Today is the last day for Stan to be at his current age! Tomorrow he officially turns another year older, although if he were still in the states, that event would occur 16 hours later. Freaky Australian time! None the less, I want to be the first to wish this wonderful man of mine and father to our daughters, Happy Birthday!!! Stan, you are indeed, you are the light of my life!

We saw more countryside today. Honestly, once you leave the city, any city, there is nothing except vast golden fields, sparse gum and cedar trees, cows (many, many, many cows), and sheep. The only crops you see are grain fields and vineyards.

How this happens I don't know, but we decided to take a break from the highway and landed in the heart of High Country Wine Region. We met Bob Morrison, owner and chief winemaker at Morrison's. Bob is a retired 40-year educator, who was strongly encouraged by his wife to do something meaningful in his retirement. Now the whole family is involved in winemaking. We happened to arrive during the fermentation process for his Shiraz. Because the winery is a small, strictly family operation, Bob invited us to help him stir the grapes to expose the juice to the skins so that the juice takes-on more flavor and color. At this point in the winemaking process, the grapes must be stirred six times a day. The instrument used to stir the grapes resembled a wooden butter churn. Of all the wineries we have visited in our travels, we have never visited during the wine-making process. This was truly a first for us. Bob also told us history of the region. Apparently, Ned Kelly has some notoriety in the area. Sometime around 1880, he decided that the area here should secede itself from Victoria and become a separate state. He took several hostages and a final violent confrontation with police took place at Glenrowan, the local township, in June 1880. Kelly, dressed in home-made plate metal armor (see the photos) and a helmet, was captured and sent to jail. He was convicted of three counts of willful murder and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in November 1880. His daring and notoriety made him an iconic figure in Australian history, folklore, literature, art and film. I think he was looked upon as a "Robin Hood." The town of Glenrowan is dedicated to this event.

After Morrisons's, we stopped just outside Warby Ovens National Park for a very private picnic lunch—how perfectly perfect!! Then we moved on to other cellar door recommendations like Bailey's Winery and then on to Brown's. Oh boy, Bailey's is wonderful. Too bad they do not import to the US. Everything we tasted was heavenly. We bought a bottle of the fortified tawny and hope to have a nice dinner party someday soon where we can share a sip with our friends. One reason Bailey's doesn't import to USA is because of the branding conflict with Bailey's Irish Cream, of which there is no relationship. The Aussie Bailey's does so well, that it would rather not import to USA market than to infringe or change its name.

Finally, we stopped at Browns, a very large and popular winery in this region but after trying Morison's and Bailey's, there was no comparison.

Moving in the direction of Sydney, we are sleeping tonight in the town of Rutherglen in the heart of Rutherglen Wine Region.

And no, I am not going to entertain you with discussions of how hard it is navigating for a mad driver going 100 KM per hour in unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar road sign names and multiple maps that do not match up and certainly do not follow Google maps. Geesh!!!

Late night update!! It was a little late in the evening when we decided to seek dinner. Even in this popular wine/dining area, they like to close early around here. As we walked in to the café, Taste of Rutherglen where, wouldn't you know, seated there were the three guys we met at while checking-in at the inn: Stefan, an Australian government tax specialist and Australian Senior Golf Champion; David, Australian CPA; and Nigel, executive with John Deer. They were in the area for a golf tournament and they invited us to sit with them. They proceeded to teach us more about wine, Australian culture and American politics than we've heard in many nights. Plus we laughed about each other and about our respective countries until we cried!! Finally the folks at the restaurant gracefully threw us all out and closed. What fun! We made plans to meet once again in Sydney at "the Cottages" in late March. You can't plan such a delightful evening—it was just one of those fabulous events. Later back in the motel (truly motel) as I was writing the blog and we were settling down, someone knocked at the door. We were tickled to see Stefan once again with a gift, a bottle of prized fortified wine in hand for us - similar to the wine we became introduced to earlier this morning at Bailey's. What a wonderful night and what remarkable people there are in this world to meet! Truly thrilling that we, from such diverse parts of the world, get a chance to meet and connect for just a moment.