Hunter Valley

G'Day fellows. Here's another update for ya. And only about one and a half weeks after the last one. Not bad, eh?

So, after the country shindig at Andrew's ranch a couple of weeks ago, I've mainly been working away, playing floorball on Wednesdays and weekends and going to the gym a couple of times a week. Normal stuff. As far as our team's success is concerned, I regret to announce that Glebe FC lost both semifinal games against Newcastle (one of which I happen to have on video…) and was eliminated from the NSW Elite Series final. There was no room for excuses as the first game went to our young opponents 9-4 and the second one 7-4. We were outnumbered, outhustled, outrun and out of shape. Yesterday was the final weekend and we played in the bronze medal game against Southern Swingers. Again, with only one sub, there was not much to be done. We lead the game through the second period but then quite simply ran out of gas and ended up losing 9-4. Personally it could have been better although I did score twice…but also had a bit of a blackout at the end of the third period, broke my stick and almost ended up punching a player in the process.

The final game between Northern Beaches and Newcastle was a thriller! What a great game and great advertisement for this sport in Australia. After three periods it was tied at 8-8 with Newcastle scoring the equalizer nine seconds before the end of the match while Northern Beaches was shorthanded. The we witnessed a nerve wrecking penalty shootout, where experience beat youth and the NSW championship went to the Northern Beaches for the third time in a row, I'm told. After the event, we all went out to have dinner at Mortdale near the main venue. It was sort of a gala event after the season. Just about every team in NSW was represented and the awards were handed out to the MVPs, most improved players etc. Nice to see this small but a very enthusiastic bunch of people promoting and taking the sport forward in Australia. Quite a few participants had already represented their country too in floorball!

OK, back to my main topic. I finally experienced the famous Hunter Valley, where I was already supposed to be going at the beginning of the first semester last year. Well, I guess something always came up for one reason or another. Anyways, this time the visit was a real no brainer as Andrew had wedding to attend in Cessnock, right in the middle of the valley, and he needed someone to split the accommodation costs. We'd have the whole Sunday to tour the valley and its abundant wineries, so of course I was down for that. We made our way north right after our unfortunate second semifinal game last Saturday, and drove past Gosford all the way up close to Newcastle. It was a good two hour drive but were, once again, struck by the horrible weekend traffic in central Sydney, which slowed us down quite a bit.

Saturday night at Cessnock was, on my part, mainly spent watching TV, reading a book, hovering around the main street, having dinner and going to see a movie at the local cinema. This was actually a nice change to the busy and mostly drunken Sydney way of doing things on Saturdays especially as I felt a bit sick too. On Sunday morning, we had a nice breakfast in Cessnock and then started exploring the Hunter Valley. We drove down the picturesque Mount View road through incredible scenery and lots of vineyards. We then continued on to a small town called Wollombi, visited a local museum and turned back. Our first winery visit was at Ivanhoe estate, which was at a gorgeous spot at the beginning of the real Hunter Valley area. We then went on to visit Lindemans/Rosemount, which are certainly amongst the biggest brands in Australia and well known even in Finland. After that, we tasted some quality beers at Blue Tongue brewery and lastly visited Drayton's winery, where we I made my first and only purchase by buying a bottle of Drayton's Pokolbin Merlot 2007. Andrew bought a couple of bottles of Port wine as we were later on going to dinner/drinks at our friend's place in downtown Sydney.

All in all an extremely nice and relaxing weekend. Now there's the upcoming week and then a long weekend with the Anzac day celebrations. We might, however, work a bit on Saturday as we are trying to get three days off in the late May for AFO - the Australian Floorball Open tournament - that is without a doubt the biggest event in terms of floorball on this continent. There will even be a team from Wellington, NZ to participate in this. Needless to say, it would be an amazing experience to represent NSW and Glebe FC in this tournament and we will do our very best to make it there. I just need to conjure myself another stick before that…

Okay guys, time to do some laundry and enjoy the sunny and warm autumn days here. Remember not to inhale too much of the Icelandic ash up there! As usual, keep in touch. Always good to hear from you.