So it was off to Newcastle for me for the Easter long weekend! Laura was back home surprising everyone on her top secret mission to meet our new niece Erin - congrats again to Tory and David, she is beautiful - I can't wait to meet her for real at Christmas.

Brian and Caoimhe were kind enough to take pity on me and rather than leaving me like Macauley Culkin in Sydney asked me to tag along with them and Brian's brother Sean for a weekend road trip to Newcastle - about 2 hours north of Sydney. Woke up on the Saturday morning, the day of departure and could hardly believe it! The nice run of weather had come to an end (typical timing) with a bang and the rain was bouncing off the balcony! Had the bag packed - sun screen, swimming shorts & raincoat - didn't have a clue what to expect up there so I packed for all seasons! I jumped on the bus and headed out to my office. Sue-Ellen my manager from work had hooked me up with a sweet VW Tiguan so I had to run out there to grab it then back to the city to lift the other 3 amigos and load the car with their gear and a few bagfuls of supplies from Woolworths before hitting the road for Newcastle! We had booked into the Newcastle Backpackers http://www.backpackersnewcastle.com.au/ which was just outside town and was right what we were after. The drive up was handy enough and once we navigated the traffic out of Sydney and hit the road the rain disappeared and the sun came out - maybe this wouldn't be a washout after all!

We arrived into the hostel which seemed 100%, dumped the bags and headed to the beach recommended to us by the girl behind the desk in the hostel - gotta make the most of this sunshine! The beach was pure class with the biggest waves any of us had seen - Bondi had been trumped! We threw down the towels and just as the guys went to run into the sea the loudspeaker goes off from the lifeguard tower - "could the people about to enter the water turn back and go to the other end of the beach" - flip sake hadn't even got the toes wet! Turns out this part of the beach had been red flagged as the waves were too rough! We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out on the beach then grabbed a $5 bottle of red on the way home to wash down the spag bol that Caoimhe rustled up for us that night - it was delicious! We decided to take a run into Newcastle town that night for a couple of beers and quickly realized that Newcastle is full of headers! 2 beers later we were off to bed to rest up ahead of the run up to Port Stephens & Nelsons Bay on Sunday.

I woke up early on the Sunday morning. Me and Sean were in a 4 bed dorm (2 sets of bunks) which we were sharing with 2 Swedish girls on our first night - lucky us eh?? Only joking Laura they were dog rough!! Brian and Caoimhe had a private room next door. When I looked over to the other side of the room I couldn't see Sean in his bed, just one of the Swedish girls - flip me this boy doesn't muck about eh??!! Turns out she woke him in the middle of the night asking to swap beds so she could sleep in the bottom bunk to make it easier for her to boke in the bucket beside the bed - classy bird!! Didn't really know what we were going to do up in Port Stephens that day so we packed a lunch and jumped in the jeep and hit the road early doors. We took a walk around the harbour and decided a dolphin spotting cruise was for us. We decided to book onto one of the trips later in the afternoon giving us a couple of hours at one of the nearby beaches! We booked our tickets and jumped back in the car and headed round to one mile beach (guess how long it is???) and what a beach it was! From the car park you could see sand dunes and nothing else stretching for mile after mile to the horizon - felt like we were in the Sahara which seemed a possibility when we headed down to the bottom of the dunes and were passed by a train of camels!!! After an hour or 2 on the beach it was time to head back and meet our boat "Imagine" for the dolphin cruise which guaranteed a dolphin encounter! Now I don't know if they had these Dolphins on some sort of commission deal or what but sure enough right on cue - there were the Dolphins and plenty of them at that! We decided to take up the offer of getting into the net beside the boat to try and swim with them and sure enough once we got in they came right up to the boat - just out of touching distance and no more! An hour ago we were seemingly in a desert with camels walking past and now we were getting pulled along beside a boat with Dolphins swimming all round us - not a bad Easter Sunday! We finished the day off with fish and chips from John Dory's believe it or not and an ice cream from Baskin Robbins - you could have rolled us home!!

Monday was a planned drinking day - we had booked onto a wine tour of Hunter Valley so it was another early start with the bus picking us up from the Hostel at around 8am. First stop was Ernest Hills Winery http://www.ernesthillwines.com.au/ where the tasting began at around 10am - this was going to be a long day! First wine we had was Semillon with the woman at the winery saying she used it like Listerine and we could see why - it was delicious! One bottle of mouthwash for me please! Next Stop was the Ballabourneen Winery http://www.ballabourneen.com.au/ which was another small locally run place - bought another bottle here - this time red but that would have to be it as it was already turning into an expensive day! We called into McGuigans but this wasn't as good and didn't see the point of buying anything that I could get in Tesco down in Connswater anyway! Final winery was Blueberry Hills http://www.blueberryhill.com.au/ where we got to try a blended wine of merlot and shiraz I think - memory was getting a bit hazy by this point! Anyway the Merlot in this wine was from the same vines that won the best Merlot in the world about 15 years ago - it was alright!! Right, we had our fill of wine - well, me and Brian seemed to anyway so when we arrived at the Bluetongue Brewery http://www.hunterresort.com.au/bluetongue/index.htm we were well pleased! We got stuck in to sampling 6 different beers - only shot glass sized samples though. If we had have had 6 more pints at this stage we would have had to be carried onto the bus! We spent an hour or so relaxing in the sun sampling our beers and then made our way back to the bus - under the power of our own legs too!!

We had a cracking day and I couldn't recommend this trip enough for any of you wine lovers that happen to be in this part of the world! We got back to the hostel around dinner time and were all beat - I could have gone to bed at 6:30pm that night easy but there was a free BBQ (the weekly Monday night sausage sizzle) to get stuck into first - bed would have to wait!! A few sausage butties, beers and games of pool later and it was well and truly time to hit the sack!

We were up and away early the next morning to beat the traffic going back to Sydney but not before I grabbed a couple of photos of the street signs including James Street, Shirley Street and Stewart Avenue!!! The early start paid off and we were back in the city in 2 hours, well ahead of all the bank holiday traffic!

All in all I had such a brilliant weekend - only Laura was missing but sure she was getting spoiled rotten at home so I couldn't feel too bad for her! Big thanks to Caoimhe, Brian and Sean for the entertainment - best road trip since arriving out here, lets hope it isn't the last!!

C =)