January 4th - 6th

January 4th

Our last day in Sydney! It was all slightly chaotic at the flat as Chubb had spent the last few days lining up people to come and buy their stuff and sod's law they all decided to come and pick things up on the same day.

We packed up our backpacks once again and helped Chubb move stuff out of the flat before saying our fond farewells and heading off to the bus station to catch our Greyhound to Newcastle.

The Journey didn't take all that long, about three hours in total. Not realizing that hostel's are actually the way to go in Oz, we'd booked ourselves into one of these chain motel type things (like the ones you see attached to motorway services back home). Nice place but waaaay out of the centre of Newcastle. So we had to get on a local bus that took about 45 minutes and passed signs for places such as Cardiff, Swansea and Neath on the way - we found that mildly amusing!

There wasn't much for us to do really so we grabbed some food and had an early night ready for our trip to the Hunter Valley tomorrow.

January 5th

We'd seen loads of Wine tours to the Hunter Valley region but they were all quite expensive. So naturally, we figured that if we could get to Newcastle we could easily get to the Hunter Valley via public transport and explore it ourselves - save a bob or two.

We were up early (7.30am) to get on a bus back into Newcastle. We then got on a train to Maitland AND then another bus to Cessnock where we were dropped off on the main street. Unfortunately there seemed to be no way of getting from Cessnock to the actually wine tasting regions so went into the local library to see if they could help. We knew something was wrong when the woman just kind of started at us blankly when we said we were on foot and had no mode of transport. She explained that the wineries are all really far apart and that if you aren't booked onto a tour then you really do need a car to get around. Lonely Planet FAILED to mention this!

Luckily she was really helpful and called the local YHA to see if they had bikes we could hire (last ditch attempt at not wasting the day completely). In a stroke of luck the YHA wine tasting tour that was due to leave at 11.00am (it was about 10.40am) had spare places and the owner had agreed to come and quickly pick us up form the library - WE WERE SAVED! Cost a bit more than we expected mind but it turned out to be one of the best days ever.

We had perfect weather, apparently the Hunter Region was just recovering from about 2 weeks worth of rain, and so the vineyards were really pretty. We visited five wineries and a cheese shop and tasted on average about 10 wines (4 whites, 3reds, 2 desert wines and a port) at each so we were pretty tipsy by the end of it. Still not a fan of red wine but I have discovered that I like sweet white wines the best. Me and Paul have vowed to get more into wine when back home, we are sticking to the beer while travelling as its cheap :o).

So the day turned out to be a success - bit of a pain getting on the bus, train and bus back home mind! Moral of the story - don't bother trying to saving a dollar here or there, it's usually a lot more hassle than its worth!

January 6th

Had a bit of a nothing day today. We'd booked ourselves into Newcastle YHA as it was more central and right opposite the bus station which was handy for when we were due to leave.

We were really surprised at how nice the hostel was. It was the first one we'd actually stayed in as we'd managed to avoid them in Asia on account of the fact that hotels were so cheap we could afford those instead.

Spent the rest of the day wandering around Newcastle, went to a lovely little beach and tried having a go at 'body surfing', not for me thank you. I got well and truly battered by the waves and must have flashed some poor kids at least twice. We then wandered over to a huge saltwater swimming pool and spent a while exploring the rock pools just beyond the pool itself. That was pretty much it for the day, the rest of our evening was spent planning what we were actually going to do in Oz now that we had left Sydney.