Hunter Valley, Rugby Game, Beautiful Beaches, and a new way to get up to my loft!

Hi Everyone

So to make up for my boring post last week, I have LOTS to tell you about this past weekend! The first thing I did was a trip to the Hunter Valley Wineries which is about 2 hours north of Sydney. We went as a big group - Me, Emily, Becca and Laura and a bunch of our guy friends. We got picked up near Central Station at 8am and got to our first winery at around 10am. The first place we went to was called Draytons and we were all piled into a little room where we had a woman serve us about 10 different wines starting with whites and moving onto reds and finishing with ports and dessert wines. Here are a couple pictures from Draytons:

After Draytons we went to another winery that I don't have pictures of. Then we went to McGuigans Winery and the Blue Tongue Brewery which were right next to each other. McGuigans had my favorite red wine called Noon Harvest which was my one purchase of the day. The Blue Tongue Brewery was obviously beer tasting rather than wine...which was what I probably should have stayed away from because I was already getting drunk at that point...but you only live once right! So at Blue Tongue, we got little paddles with 6 different samples of beer and then when you're finished with the samples, you bring up your empty paddle and get a full glass of whichever beer was your favorite. Here is a picture of me with the paddle:

The beer I chose to get a full glass of was called ginger beer and it's basically like alcoholic ginger ale...so obviously I chose the beer that tasted least like beer!! (sorry dad but I just didn't get the beer-loving gene!) After the beer tasting we went to a cheese tasting where we sampled about 5 different cheeses that they also make there and they were SO yummy!

After the first 4 stops, I was well on my way to being drunk so while the rest of the group went into one more winery, I stayed outside and played in the roses and enjoyed the beautiful views!!

After the wine tasting was over, we all got back on the bus and slept pretty much the whole 2 hour ride home. However, our day was far from over because we had tickets to a rugby game that night! We got back to Sydney around 6:30 and took a cab straight to the rugby stadium. I got my energy back as soon as we walked up to the stadium because I was SO excited to be a sporting event (of course!) The game was 80 minutes long with a break at half time. I had seen rugby on TV before but seeing them play in person was unbelievable. They are gigantic men and they make huge tackles without padding and then continue playing as they are bleeding from the head!! It was pretty intense! We were able to sit in the front row at around the 30 yard line so our seats were amazing and we were really up close to the action. Becca and I also got on the jumbo-tron which may have been one of the most exciting parts of the night!! Here's a picture from the game:

After the rugby game, we somehow found the stamina to go out to a bar called Bungalow 8 on Darling Harbor, but I didn't stay out late because I was pretty exhausted from the day! I also knew that I was going to be waking up for Theresa's birthday bbq that her aunt was having for her at Bronte Beach the next morning. The bbq was amazing and Theresa's family cooked us scrumptious food!! It was really cool because it is on a first come first serve basis and you just grab a table and there's a big grill and it's open to anyone to grill on and you can have a picnic outside on the lawn which overlooks the beach. So we ate a ton of food and played some frisbee on the lawn for a while and then we decided to go for a walk along the beaches to Bondi Beach. Along the way we stopped at a cliff to take some pictures. It was a beautiful day and being on the cliffs looking out to the ocean was unbelievable! Here are some scenic pictures!

After spending the entire day on the beach, we came back to UniLodge and hung out in my and Emily's room for the rest of the night. This was when I discovered a new (and much more challenging) way of getting up to my loft!! The boys were doing it so I obviously had to try too!



Okay well that was officially my longest blog ever!! It was definitely a busy, fun-filled weekend and I enjoyed every minute of it!


That's all for now...this week is the last week of classes before Easter Break when the girls and I are heading to New Zealand!! I'll probably do one more update before we leave.

so much love,

Lauren