Well the wine tasting trip (around the Yarra valley) yesterday was very pleasant, amazing how easy it is to get drunk on very little wine. Started the day at a winery I can't remember the name of, where the driver taught us how to test wines, in total there were 5 wines sampled here but I didn't particularly like any of them. Next up was Rochford which had better wines, as lunch was late we ended up trying six here, then had lunch (which was a passable steak, the restaurant was very nice though and a load of travellers didn't look too out of place!) which came with a whole glass of wine. Lunchtime discussions of whether downing a pint of Baileys was a feasible challenge (if your names not Tommy Walsh) soon raised an interesting conundrum arrived at after discussing various methods to drink lots in a short time. Someone mentioned a pub that has a speed pourer that is like a cows udder (i.e. fills six pints at once), so naturally the question arose of what would come out of a real cow if you fed if solely Water, Hops, Malt and Sugar. A cow does have multiple stomachs so fermentation may occur during digestion, but what would come out the udders?
Then we tried another couple before heading onto St Austins (by which point everyone was pretty much wrecked and the third person this trip told me I sounded just like Ricky Gervais) to try another 6 wines, these again I wasn't exactly enamoured with. Finally we went to Domaine Chandon (associated with Moet and Chandon) where we got to see the whole works of the place (a novelty in Oz apparently) and a whole glass of bubbly (although we also wangled a taster of some of their red bubbly which wasn't worth it) and some cheese (and beetroot!).
Today I went to the Melbourne museum which is quite an interesting place even if the exhibits aren't that big. However they did have a section devoted to Neighbours and the Scullys old kitchen (i.e. before the fire) as well as a time line up until 1999 detailing who lived in which house and moved to which house etc. I was particularly impressed (being such a big child in museums) with the quality interactive displays provided by some Australian record company I'd never heard of (they claim to be Kylies record label but seeing as the other musicians they were proud of were called Motor Cycle Fellatio or something like that I don't think they're that big overseas!).
Tomorrow I'm off on a day trip down Ocean Road as I decided the Neighbours tour was a right rip off, they take you to ramsay street, drive you past the studio and thats about it.
Posted by Alexis at August 14, 2003 08:19 AM