July 26, 2007

The last day in Sydney... so we decided to do something that would keep us occupied all day - the zoo! We took the ferry over to Taranga Zoo, which was a nice ride through the Sydney harbor in the opposite direction that we have been going in. When you get off the ferry you get to jump on the sky-car that takes you up the hill, over the zoo, and drops you off at the top of the hill. It was neat! This zoo is supposed to have one of the best views of any zoo - and it does! It overlooks the Sydney harbor including the Opera House and the Bridge. We spent the whole day walking around the zoo - it's huge! And very well designed so that you can wander through the zoo without running into the same thing twice. We saw birds and Australian animals, Asian animals, and African animals. There were lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) and giraffes and elephants and all sorts of other animals. One of the giraffes was blind, though the zookeeper said he did just fine since he knew the enclosure pretty well. We also saw a couple of the shows that the zookeepers put on. One was a seal and sea lion show. It was very well done, with very subtle signals for the animals so that it really looked like they knew what the trainers were saying. They would do things like start talking about the anatomy of the flippers and the sea lion would raise its flipper and wave at the audience. They were also big on making sure that they ended with a "what can you do to help these animals in the wild" speech. The other show we saw was a "freeflight" bird show. This included doves, hawks, a couple eagles, cockatoos and owls. They flew low over the audience while someone talked about them, and a couple were trained to do things like pick up a coin from someone in the audience or land on an audience member's outstretched hand. This was done in an outdoor auditorium that opened out over the harbor for a spectacular backdrop. The whole day was a lot of fun! Tonight: packing.

July 25, 2007

Today: wine-tasting! We booked with a tour group of wineries in Hunter Valley (about an hour out of Sydney), but got a phone call last night that we were the only ones and thus, they had to cancel the tour. However, at about 7am we got another phone call offering to book us with a different group - we happily accepted!
So an hour later we got on a bus with about 10 other people and headed out of Sydney. On the way to Hunter Valley they showed us a video about wine making and wine tasting, and at about 11 (after a stop for gas and food) we arrived at the first boutique winery. A boutique winery doesn't sell its wine to stores, and definitely doesn't sell over seas. Instead they sell to their members and through the "cellar door" - or to people who show up. Our first winery for the day was Iron Gate. We all lined up along the counter with glasses in front of us and began our tasting experience. The woman there was very good about explaining the appropriate way to taste wines and get the full experience of the taste. She also showed us the spittoons that we could dump the rest of our wine into if we didn't feel like finishing it (and promised she wouldn't be offended). One should start with white wine and move to red, then finish with dessert wines. One should also hold the glass by the stem so as not to warm the wine (and by the way "room temperature" that red wine is supposed to be at is actually lower than most of our rooms' temperature - so it is supposed to be chilled a little bit before being served). And it's completely ok to cover the glass with your hand and shake the glass of wine to aerate the wine to bring out its flavor. So we tasted a few whites and a few reds and a couple of dessert wines. The white wine that is signature for Hunter Valley is a Semillon, which is one of the few whites that will age well - it becomes buttery and smooth after a few years. This particular winery offered one of the oldest of these wines that is sold at the cellar door. Iron Gate is also one of the few wineries that processes the wine on site from the grapes it grows. Many of the vineyards send their grapes to larger wineries for processing and bottling.
The next winery was one of those larger wineries. It also gets grapes from various places to make its own wine, which it sells to stores and over seas. We tasted wines here as well - many of the same wines, as certain grapes grow well in this valley. But there was also an interesting raspberry wine, which I don't think I could drink, but would have been great drizzled over ice cream or with chocolate.
Then it was on to lunch - which was delicious sandwiches of all sorts and some hot tea for me (though today was one of the nicest weather days yet!). And then we wandered through a couple of interesting little shops - a chocolate shop and a cheese store (to go with the wine), a couple of places that did flavored vinegars and olive oils, and various cooking equipment - it was basically a collection of stores for people who love food and cooking! We also walked through a bit of a vineyard and tried wines at another winery. It's winter here, so the fines are all in hibernation and they are in the process of trimming all the vines waaaay down so they will regrow in the spring. It was a very pleasant mid-day experience!
For the afternoon we first stopped at the Smelly Cheese Shop and tried some local cheeses and some imported cheeses... all smelly of course. Delicious! There were some really nice blue cheeses and some marinated fetta that was great. And we went to one final winery - probably the best of the day, but possibly just because we had all been drinking wine all day. But it was a neat winery. Each of their wines was named after a family member who had passed away, as it was a family business. And the woman who talked us through those wines was very funny. On the ride home we watched "Little Miss Sunshine" - which was a slightly surreal thing to do on a bus in Australia on your way back from a day of wine tasting.