Friday, October 17, 2003

 
Today we did a wine tour organized by Cork'n Fork. And we had a fantastic time. We were picked up by Peter (he and his wife Judi are running the tour) in his 21 year old Holden, a beautiful classic car, and he brought us to Carunga, where Judi waited with the small van, as she had picked up 3 other people from the coastal hotels. So we were a small group of 5 which made it much more comfortable. We checked out 4 wineries: O'Reilys, Albert River, Heritage and Cedar Creek. As a bonus we went to "the smallest, legally operated distillery" and it was very interesting. They produce all kinds of spirits and liquors there, using fresh produce from their garden trees. They also have a beautiful peacock prancing around. Lunch was also great, at the beautiful Heritage winery. Choice was Steak, Fish or Chicken/Ceasar Salad, and it was all of great quality (not cheapo fish'n chips). And desert was an absolute evil "Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce" (Recipe 1, Recipe 2). The Cedar Creek Estate is a very beautiful place with a pond for wild ducks, the staff was very nice albeit a bit overworked (seems in the afternoon more groups come by).


Peter took us then back to Brisbane and this great wine tour was over. I highly recommend this tour to anyone who visits the Gold Coast or Brisbane and is somewhat interested in wine (one in our group was actually a non-drinker, he was just very interested to see the places and enjoy the atmosphere.)

After getting back, I went to the post office and then to a bottle shop I had been before, where I found a bottle of Cachaca, and the owner said he would get more for me. He recognized me right away, very nice guy, we chatted a bit, at one point while he had to run into the backroom he said "grab a beer and open it and open it, open one for me too!" ... this was pretty funny. So we chatted some more about wines and exotic spirits (gladly not about rugby of which I have no idea) while sipping a nice Becks beer.


Back to the hotel and leaving for some more shopping. Friday nights the shops stay open a bit longer and Queen Street Mall is very crowded with afterwork drinking people, late shoppers and people getting ready for the weekend. I tried to go online, but the signal phased in an out. For dinner we went to our favorite Sushi place, which this time was very crowded, and we nearly got seated together with a group of 5 young men, who appeared to have already partied a bit, they were loud and rude and we quickly asked for different seats. Those 5 were later shown the door as they found it funny to pick food from the passing plates (instead of taking the plate). Sushi was great again, this time I even asked for some sea-urchin (uni) and even that was very tasty.




We walked back home and went to bed right away.

posted by Peter 7:31 PM