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Newcastle, Australia shares a few similarities with its name sake in the UK. First, in industry, Newcastle is the worlds largest coal exporting harbour in the world and whilst Newcastle Upon Tyne has never had such a lofty title its prosperity was built on its monopoly of the coal trade in the Tyneside area of England for almost 400 years. And both cities built up significant shipbuilding industries in the 19th century. The second is in its placenames. Many of the suburbs share the same names - Jesmond and Wallsend for example - and the surrounding towns have the same names as those England - Morpeth, Hexham, Gateshead! Its as if its founders took a map of North England and simply plonked down on the coast of Australia.
Unfortunately that is where the similarities end, whilst Newcastle, Australia does have a large university (larger than Newcastle University in the UK infact) it lacks the same vibrancy as its English counterpart and this was fairly apparent right from our arrival. There was hardly anyone about and whats more they actually have rather similar population (although Newcastle often seems larger given the ease of access to the entire Tyneside region using the Metro). We consulted a street map, having discovered Lucy had already managed to lose her lonely planet (and she complained when I lost mine after 5 weeks travelling!), and checked into the YHA, before hitting the streets and having our earlier perceptions reconfirmed by a complete lack of pedestrians on Newcastle's main street. Being a Saturday and late in the day everything seemed to be closed (by this time in the UK the Geordies would by now be quite quite rowdy in the pub), but we found a nice bakery/cafe and ordered a Ceaser Salad wrap, which is possibly one of the best vegetarian things I have ever had (the best vegitarian thing I have ever had being Pete's mum's Veg Bake). Washed down with some sprite (standard) we went to the small "supermarket" (read: convenience store) and bought some supplies for cheap dinners and snacks. Then we booked our tour of Hunter Valley for the next day (its where wine is born!) and chilled out in the hostel since we'd be having a pretty early start the next day.
So the tour bus picked us up at 9am,we had a nice lively tour guide who's name I have now long forgotten, which made the ride more interesting. We picked up 2 middle aged Brits (now living in Sydney) up en route, which took us a bit out our way, little did we know these women would turn out to be the drunks of the entire tour group compared to the otherwise full bus of backpackers.
We pulled up to our first vineyard around 10am, a very professional looking establishment, long established and well known, which I have similarly forgotten the name of, but were served by a sweet old guy who had worked there forever, first picking the grapes, then at the bar, then as an expert. He clearly loved what he did. The wine was delicious, although none particularly stood out as being better than any of the others to my memory (although as we have established thats not that great)
Next was Draytons famous (to the girls from Sydney at least) for the family curse that has been killing off members of the family for years and as recent as last year when a blast that took off some of the winery's roof killed Trevor Drayton and his cousin. His uncle, another of the Drayton winemakers had died in a plane crash some years earlier, whilst Barry Drayton had suffocated on fumes whilst cleaning out a wine tank the same day his wife unexpectedly died of hepatitis! You can't make this stuff up! Unfortunately the wine was not as good as the story of the family and the guy leading us through the wines hadn't a clue what he was talking about and was largely reading off the bottle labels. The vineyard's new Lily wine tho was very tasty and very sweet (as is my taste for wine given my mother's affinity for them).
Next was a trip to the cheese and chutney shop. And good god we could have bought half the shop. The cheese was soo tasty we went to one woman and tried them all, then sneakily moved to another and tried them all again. The chutneys were just as good a beer infused one in particular was awesome. Alas the budget could not quite stretch to purchasing too many things indeed the prices were limiting to the extent that we bought ourselves a nice chunk of a vintage cheddar to share between us for dinner.
The winery next door, which was distinctly separate from its vineyeard since it was part of a sort of shopping district was nothing particularly special and wouldn't have decribed the expert as a particular people person, but they did give you an order form out at the start which I used to give each wine a score on the smiley face system. The Sydney girls thought this was hilarious and chose to follow suit (rather more professionally marking them out of 10). By the end most had received a "fair" smiley or a "sad" smiley. The ports tho were very tasty on the whole and received a number of "happy" smiles except for one that was kind of coffeeish and was disgusting.
Next was lunch, which was in a rather expensive establishment so I settled for a hot dog and chips (the cheapest thing on the menu) and we had a nice talk with all the backpackers at our reserved table (the Sydney girls had gone for a significntly posher meal at some restaurant).
We then went to the British Sweet Shop and took blatant advantage of their have a taste of whatever you like deal and bought nothing whatsoever. Then we went to the chocolate and fudge shop where we tried to do the same, but where they are clearly more on the ball and weren't really having any of it. I was then gonna actually buy some fudge, but they didn't have vanilla believe it or not and then it was ridiculously expensive so I made a last grab for the sample tray and left.
The next vineyard, Oakfield, was a very nice place. We were all seated a nice long table and each given water and a wine glass along with a scorecard (yes!!!), which we were actively encouraged to fill in in any way we liked, which I did. The guy in question was also cool, mid twenties, chatty and pretty knowledgable on them all.
Our last vineyard was a smaller one, but everyone who worked in the bar also picked the grapes and worked in the winery so they all knew everything you could possibly want to know about anything. The woman was nice and very eager to listen about what we thought and about the other wines we had tasted that day. And there was a delicious sweet red wine, the first we had had the whole day, and I had to have it so I bought a bottle when Lucy wasn't looking.
We got back to the hostel at around 6pm - so a proper full days drinking - and popped down to the kitchen to have our cheese with some crackers we had purchased. It was awesome. And to top off our refined evening of wine and cheese? Why family guy of course!
The next morning we allowed ourselves a little lie in before begining our proper Newcastle sightseeing. We walked along the coast and the beach to Nobby's Head and up to Fort Scratchley stopping en route to play in a children's play park (naturally). The walk up the hill then brought us down on the opposite shore of Newcastle, where we sat and watched the surfers for a while all of whom appeared to be either 12 or 50, all doing so gracefully and significantly better than I think either of us could ever possibly hope to achieve. I then lost Lucy when I went to go and take a photo of a Jesmond bus and so continued my wander around town down the modern development, up and down the hills and along their main street once more and had a very tasty toasted wrap around 3pm that filled the spot.
Found Lucy back at the hostel, having lost me she went to see a movie and we assed about the hostel for the evening watching family guy investing $10 into the all you can eat dominos pizza (a staple of any hostel) adn watching Fight Club. Good times.
The next day we were supposed to be leaving, but the floods that had been hitting the country whilst we had been in Sydney were blocking the roads and stopping the buses so we had to stay at least another day. So we opted go to the Blackbutt Nature Reserve, which if anything was free to get into (Excluding the bus ride to get there and back). The driver annoyingly dropped us off at the wrong entrance, btu as we would later discover leaving from the correct one that is because the main entrance is utterly unaccessible to anything other than cars.
A small walk (thankfully) down hill took us to the correct one where we found wallabies, koalas, kangaroos and emus among other things. The koalas in particular were a highlight. As they were sooo cute and running along the floor, banging against each other as they tried to get up and down the branches in one case having a little paw fight which one of the employees broke up. They're like cute little people.
There was however a lot of damage evident from the recent flooding and storms that had hit the coast in particular the bird enclosures many of which had been burst open by falling trees. There were not that many birds to be seen that day at Blackbutt.
We then walked along the side of the motorway (I told you it was stupidly inaccessible from the main entrance) and at one point ran across the road for a better walk since the grass we had been walking on abruptly turned into unpassable trees. The weather was gloriously sunny thankfully and we sat on the grass whilst waiting for the bus back into town.
Back at the hostel and having exhausted all there is to do in the city we decided that we were leaving Newcastle tomorrow regardless of whether the buses were going for Byron Bay or not and so booked the most round about route that took us into Australia (not along the coast) up to Brisbane and then down to Byron Bay. We would infact be crossing into Queensland and back to get to Byron.
We went to the Inter-Hostel bingo competition that night and I won 2 hours of internet time (although it took me about 10 minutes to realise that I'd had a diagonal - fool). And enjoyed a number of free sausage sandwiches with copious amounts of ketchup and a number of beers (the beers alas were not free). With a group of fellow backpackers I then went to the off license bought a bottle of wine from Draytons (the cursed family vineyard) and went back to the hostel to try and learn poker from the boys. In the end I resigned myself to the fact that it would not be learnt whilst clutching a bottle of wine and retired to the internet whilst a movie I was rather uniterested in played on the TV.
The old "beer before wine makes you feel fine, wine before beer makes you feel queer" line was well and truely squashed with a terrible headache the next day. Lucy went to get her haircut and highlighted having researched where in the city would do so for a reasonable price (the ones we had investigated the previous day were not of a reasonable price in any way shape or form) whilst I concluded that I could get a solid few more weeks out of my hair before it would need cut and should do so in Cairns just before heading out to the significantly hotter Asia where short hair would be very much appreciated (and where straighteners would not really eb of very much use at all). So whilst Lucy went and had her haircut I sat and vegetated and went and w****d myself on the internet.
On her return with significantly blonder hair we went to the cafe we had located on the first day and I tried a mexican wrap this time. It did not compare to the ceaser wrap at all. I was disappointed. But we were going to finally leave Newcastle- this was not disappointing having firmly concluded that our Newcastle wiped the floor with this one.
We got on the bus at 4 to find that we had been seated a opposite ends of the bus and that someone was already sprawled asleep across my seat. I sat in the row behind. Lucy was in the back row. Phil, a Swiss guy (28)who had been staying at our hostel and had been on the wine tour, was in a seat that didn't even exist the same row as Lucy where the toilet appeared to be so he sat himself down with Lucy where some flirtation occurred. Later in the bus ride suggesting that if Lucy needed to she could rest her head on his shoulder or chest. Meanwhile up the front some woman up the front had kicked off for no apparent reason that someone was in her seat before even reaching it because I was in the guys seat who was in someones who was in someones because the guy was unconcious over mine and she needed hers. So after some excessive rearranging and slapping the guy awake (by the bus driver) I was in my actual seat to be confronted with some annoyingly tall ass who took up the entire row. When we stopped for a snack later in the journey I picked up all his s*** and shoved it under his chair so it was out of my (and other people's) way and later had a conversation with the people in the row behind me about among other things how the guy was a twat. This came shortly after he moaned that I had leant on him after he had been proper asleep on my shoulder for a solid 5 minutes... people...
Thankfully like all journeys they must end sometime and ours ended in Brisbane at 7am where after a brief coffee (mocha) break we were back on another bus for Byron. We left Brisbane at 9:20am and got into Byron at 1:20pm - 21 hours and 20 mins after we had left Newcastle on what should ordinarily be about an 11 hour ride. But finally we were in the backpacker haven of beaches, bars and fun that was Byron Bay.
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