Today Sydney..tomorrow Barcelona

We are currently back in Sydney. It's our last day in Aus(boo-hoo!). Tomorrow we head for Barcelona(Barca)..We've had a great time in Aus. Thanks to our hosts Mossie and Dre for putting up with us in Sydney.

We've had a fine last week in Aus. On Tuesday we went to the most Easterly point in Australia, Cape Byron. What a beautiful spot! Cape Byron is a national park that hugs the coastline. It has a famous old lighthouse and a nice path that tourists can walk to visit the Easterly point...which we did of course. The day was beautiful and both the dolphins and the lizards were on display.

On Wednesday we arrived in Cessnock, the heart of Hunter valley wine country, about 200Km from Sydney. We headed straight to the information center for some info on the wineries, and surprisingly the best cup of coffee I have ever tasted! From the info center we headed straight for a winery called McGuigan's. The wine was good but the cheese was even better next door at the Hunter Valley Cheese Company..we came away with a lot of yummy homemade cheese and crackers. For the rest of the day we toured various wineries: Tamburlaine, Lindemans, Rosemount and Ivanhoe. After checking in to our tourist park, we took a bus to a local brewery, Potters Brewery for a pint. After all this drinking, we were understandably very tired and it was time to retire for the next day.

Thursday in the Hunter valley was not as hectic. We visited a chocolate company, the Olive center, the Champagne house winery, Sobels wines where we met the star of the movie "Hook", a St. Bernard dog called Joe, another cheese company and finally the Blue tongue brewery. Blue Tongue had a very tasty Autumn beer that was a perfect finish to our Aus wine tour.

On Friday we headed back to the city. We parted with our house of 50 days, the campervan. It has been a great journey in it...we definitely recommend travelling this country in one.

Since returning we have been quiet enough. We went for some Indonesian/Thai food on Saturday night with Mossie and Dre, on Sunday we visited Fox Studios and Centennial park, a beautiful park in Sydney. We toured Stadium Australia at Sydney Olympic Park on Monday.

That's probably the final update on Aus. Tomorrow we head to Barca, a 27 hour flight with stopovers (ouch!). On Sunday we go to Barca's famous football (soccer for the heathens!) stadium called the Camp Nou to see U2 and we finally head into Ireland on the 10th. Stay posted for more updates soon.

Cheers!
Mike