I totally forgot!! They took chad!!!

So as I was sleeping in this morning there was a knock on the door, there was a couple other guys in the room but no one got up, heard a key go in & unlock the door, it opens and in walks a couple cops and a lady in uniform... She asks for a chad, a guy on the bunk across the room says yes, then she introduced herself as immigration!! Chad's visa ran out or something and they came to take him away! I almost laughed, it's like that customs show in tv. He looked like a terrorist anyways ;-) just kidding! Never met the guy.

-- Post From My iPhone

Lost in Melbourne and the $200 oil change!

Started of the day getting up early to drop off my car at the auto shop to get my oil changed. Said it might be a couple hours till they get back to me with an estimate after they do a thorough inspection, said I only wanted an oil change but they said the inspection was included... Handed the keys over and out the door I went. Wasn't sure where I was headed but I still managed to get lost... Eventually found myself at the queen victoria markets again, but it was closed today, like a ghost town! It was one of those open air markets that took up like 2 square blocks or more with merchants yelling out specials, old women pushing around little carts full of fresh veggies... But today nothing but a couple of the produce stands open, actually wanted to look at the shoe stands for a deal on hiking boots, my shoes suck. Since the market was closed I decided I would just hop on the free bus which stopped there... Well not till 10:30! So I wondered around a little while, sent a couple emails, booked my Adelaide to Darwin trip and finally hop on the bus... Destination unknown! Just the way I like it. Decided it was a nice enough day to check out the royal botanical gardens, stop 14 :-) and just before I got off the bus I got the call from the car place, I need new tires, new shocks, a couple bulbs, wipers... Stopped him before he said any numbers and said ok just the oil, bulbs and wipers today... How much? Bla bla bla, No, just that... Well $225!!!!woh?!? $75 for the oil change, $50 for the oil and filter, wipers, bulbs, more labor... What could I do? But hey this is the 1st thing besides gas I've had to spend so I guess it's fine. So on I went into the gardens. Much better weather than the day before, a little chilly and cloudy but dry. It being the end of fall not many flowers in bloom but it was still a nice way to spend the morning, it was big enough that it took me a few hours to explore most of it. Hopped back on the bus to check out something else... Maybe federation square? But before I could get there, the car place called and said it was ready for pickup....umm now where was that place. Took the bus as close as it got to where I thought it was and started walking, quite aimlessly. It was at the edge of town so the city maps I had didn't show it. But eventually I found it, paid and drove the car back to the hostel. Got ahold of Ryu and Sarah to see what there plans were for tonight, said they were thinking of heading to the casino in a little while so I said I'd meet them there, beside I still wanted to check out the funky modern art buildings at federation square which I though was really close to the casino. I don't know how I did it but I found the hotel for the casino but took a wrong turn and got lost again! Ended up in the back alleyway. Basically circled the entire building which took up like 5 blocks. Met up with my friends, had a beer...hoegarden! And we hit the casino... Well we just played the slot machines, 2c ones mostly, but I did play a 5c one and ended up winning $35! In the end I think I was up about $25. It was about dinner time so we headed out, all quickly agreed on one if those sushi train places in china town. And guess what happened we all got lost! Wondering around and around, finally finding a place but it was way too expensive, like $4 for 2 pieces. So we just wondered around and around china town looking for a good deal. We ended up finding a place they saw the night before which was a dumpling house in a scary alley, but the place was packed which is always a good sign. Food was awesome, little pork dumplings, fried and steamed, steamed buns and a round of tiger beer. Next we headed out looking for this place that they said had $10 jugs (pitchers) well after 3 pitchers trying to figure out which one it was, we left...paying full price for all if them hahaha. They needed to find a place to stay for the night so we wondered around a little more... It was starting to get late and streets were filling up with the young crowd looking for fun. On one street corner we met a Latino cutie that gave us tickets to a new dance club, ffour club or something like that... Well it was a hell of a party...Coronas, tequila shots, mojitos, long island ice teas... And all 2 for 1 pricing. Too bad the mojotos were $16 a piece, so $32 for 4 and a little light on alcohol and heavy in the sugar but the long island ice teas later made up for that. Glad I didn't buy that round.
All that drinking made my walk home very very interesting...haha and to top it off my phone was dying to I couldn't use it to navigate me home. I know sad. But I made it. I wanted to head out early in the morning and possibly make it all the way to sydney but wasnt feeling too hot. Slept in till check out time, hopped in the car and well, got lost. Lost lost lost all morning, i was trying to avoid toll roads so I just stayed on main roads headed east...but!!! Should have been heading north, grrr, seriously. Thought I needed to take the Princes Hwy but should have been the Hume Hwy. Did I mention I was staying in the north part of town?
Finally after an hour and a half got out of the city and was back on the open road. Weather was perfect, drive was a little boring, nothing really to stop and look at or do. Stopped for lunch in the town where ned Kelly made his last stand (need to resaerch who that was, they mentioned him also during the Melbourne tour when we passed the jail) I did see a little of the damage from recent bushfires.
Im in Canberra, australia's national capital, at the moment, stating at a hostel aka backpacker aka I'm sleeping in a room with 9 other stinky travellers! But hey it's only $30 and the kitchen is always open.
So anyone got the pig flu thing? I keep thinking I'm going to get stuck on Tasmania because it's going to start taking over and I'll be one of the remaining survivors because I was isolated on the small island... And yes, I will help repopulate the world!
Ok bed time, sweetdreams!

-- Post From My iPhone

I know what I'm doing tonight!

Just walked into the lounge room in the hostel I'm staying at tonight and they're watching close encounters of the 3rd kind... Freaking awesome! Hahaha, just wanted to share my excitement!


-- Post From My iPhone

On the road!

Well I started my journey. Left yesterday (Monday) morning about 6:30. The weather sucked the whole way, bad rain, windy and clouds. After leaving the Clare valley I entered the barossa valley, and the heavens openned up, my windshield wipers couldn't keep up. I was actually excited to drive through the valley and check out the wineries... But no stopping in this weather. Might have another chance in a couple weeks but likely not. Guess I'll have to come back. Haha I also had a goal to find a place to get an oil change... Thought "easy task, just need to find the Aussie version of jiffy lube, 15 minute delay, easy!" well found the biggest city along the way, Murray Bridge, drove around for about an hour with no luck, so gave up, filled up with petrol, grabbed a farmers union ice coffee (only in south australia & would be leaving SA soon) and continued down the road. Weather at this point wasn't bad, intermittent rain and clear skys. Next stop was in Bordertown, you guessed it on the border of the states SA and victoria. From here I headed to the Grampians, a mountain range and national forest. Really wish it would have been clear, what I could see was awesome though, big jagged peaks, dense forests (been in rolling hills of drought stricken Clare for too long). Oh yeah and I saw more wild kangaroos!!! One actually jumped across the road in front of me! Cool but I think it would cause major damage, like hitting a deer low to the ground. Took a nice hike to the bottom of the Mackenzie falls... Got me pretty winded but great to get out of the car after driving for hours!!! By the time I finally got down out of the mountains it was just about 6 pm and starting to get dark... Looking back I should have stopped for the night but really was looking forward to meeting up with my buddies Ryu and Sarah in Melbourne... Should have realized driving in heavy rain in city traffic would be hell!!! But I made it, only 30 off schedule! At 8:30. That's right I drove from Clare to Melbourne in one shot, 14 hours on the road. I'm still tired, haha. But today was pretty relaxed. Ryu, Sarah and I took the free tourist bus all over the city checking out the sites...MCG, victoria market, a bunch of cool art & statues, this massive ferris wheel, federation square and ... Ya the whole city! Finished it off by getting a beer at this famous bar with a nude painting called chloe. Can't remember the name at the moment, right across the street from the flinders train station.
Tomorrow more of the same, finally getting my car in for an oil change (hopefully nothing more) so will be car-less. Might just find a quiet cafe and people watch in one of the ethic neighborhoods, maybe the Italian one. Thursday I'm headed for Sydney to sell back my car then fly to Tasmania on Saturday. I'm pretty excited, used my iPhone to book both the tour and flight all over the Internet... I love technology.

-- Post From My iPhone

Last night in Clare...

Had some what of a fun night. Started out slow, had a couple and watch the end of the football game on tv... Called up Will invited him down to join me at the bentley pub. Thought it would be fun to do a pub crawl, getting a drink at every pub in Clare... All three of them! I know big night.
Today I slept in one last time, drove around town looking for a place to get my oil changed, failed. I'm planning to take off very early tomorrow to meet up with my friends in Melbourne for a couple days before I head to Sydney to sell my car and head to Tassie (Tasmania) to start my journey. Been researching flights online but scared to book without having my bus tours confirmed. I just need to jump.


-- Post From My iPhone

Pig flu

Is this for real or crazy Aussie news?!?!!!


-- Post From My iPhone

Burrrrrr

Wow what a change in the weather. The rain came and took all the heat away! They say this rain is the most they've had for a few years. It's funny, on the news they keep forecasting more rain and smiling and saying "but no ones complaining".... Well I sure am! I finally finish up work, get some free time to check out the local sites before I head off and it's a freaking monsoon out there... Looks like Oregon out there!
But I beared the weather and headed out to watch another footy game (Aussie rules football) between north and south clare. Today is Anzac day, which I gather is like veterans day so there was a special service before the start of the game, a veteran said a little something, some sad trumpet music and a moment of silence. It was sad, the rain slowed as they lined everyone up but just as the old guy was giving his speech it started to dump buskets and the wind picked up and flipped his umbrella inside out, he said "that's not good" and everyone laughed. The game was a good one as most wet games are, no one could hold the ball and bodies were sliding everywhere... One guy even slide off the field slamming his head into the fence, he got up slow but was ok. What was really funny was when one of the goals that was kicked went flying through the uprights it smashed the windshield of a skyline (a sports car) he was actually sitting in his car and jumped out right as it happened. Sucks to be him... Smashed window in the rain.
Anyways this might be my last night in Clare so I think I'm going to go out and check out the pubs one last time. But it's cold and rainy so I'm not sure how long I'll last.
Holla!

-- Post From My iPhone

Goodbye Sevenhill Cellars! XO!

Well I made my last trip to work today to pick up a couple bottles of vino and say goodbye to everyone one last time. Showed up just in time for smoko so I had a cup of coffee with the admin crew ... :-( a little sad as I drove away.
After having me manage the bottling line and crew all day, Liz took the winery whole crew out for a dinner at the sevenhill pub. I usually get the chicken parmi but went for the kangaroo striploin (parmi is better, ha) we had a fun night, lots of free beers for tommy! :-) the funniest part of the night was Richard telling stories, what a weird one. But kept us laughing.
Anyways doing laundry and starting to pack up. My time in Clare is coming to an end and I'm so excited get travelling... Which I still don't have planned out much but really how do you plan 6 or more weeks on the road?
I'll keep in touch!

-- Post From My iPhone

Forgot to mention...

This weekend I went to a Australian rules football game with my coworker Will. It's totally different then American football, ball looks about the same but white, the field is an oval, there's 4 goal posts so 3 openings (6 point goal through the center, a single point through the side uprights), it's played more like soccer with non-stop running and passing the ball, passing must be done 2 ways either "hand balls" which is kind of like a underhand vollyball serve or by drop kicking it. If it's kicked and caught by a teammate then the player gets a mark and no one can touch him for like 10 seconds. You can only run with the ball for a couple paces the you gave to pass it (handball or kick) or you can bounce it (which isn't easy with a football, not round & on grass) anyways I'm sure there's more rules but that's what I understand... It's very confusing, the tackling rules make no sense to me. It's fun seeing new sports, like cricket, is actually pretty cool.
Before the game Will and I hit up a couple Clare valley winerys and what luck, the first place we went to had a Hen party there!!! Hen parties are what they call a group of crazy girls for a day out, and in this case drunk hot ones!!! Haha they were on a wine tasting tour and the bus driver was cool and asked if we wanted to join them for lunch that he was making... Umm... YES! They were very interested in our jobs and exacty where Oregon is and what it's like there. Wish I could have got a big group picture with them, or at least any photo to remember it.
Oh and thought I would post a link to the winery I got a job at this fall... Jordanwinery.com
Peace out all!

Overload!!! Mucho informationo!!!

So I've been super busy with work and trying to have somewhat of a social life (almost destroyed both with a embarrassing drunken call walking home from the pubs late one Friday night...gulp O_o). The past month has flown by... Didn't realize I haven't updated my blog for so long... So what has been going on...
Work has been crazy busy but super fun and interesting, plenty of learning new and different winemaking things... Like making dessert wines that involved fermenting whites on skins, vinomatics, and overnight cold soaks in the press. Helping shovel open fermenters. I got to do another run of 10 liter box wine fillings, Liz called it zen time, it's very mind numbing and a solo job. Heaps of juice and wine racking. Bentonite adds!! And quite a few other random jobs... Crushing, pressing, pumpovers, barreling... A little of anything and everything!!! And only making a couple mistakes like addition errors and temperature probs...grrr... Took those a little personal, feel like I'm letting Liz down and that I'm better then that.
But it's starting to slow down, heard we brought in over 270 tons so far and the end is near, either end of this week or next... At which time I will take my leave!! I can't wait to hit the road. I think I made enough to take 3 great tours. One of the east coast, Sydney to Cairns which involves a couple days at surf camp, 4wd around fraiser island, sailing the whiteundays, diving the great barrier reef and 4wd daintree rainforest and more. Second is down the center through the outback, Darwin to Adelaide (or Melbourne) with a mix of camping and hostels, 4wd through the litchfield and kakadu national parks (lots of waterfalls I heard), katherine gorge, a few days in the center at the big red rock Uluru, kings canyon, olgas, visit the flinder ranges and other national parks, includes lots of hikes, aboriginal culture and sleeping out under the stars. And third a week long tour of Tasmania! Heard it's awesome down on there. A mix of camping, hiking and loads of outdoor fun... But possibly very rainy this time of year.
Over the long Easter weekend had fun with my friends working at another winery in town that all finished up work and were in a partying mood. On Sunday we all went to the horseraces in town (won't with about 5000 others, it was massive! Last time we went there was a few hundred) had a bad time at first because I lost everyone for like an hour and could call or txt since everyone else was trying to use there phones. But finally found them n the parking lot tailgating, where we stayed the rest of the races, they agreed too many people and none of us were winning. After the races and it got dark it turned into a dance party... Had a lot of fun. Took the drunk bus home and back in town the only place to eat ran out of food just as I got up to the counter!!! Had to wait to get home and make a ham and cheese toastie, yummm
Like I said my friends all finished up work and had to say goodbye to them this past week, I hope to run into them again, they are also traveling around Australia for the next couple months.
Today I met a goal I've been workmg on for the past 3 weeks. I walked the entire Riesling trail! It's a walking/ bike path that runs the length of the Clare valley, 25 km in total but I basically did it twice since it's not a loop and walked about 8 km at a time and back to where I started. Found the beginning in Clare then to sevenhill and back. Next did sevenhill to watervale and back. And today I did 10 kms from watervale to auburn and back... And it was a hot one today. But it feels good, maybe I will get a bike from work and ride the whole thing next weekend, which should be pretty easy to do in one day.
And the biggest news of all!!!
I awake yesterday morning to find an email from my old boss Pat Fallon who was winemaker at Edenvale who is now cellar master at Jordan winery in Alexander valley north of sonoma. He asked if I would be interested in working with him again for the upcoming havest in California... Umm yes!!! I actually have been worrying about what I was going to do when I get back home. No worries now mate, I got a freakng J O B
Well it's getting late, should head off to bed... That's all for now.