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Hi there! Well, last time I wrote I had just returned from the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland and was recovering from sea sickness and trying to walk in a straight line! Since then, I have been quite busy on the sight-seeing front. Last Friday I took mum to see ‘La Traviata’ at the opera house. We got really dressed up and had a fantastic evening. The opera was great, and due to the words being translated into English, I enjoyed it a lot more, as I could understand what was going on. It was amazing to finally watch an opera in the opera house and definitely a dream come true for mum. We then went for a lovely Chinese dinner in China Town. On Tuesday of this week, we went for a day trip to the Blue Mountains. I have been before (I have written a journal entry about it before) but I thought that this time it would be fun to go on an organised day tour, so that we could pack as much in as possible. On the way we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park. For the first time mum saw echidna, wombats, fairy penguins, dingoes and touched her first koala. Although I have seen them before, I still loved it. The Australian wildlife is so very unique and interesting. We then reached the Blue Mountains, and after lunch we viewed Wentworth Falls, the 3 Sisters at Echo Point and the village of Leura. Mum also enjoyed the rides in scenic world, taking a cable car over Katoomba Falls and riding the worlds steepest railway, which has an 82% incline! My fear of anything, fast, high or up and down (!!!) stopped me from joining her but she really enjoyed it nonetheless. We then finished off the day with a river cruise back to Sydney. The trip was really well organised and we did loads throughout the day. On Friday, we took a day trip to the Hunter Valley wine region (NSW). I have been on a day trip to the Hunter Valley region before but forgot to update my travel journal so I thought that this time I would remember! So, we left Sydney over the Harbour Bridge, reaching the small township of Wollombi after about 1.5hrs. Wollombi is a typical Aussie outback village, few people, a general store and a village pub. We sampled the famous Wollombi ‘Jungle Juice,’ which went down a treat at 10.45am! Then we made our way to the Hunter Valley for some wine tasting. During a fantastic lunch at McWilliams Mount Pleasant Winery we sampled 2 white, 2 red and a dessert wine followed by some port. We then went one to McQuigans and Oakvale Cellar to sample in total another 18 wines. It was a great day, both mum and I learnt quite a bit about wines and had a great laugh too. The weather was gorgeous (about 27) so we went for a stroll around the Hunter Valley Gardens Village and sampled some local fudge. We also made a few purchases of wine and fudge! I still haven’t been converted to like red wine yet, its white all the way for me I’m afraid but I still don’t think that you can beat a great pint of lager J Mum leaves on Monday so I have a few days left to (re-)visit Bondi Beach, Manly beach, Chinatown and a bit of shopping in Sydney city centre. Funds permitting I am planning a trip to the Australian capital, Canberra at the end of the month so expect to hear from me then! Lots of love, Maria (& mum!)
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