Newcastle (Sun 4th -Thurs 8th Jan 2009)

It's been a nostalgic few days in Newcastle. 22 years ago I spent a year with my family in this part of the world on a teaching exchange. I worked in a TAFE (Technical and Further education) college in Newcastle and we lived in a small town called Tanilba Bay 30 minutes north. These past few days have been spent revisiting old haunts and meeting old friends. We have been staying with Bob and Lorraine who stay in a lovely spot only a few minutes drive from Lake McQuarrie on one side and the Pacific Coast on the other. After our prison cell in Sydney this has been a few days of luxury being pampered, fed and spoilt by our lovely hosts.

We took the train for the 3 hour journey from Sydney and were met by B and L who whisked us off to Tanilba Bay to have lunch with our exchangees of 22 years ago Colin and Lynley. They have moved house since then but we did go past their/our old house which brought a lump to the throat. The house and the town don't seem to have changed much apart from some new houses and the new Coles shopping centre.

The next day B and L took us to the Blackbutt Reserve where Gwen met her first koala, wombat and wallaroo. It was also the first time she had seen an emu that was not attached to Rod Hull. Another day we borrowed Bob's car to visit the Hunter Valley, one of Australia's most famous wine growing areas. We visited 4 vineyards including some of the bigger ones such as Hungerford Hill, McGuigan's, Rosemount but my favorite was one of the smaller ones Audrey Wilkinson (no relation unfortunately) which had great views over the valley. We did a bit of wine tasting but were careful not to over-indulge as they are pretty heavy on drink driving here with billboards every few miles reminding you not to drink. The police can also stop you at any time for a breathalyser test as Gwen found out a few days later. There were no tours available as it is too near the grape picking and they weren't taking any chances. I was also disappointed to discover that only a few of the vineyards made their wine on the premises. Most shipped the grapes down to South Australia to be processed and bottled.

Another day we took a nostalgic visit back to the college I taught in. I just about remembered the building I took most of my classes in. We also visited the town centre of Newcastle which has changed dramatically. The old centre of Hunter Street is now very run down but there are lots of other dockside developments. I did not recognise the place.

On our final day we had a very enjoyable evening at Susan (B and L's daughter) and Colin's house for dinner.They were planning to show a movie in their garden on a big screen but unfortunately the rain made this impossible......sounds a bit like Scotland !

Speaking of the weather ... it's been a strange week. We had 3 days of hot weather including 2 days at 40 degrees followed by 2 "cool" days with temperature dropping to the low 20s together with heavy rain.

Thanks again to Bob and Lorraine for all their wonderful hospitality. It was great to see them again and we appreciated everything they did for us.