Why I Didn’t Marry Heath Ledger

New Year’s Day began with a bang. Not really. It began with me doing my standard waking up freakishly early when I’ve been up since 4:00 am thing. Because that’s what I do. Finding and using an internet cafe has been somewhat of a challenge on this trip. There are several, but they all elected to be closed on new year’s morning. I walked in to Byron to find that I could by a latte, I could buy a sarong, I could even buy some pennicilin, but I couldn’t get on the net. Bummer. That’s Australian for bummer, in case you were wondering. So I hung out at the beach for a bit, then made my way back to the hotel to find out about our new Wwoof host. Scary stuff. Wondering about the person you’ll be living with for several days.

So Greg, our Wwoof host, was supposed to pick us up at 11:00 at the hotel. He called around 11:00 to tell us he was running late and he’d be there in “half an hour.” Uh oh. We’ve heard that before.

He got there about 45 minutes later and we rolled out of Byron. We immediately found that our Wwoof host trepidation was unfounded. We found that he had an additional Wwoofer, Mick, who would would be working with us. Cool.

Greg is a nice guy. He’s SUPER liberal. All in all, an Aussie hippie. He’s a former sculptor whose now earning his bread by playing the stock market. Allright. We know the an all sand headland in the middle of a national park some place south of Ballina, but we really didn’t know what that meant. Apparently, that means a one lane road through the park up the dune to the properties. You can see for kilometers (hehe) to the park and the sea in either direction. This has been the only place in Oz, the only place in the world, with white sand dunes outside of the Florida panhandle. From the home, you take a trail down to the beach over HUGE white sand dunes to the gold sand coast. Once you’re there, you reach the black sedimentary rocks with erosion holes created from an ancient forest. Lunch consisted of scrumptious selections from the garden, including bagels, tomato salad, hummus and even caterpillars in the greens. Who knew Wwoof food would be this AMAZING?

So we made our way down to the beach with Jude, the neighbors partner, while the boys took a nap. Once we returned, a lady with her daughter and a friend dropped in for the night. We had a HUGE dinner with stir fry with chicken, sweet potatoes (I actually ate them, believe it or not) and wilted greens straight from the garden. All of the grown ups LOVE to talk politics. It’s interesting. In the US, they would certainly be considered the Green Party. We even tried a “shandy,” which is beer with sprite. Strange, but no stranger than red wine with Coca-Cola in Spain. After we finished, we noticed something strange outside. There was a white rainbow, which had to be caused by the moon. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Oh yeah, there is even an outhouse. Not like the wooden structure with the crescent moon cut-out in the front. More of a glass brick with stone tile and bamboo shades kind of outhouse. The water is still rainwater, so it’s a bit different from home. This northern rivers region of Australia is particularly environmentally conscious. The homes are run on a combination of solar and wind power. Very progressive.

Do you know what heaven sounds like? I’ve found out. It sounds like surf, wind and cicadas. I found that I LOVE to go to the point in the back yard and pretending like I’m the only person in the universe. It’s easy to do here.

– Carrie

We’ve taken a day trip to the wine country of New South Whales and southern Queensland. The drive up was beautiful with rain forest and rolling hills. The roadkill was even very exotic and more interesting than the dead things at home. Lots and lots of rotting wallabies. We were able to visit 3 vineyards on our trip, with 3 very different experiences.

Currajong Downs: Our first stop was at this medium size boutique winery in Tenterfield for some gold medal winning Semillion. That’s the grape, not the Sensamillion, which is something quite different. Currajong has a cellar door (which isn’t really a door in to the basement wine cellar that I thought it would be) and a cafe. At this vineyard, we stood at the counter and told the girl which wine we wanted to taste. We then split a smoked trout salad with fresh cheese and sundried tomatoes. Yummy.

The Doctor’s Nose: Our second stop at The Doctor’s Nose was a much different experience with an elaborate tasting. This was a second, smaller boutique winery in the tiny town of Tenterfield. We were seated and the owner brought out each wine. The wines were presented in a certain order to keep a dry wine from being tasted between two sweeter wines. Each wine was named after a different ancestor and the vineyard was named after the ridgeline near the property. After the tasting, we had one hell of a kangaroo chase with the owner.

Ballandean Estates: Our final stop was in southern Queensland in Ballandean. This area has been under cultivation for many years and dozens of vineyards offer cellar doors. We chose the Ballandean Estates because they offer tours. This was a much larger commercial operation than the two previous vineyards. It had a counter with loads of customers, as well as a cafe. The family had been in the business in Ballandean for 4 generations. The ancestor came from Sicily, Italy, where he was a wine maker. I liked that the family was very open and even let us wander out to their vines to have a look. It was interesting to learn the processes and that there are something like 870 types of yeast that bring out certain flavors in wines. Hmmm. That’s part of the reason you can have 2 vineyards in 2 miles producing Shiraz grapes and get a completely different wine. Also, wine doesn’t have to cross-pollinate, so the vineyards don’t have to rotate stock or plant different types of crops. At Ballandean, we had salmon pasta with capers and cream fresh butter, which was great.

– Carrie