Birthday Party Number 6

It was my plan to celebrate turning 50 on 5 different continents. I had celebrated  my 40th on 4 continents more or less by accident,  so it just seemed like a good thing to do. So we did Asia in March, North America in May, Europe in September and Africa in November 2013. Australia, the 5th continent was only reached in early 2014 but seeing as it was less than 365 days from the first party, I reckon that it counts. Thanks to Dawn and Kevin for hosting a wonderful pizza party with Kevs new garden pizza oven. It's was great to catch up with friends, especially Lesley whom I hadn't seen since we were 10!

Australian Wine Regions... all done!

1. Denmark and Margaret River, WA
We did a day tour of the wineries with" Wine for Dudes" tours. We stopped at Aden Park, Tassel Park, Howard's Park ( Madfish wines) and Haystead Hill which also included a divine pizza lunch and wine blending. We stopped at a cheese farm, a chocolate place, a coffee roastery and a brewery too. It was a wonderful day out. The next day we did our own thing at a few more wineries. Margaret River accounts for something like 3 percent of Australia's total wine production but produces 20 percent of their premium wines.
2. Hunter Valley, NSW
We did a side trip here from Sydney. One lazy lunch, Neil challenged me to write a 2 minute summary of Hunter Valley. Both our efforts are copied below.
Neil
Branding best. Friendliness very good. Food great, creative but expensive. Semillon very interesting, especially aging for 25 to 30 years. Scenery, Architecture average. Shiraz and Chardonnay ( wooded ) very good. Chardonnay maybe best of New World, Shiraz good but overall very pricey.
Mc Guigan best for value and quality award winners. Tyrell's aged Semillon unique. Accom. pricey but good. Fat Boys for great value lunch. Dinner fantastic at Royal Oak- very creative and local produce.
Gail
It's hot today but we're having a cool time. Tasting wine at De Julius, Two Fat Blokes for lunch, go to Tyrell's where Neil is chuffed to be mistaken for a wine writer; asking all the intellectual questions and scoring the aged Vat 1 for tasting. Even got 25 percent discount on the bottle we bought               " because you're in the Industry! " He ! He! Tempus 2 branding right up there. McGuigan - best Semillon in the world 2013. Stayed at The Grange on Broke Rd, Chris even baked us banana muffins for breakfast. Harvest in full swing. Gotta get the red grapes in now before the Feb thunderstorms. Locals rate dinner @ 221 @ The Royal Oak Hotel in Cessnock - best mushroom ravioli I have ever tasted!!
3.Riverlands, SA
Large producer of grapes for mass production for big companies. The grapes are trucked between NSW, SA and Victoria to giant wine producing plants on a scale we haven't seen anywhere else.
4. Barossa Valley, SA
We spent a few nights here in Tanunda, another really sleepy place where the most nightlife we found was watching TV in the motel room. It's probably the most scenic of the Australian wine regions with great drives and excellent cellar doors for wine tasting. Big reds come from here and names you may know include Wolf Blass, Yalumba, Penfold's, Jacob's Creek and Turkey Flat. These estates all have various ranges and at the lower end they mass produce consistent wines for the export market. The premium wines will be the ones grown in the Barossa itself, some even single vineyard labels, with limited release and sky rocketing price tags.
5.McClaren Vale, SA
Shiraz, Shiraz, Shiraz. We particularly enjoyed the cellar door at Rosemount.
6.Coonawarra, SA
You just have to visit a wine region when it's called Coonawarra. We did a tasting at Wynn's.
7. Yarra Valley, Victoria
The afternoon we arrived they had a power failure in the region and many Estates just closed. There were also bushfires threatening the area. We visited the Tarrawarra Vineyard cellar door and stayed in a motel in Healsville, eating anti pasta from the deli counter and enjoying the local wine.

Aussie Road Trip continued

On Monday 3rd February, we left Sydney for a journey across the Outback. Not far outside of Sydney things became pretty rural and pretty dry. Traffic thinned out and roads became endless stretches of tarmac ahead. We covered many hundreds of kilometres and overnighted in Hay. Dinner in the Jolly Jimbaroo, a neon lit, canteen style, diner attached to a hokey pub was probably the best value meal we had in all of Australia, at 15 dollars for roast lamb, veggies and gravy! By now we had become accustomed to Australia's exorbitant prices for almost everything, but especially food and wine. The problem is, places are generally so ordinary and often similar to what you get in South Africa for a quarter of the price! Imagine sitting outside a take-away bakery on rickety old garden furniture in the main street of a Karoo town like Beaufort West with flies everywhere and paying R50 for a coffee and R75 for a croissant! That we did in Coonawarra! Eventually it's just not fun anymore. I do have to give the Aussies one thing here though, the coffee is usually very good. But still. We drove to the Barossa Valley, then Adelaide and McClaren Vale, before heading back to the coast for the journey from Adelaide to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road, which was beautiful but just packed full of busloads of tourists. On Saturday 8th February we found ourselves in Apollo Bay and enjoyed a night of live music and crazy people watching at the Apollo Hotel.

Melbourne to Sydney

We arrived in Melbourne on 16 January, probably the hottest day of the year there at 44 C. The Jasper Hotel was located near the Victoria Street Market. In general, central Melbourne was rather boring from a sightseeing point of view, but perhaps it was just the heat! Thanks to all my friends for the bucket list money you gave me for my birthday, Neil and I had tickets to High Sense Arena for four days. Going to all four Grand Slam Tennis Championships is def. on my bucket list.
After the first day, where tempretures got up to 42 C, it cooled down nicely. We saw plenty of excellent tennis players, including Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, Kevin Anderson, David Ferrer, Li Na and Jelena Jankowitz. We also saw the men's doubles team, with South African Raven Klaasen, take out the defending champions, the Bryan brothers. Klaasen and Butorac went on the reach the final. We kept up with everything else on the big screens and we loved the whole Aussie Open experience. In the evenings we enjoyed the Fitzroy area and had some wonderful meals. Everything seemed rather quiet though, without much of a party going on anywhere. On the 21st we picked up a hire car and then collected Bob and Jane for a 4 day coastal road trip to Sydney. The route is generally very scenic and the towns are just small, beachy places, mostly pretty quiet at night. We stayed in Lakes Entrance, Mallacoota and Mollymook. We did some great beach walks but no swimming because the water's pretty cold. We had great fun with Bob and Jane, fabulous road trip companions. We all arrived in Sydney for a BOC reunion dinner at the Felix. Neil, Ben and I had a very late night after hanging out in pubs with youngsters in The Rocks. We enjoyed a day of Sydney sightseeing and on Sunday 26, Australia Day, we went across to stay with Richard and Sharon for a few days. We really loved spending Australia Day at a huge family/friends BBQ. Thanks mates! Monday was a holiday, so we had lunch at the Beach Pavilion at Balmoral Beach and then had a great spa and wine evening with Richard and Sharon at home. On Tuesday we left for 3 nights in the Hunter Valley and on Friday we headed back to Sydney to spend the weekend at Colin's place. We braaied on his verandah, which has wonderful views and the next day we all went out on his boat around the bays. That evening Jenny organized a great night out at a Vodka restaurant serving Eastern European food, followed by cocktails at the very cool Owl House. On Sunday Jenny took us on a tour of some of Sydney's less touristy neighbourhoods and in the evening we went to 20/20 cricket at the Olympic Stadium.

Perth - Margaret River - Perth

We left South Africa very early this year (7 January ) to head to Australia. We flew to Perth via Singapore and after a day dealing with jet lag, we headed off to Denmark with Nikki and Rina. We had lunch in colonial looking Bridgetown and arrived in Denmark in the evening. It's a coastal town and wine region quite a few hours south of Perth. We went to the beaches, did plenty of scenic drives and some wine tasting and a canopy walk, cooked supper, drank loads of local wine and chatted about life and love deep into the night. A highlight was live music on two afternoons at Rockcliffe Winery. Denmark otherwise is a very sleepy little place. On Monday we drove up to Margaret River, WA's premier wine region. For Tuesday, Nikki planned a winery tour with a company called Wine for Dudes, so we didn't have to nominate a designated driver. On Wednesday we drove back to Mandurah and then up to Dawn and Kevin for dinner. Nikki dropped us off at the airport to catch the very late flight to Melbourne. But, we were back in Perth again on 10 February for 10 more days! This time we got to hang out in Mandurah at Nikki's house, catching up on admin and computer stuff and watching the Winter Olympics on TV. We spent a day in Perth City and had lunch with Roy and Verne at the Lucky Shag on the bay. We visited Dawn and Kevin again and even got to gatecrash a lovely beach wedding as Nikki's dates on Saturday night. We visited Freemantle and the Swan Valley wine region and had dinner at Ivan and Leigh's in Guildford. We lunched with Nikki at Cottesloe Beach one day and Gail Zeeman at Mullaloo Beach on another. We even went to Nikki's local Spur, with decor and a menu exactly like a South African Spur, but at 4 times the price! On 20 February we left Australia , bound for Singapore. From one very expensive country to one that's just been voted "most expensive city in the world to live in." Thank you to our friends who have us to stay. We don't even have to couch surf because we get the spare room or someone gives up their room for us! We're easy guests and we usually bring wine and love to take you out to dinner too!

Another New Year to look forward to...

Thanks to Janet and Victor for hosting another memorable New Years Eve Party and for Paulet and Gavin and all their hard work. This year's theme was Mexican and I made a huge pot of chilli which was still warm when Gavin came by to pick us all up in the Kombi. He parked on our steep driveway, Ann and Michael climbed into the back seats and the van started sliding slowly downhill into the street, picking up speed as it went. Gavin had to place the pot of hot chilli on the floor of the van, jump into the  moving van and pull up the handbrake. It's a miracle there was not a hot pot of chilli spilled all over the van's carpets and that the van and Ann didn't end up in the bushes on the other side of the road! She really needed that Margarita when we got to the party. Once again we had the most amazing bonfire to sit around after midnight. By the time our local taxi arrived to cart us all home it was close to 3am!

Christmas and other celebrations

In November we flew to the Cape for 5 days to celebrate Neil's Dad's 80th birthday. We spent a week in Zebula in December and had a mini Christmas with Mom, Dad and Tracy. We then travelled back to the Cape for Christmas with the  Greenfield family. The London Greenfields joined us too. As usual Christmas lunch was a grand affair, with Charles' Grapefruit Martinis, Veal Tonello to start, Turduckens and Danie's Hamand  everyone's salads for mains, with Leonie's yuletide log and Christmas pudding with Syntyche's brandy sauce for dessert.  It's always a jam packed time, catching up with friends and family and cooking up a storm in the Perdeput kitchen. Luckily Esme is always on hand next door to supply blenders, salad bowls and extra crockery and cutlery. Ann and Michael, Carol and Jane also came to stay. So did Kili and Zambezi, Carol and Jane's Jack Russell pups, who are not very good at listening and ran off along the beach road chasing cars and bicycles whenever they were allowed off the leashes.

The Maizefield 25th Anniversary

After a few whiskeys one night at Pam and Richard's about a year ago, we worked out that this crazy group started visiting Maizefield Farm 25 years ago! Of course that called for a party, so we set aside the first weekend in December as a celebration! On Saturday night we held an 80s themed party, with 80s clothes, 80s dress, 80s food and plenty of time to reminisce. Max put together a photo presentation and we even had a chill room with old records and a turntable! In the early days, the farmhouse had no electricity and everyone just bunked down all over the place on old foam mattresses. Most of the time we spent down at the water; skiing, sailing and booze cruising! What happens at Maizefield stays at Maizefield, but lets just say we had a lot of fun! Girlfriends have come and gone, relationships have begun and ended, babies have been born, kids have grown up, people have emigrated, a few have come back and new faces are always welcome. There have been a few minor mishaps and accidents and hangovers too numerous to count. We have celebrated Christmases and Midmasses, New Years, Birthdays , Anniversaries, Halloweens, Easters and even Weddings here. In 1999 we spent the whole year planning the Millennium party. The barn was fixed up into a  party venue and christened the Millennium Dome. Some time after that Norman decided to sell and Tommy, Neil, Richard and Max became "plaas-einaars." We did "renovations", converted outbuildings, got electricity, put up an electric fence, added some cottages and extra bathrooms. We have tractors and chickens and geese and sheep and cows and a poor old farm dog called Rix. We once had a few horses and one day I'm going to get a pig! But it's really all about spending great times with wonderful people! Happy Anniversary everyone and see you on the Farm!

Ngwenya

In late November we swapped a timeshare for a week at Ngwenya at Kruger Park. Carol, Jane and Tracey joined us. It's a marvellous place and we were lucky to get a riverside chalet on hippo bend. We saw ellies and rhino from our balcony almost every day.We drove into the park most days and saw plenty of birds and animals. I got the Roberts Birds of Southern Africa App for my tablet as a birthday gift, which was fabulous. I even found time to update my lifelist. It will be sad to leave my old, signed copy of Newmans at home now after about 20 years of trusty service in the bush and beyond.