Grace. Where did I want to start. I said that I wasn’t so interested in either the whites or the fun reds but I was keen to taste the serious reds. It was then that I saw a pinot noir and thought it to be so out of place in the home of the iconic Hill of Grace. I said lets start with that out of interest and then go to the serious reds, five wines in all.
You can read about the wines in my tasting posts when I produce them. Suffice it to say that the pinot was really a fun wine but the four serious wines were super. Starting with Euphonium, then the Growers Shiraz, then Mount Eddlestone and then holy of holys the Hill of Grace. Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. The fruit both in the nose and to the taste of both the last two was fabulous and there was a special perfume to the Hill of Grace which was sublime. This from 100 year old grapes for the first and 150 year old grapes for the Hill of Grace itself. What a day it was turning into.
We then decided to have an afternoon tea in Angaston a local Barossa town, but we would go by the actual Hill of Grace vines. A short journey found us in front of the small church which stands at the bottom of the Hill of Grace vines. These were 150 year old vines all by themselves and not with any other vines anywhere near them. Not a big area, it looked like 5 or 6 acres to me but I expect that information is available somewhere else. All the vines had straw piled around them to help preserve as much water as possible. The Barossa does have a problem with water from time to time and where the Hill of Grace is located even more so. This year is particularly bad around the Hill of Grace location and indeed where most of the Henschke wines from, We took our pictures and then left.
When we got to Angaston we discovered a little sort of deli café and ordered tea and cakes and then as we ate and drank them I availed myself of the public internet PC that the café owner had installed for the townsfolk’s use. Something about helping drag them into the 21st century. I caught up on my e-mails.
The deli owner turned out to be a real character and gave us a really good update on the history of the town. After telling us about the history of his building and those other buildings we could see around us, he also told us of a couple of buildings we should visit and then mentioned an old cemetery which was about 100m from where we were standing. He said that was worth a visit as indeed it was.
The plaque in front of the cemetery had a list of all who were buried there. There were some 223 people that had been laid to rest there between 1843 and 1869. Over 60% of them were children. We could only count 6 people who had reached an age greater than that of ourselves. It was sobering to think that it was highly unlikely that anyone buried there had seen their ruby wedding anniversary. How things have moved on. We should be thankful for small mercies.
We returned to Abbotsford. We prevailed upon the Maul’s to suggest a restaurant for us. They suggested “Tonic” a restaurant that was part of a motel. We were just a tad concerned but they reassured us that the food was good and it had the merit of being close by. They were right. We had a really good meal, complimented by 2006 Cimicky Shiraz which turned out be really good. We met the chef ,a lady, who with her husband and two others had recently bought the property from its long time owner. Apparently, there is much to do and the property comes with a 15 acre rose garden which I am absolutely certain Marion will visit before we leave. A port was offered and accepted and the chef Kas and her daughter in law, the waitress, stood and told us tales of the Barossa and its wines.
On returning to Abbotsford I needed to at least get something productive done on the blogging and photo recording front. Switched on my PC and “voila” the wi-fi is working. I was able to catch up on lots of things including make some necessary calls back to UK using Skype. In the spirit of the day there was some good news related to unfinished business back there.
After the calls I managed a little blogging and a long conversation with Julian Mawl on wine and in particular S. Australian wine for which he seemed to have a pretty encyclopaedic knowledge. We discussed the Hill of Grace tasting and he remarked we were the first non press customer who had stayed with them in six years who had had such a tasting.
Off to bed, it had been a great day.
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