Bali

We arrived in Bali around 3:00 this afternoon.  Surprisingly, we had a decent bit of traffic driving from McLaren Vale to Adelaide.  Usually, we get to the airport about 2 hours ahead of time.  This time, we only had around 20 minutes before the flight boarded.  Of course, this was the flight that I would get chosen for the random body scan!  I usually don’t care, but we were already running behind schedule.

The flight was uneventful.  We flew Virgin Australia in economy.

When we got to Bali, there was a man holding a sign with our name waiting for us to arrive.  Justin paid for a service that helps expedite the immigration/customs process (I think it was around 25$).  The man took our passports and got them stamped for us, so we were able to skip all the lines and chaos.  Then, we got a cart and he loaded up our bags for us and escorted us through customs.  Once we were through customs, another man (from the Chedi Club) met us and walked with us (along with the other man pushing our luggage cart) to meet the driver.  At one point we had three different people helping us!

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Adios Australia!

Today was our last day in Australia.  We are sad but looking forward to seeing something new.  Tomorrow, we fly from Adelaide to Bali.  It is about a 5 hour flight, and we’ll get there around 3 pm.  It us, Bali signifies the beginning of the end of the big trip.  We both have mixed feelings about this.  I can’t wait to see my boys and my family, but I’ll miss all of these exotic and amazing places that we have seen.

For our last day in Australia, we left Kangaroo Island fairly early in order to catch the ferry.  We said goodbye to fatty who was waiting at the door for his last bit of grain and headed out.  We drove to another wine region called McLaren Vale.  Here, we visited two vineyards: Kay Brothers and Mollydooker.  Both of them were wonderful.
We did a tasting at Kay Brothers and a tour at Mollydooker.  Kay Brothers is an old vineyard, and they make some very highly regarded wines.  The man who was pouring the wine was extremely informative.  He gave us alot of history about the wines in Australia.  We also got to taste alot of great wine!
The tour at Mollydooker was excellent.  We walked through the vineyards, and he explained what made their wines different from other wines.  Apparently, “Mollydooker” is a term that refers to a left-handed person (similar to “southpaw” in the US).  The two owners of the vineyard are both left-handed and that’s how they got the name!  The best part of this tour was that we got to see the harvested grapes being crushed and juiced.  We have never been to Napa during harvest, so we have never gotten to see this.
We also got to taste juice that was just being pressed.  Some of the other tastings came out of the giant tanks that hold the wine prior to bottling.  At the end of the tour/tasting, we were going to buy at least one bottle of wine.  But, they let us have (for free) the two bottles that they opened for the tasting.  There was another couple on the tour with us, but they said that they didn’t want it.  Crazy.
For our last night, we are staying in the Amande Bed and Breakfast.  It is not the creepy type of B&B where you sleep in an old lady’s son’s room.  We have our own little cottage separate from the main house.  Am I the only one that is creeped out by bed and breakfasts?
Our flight leaves Adelaide around 9 am tomorrow, so we’ve got an early day (the drive to Adelaide from McLaren Vale is about 45 min).  We are looking forward to seeing what Bali has to offer!
Two weeks left 🙂
Sorry for the lack of pictures. WiFi is not good (again).  I’m getting tired of that.  Hopefully, the rest of the trip will have great WiFi.  Hopefully……….!!
XOXO Alyce

A Goanna in the House……that’s it, I’m done with nature!

Yesterday, we slept in a little bit then decided to head to the main national park of Kangaroo Island, Flinders Chase National Park.  We saw several of the sights such as: the Lighthouse, Seal Bay, Admiral’s Arch, and the Remarkable Rocks.  We really enjoyed all the walks and took some beautiful pictures.

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Kangaroo Island and Dinner with the Wallabies!

Well, we FINALLY made it to Kangaroo Island after a really long day of traveling yesterday.  It was a 5 hour drive from Coonawarra (Thank God for the iPad and TV shows) to the ferry.  The ferry was about an hour, then it was another 2 hour drive to reach our vacation rental.  But we made it!  We left around 9 am and got here around 6:30pm.

Kangaroo Island is Australia’s third largest island (after Tasmania and Melville).  It is located South West of Adelaide.  Because of its remote location, there is much more wildlife and unspoiled scenery than there is in some of the bigger areas of Australia.

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Coonawarra

Today, we continued our drive towards Kangaroo Island, stopping in one of Australia’s main wine growing regions – Coonawarra.  The weather in Coonawarra is much warmer than New Zealand.  This region is known for making some really beautiful big red wines.  This is the type of wine that Justin and I prefer.  We love going to Napa to try all the great Cabernet Sauvignon.  Coonawarra is the most similar style to Napa that we have seen so far.

We visited three vineyards: Parker Estate, Majella, and Penley Estate.  We really enjoyed all three of them.

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Great Ocean Road

We left Melbourne yesterday.  I didn’t want to leave the hotel!  The next few days, we are going to be roughing it.  I keep referring to it as “camping” and Justin keeps telling me that I clearly don’t know what camping means.  I have to admit that Girl Scout troop 552 was more like troop Beverly Hills.

Anyway, while I packed up the hotel, Justin walked to pick up the rental car.  It’s really nice!  It is a Camry, and we think it’s brand new…..still has the new car smell!

We stopped at Shadowfax vineyard on our way out of Melbourne to do our first Australian wine tasting.  We really enjoyed trying all of the different wine and seeing how it compared to New Zealand.  One thing that we tried was sparkling Shiraz.  It was pretty good, but I don’t think that I could drink too much of it.  I can barely drink a whole glass of Champagne.

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Melbourne

Hi everyone! Sorry for the retro review yesterday.  We didn’t get home from dinner until kinda late and, honestly, I didn’t feel like doing a post.  We were only in Melbourne for three nights, and they went by really quickly! We are already on our way to the Great Ocean Road!  The Great Ocean Road is a coastal drive will lots of things to do along the way, plus some beautiful places to stop and take pictures. At least that’s what Justin in telling me. Most of the time I have no clue where we are going until we get there!

Anyway, back to Melbourne……..

Yesterday, we spent some more time walking around the city (although, I REALLY didn’t want to leave the hotel room).  We intended to walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Unfortunately, we never actually made it there.  We saw some of the park, but it was so hot and sunny that I could literally feel my skin scorching…….oh the lucky dermatologist who gets to see me after this trip…….!

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Napa 2010 Retro Review

I typed this up a couple years ago after we got back from Napa.  It’s long, but I had some friends that would be travelling there soon.  Plus, I like having the reports (same as now with the wrap ups).  We have since been back to Napa, so it is fun to go back and read the report.

We should be back to current stuff tomorrow.  Here is Napa 2010 with some pictures from Alyce’s facebook account:

 Napa – May 2010

I enjoyed this trip more than I was expecting too.  Going into it I was excited about all of the eating out plans and thought touring/tasting the wineries would just be a filler during the day to get to the meals…I was wrong.

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