Sydney to Mudgee.
The start of Finch Tours NSW & QLD begins with us making a reasonably early start just before 10am from Simons house in Balmain. The route takes us from Sydney along the Great Western Highway towards the Blue Mountains and then cuts up northwards to Mudgee, which was about 4 hours, drive in total. We arrived fresh faced and eager to start the tour having absorbed the scenic countryside of New South Wales changing from city to mountains and gum trees to dry drought stricken rolling countryside and smaller roads. Mudgee is one of the main wine growing areas of Australia (3rd biggest I think) with the Hunter Valley (Rosemount/Hardys) being the better known and more widely visited competition. Not wishing to miss out on the short amount of time we had there we set up camp avoiding using our tents for the first night and got a very cheap caravan which housed a double bed for Darren and Sarah and two bunk beds for me and Finch as well as a microwave, dining table, fridge, and TV! No slumming it for us���
Quickly into town which turned out to be a good � hour walk and to reward ourselves at the Red Heifer for a swift drink before heading out of town on foot to investigate Mudgee races which was taking place that day. Having walked 20mins out of town and while standing near the side of the racetrack (which seemed very quiet for a big race day) we decided to venture further up the road to one of the local wineries to sample the local produce. This turned out to be further than anticipated in the heart of the sun but nevertheless we arrived at Platt�s Wines thirsty in need of a cheeky Chardonnay or two. Its always awkward when you go wine tasting as you play a game where you pretend with each vinery that you visit you really are very interested in purchasing some vino and actually know what you�re talking about as you do it. Where once you simply uncorked a bottle and (this is true in Liverpool) have to be restrained from drinking straight from the neck by your friends until a glass appears (or maybe its just me), now you find yourself swilling the wine pretending to look at the colour, sniffing it with a puzzled look on your face and then knocking it back slightly slower than usual. This is then followed by a look of (usually) satisfaction and the sentence �Yes I�d love to try the Shiraz�. However it is very accommodating that the wine owners go along with along with this charade although they must know. The man at Platt�s seemed very perturbed that we hadn�t driven there, maybe he was worried that unshackled by the drink driving laws we sit and drink his stock, but anyway we moved on further up the road to Sharwoods which was closed and then to Vinifera which was hosted but a very nice lady again armed with a stack of red and whites ready for us to try.
We decided after two that the others would be closed (it was six by this point) and trekked back to town for a repeat drink in the Red Heifer before moving onto another pub and the dangerous combination of Bundaberg (Rum) and Coke. Needless to say as the evening got on my memory of it is a little hazier. I do however have the image of middle age women in their best �race day clobber� dancing in front of the live band (badly) wearing pink bowler hats. Very surreal.
Sunday 12th Jan
Wine tasting day!! Best way to spend a Sunday in my opinion. We set off in search of Vineries armed with the local wine producing map and visited seven in total sampling probably about on average five wines in each (Finch was on a reduced programme as he was driving). We started out at Sharwoods which had been closed the day before where we started our spending spree � nice guy who was there, Darren ended up buying 1 bottle of red plus 1 bottle of cooking wine and Simon got 3 bottles of the cooking wine. Then onto Mudgee Wines across the road where we had half an hour of fun with a crazy guy who proceeded to slag off Muslims, Americans, and backpackers amongst others, he did however have and excellent Shiraz which was A$15 a bottle but I bartered (those old Asian habits refusing to die) him down to A$10 a bottle if I bought half a case (bargain that�s about a 3.50GBP per bottle). Having escaped and the car rapidly beginning to sag under the weight of the 11 bottles we had already bought we managed to visit Red Clay, Knights Vines (mad ex-US Navy guy who claimed that some Arabs had been in cleared the place of their 2000 Port and asked where locally the could go to practice shooting!), Peter Van Gent (old church pews to sit in but a bit up themselves), Farmers Daughter (with free cheese and biscuits that we demolished having got the munchies by this point), and Frog Rock without further purchases (apart from a Muscat from Peter Van Gent for Darren and Sarah).
We retired to the caravan park to have a BBQ and drink a bottle of our newly acquired wine as well as playing some cricket and Aerobie (number of times Aerobie recovered from a tree � 2) before I decided at 5pm that it was probably about time to tell the agency in Sydney that I wouldn�t be going in to work for RIC on Monday, something that I had been putting off all weekend, and imagine my surprise when instead of getting the answer phone it was diverted straight through to Narelle�s mobile so I had to explain apologetically that I was dumping them in it. In the end it went surprisingly well although I don�t think the guys at RIC would be too chuffed, in the end they were just making work for a temp to do. Well that�s my justification and I�m sticking to it���