Post From On the Road

Well, as the ashes test match (cricket) finished early due to England slumping to a 277 odd run defeat earlier today, I have ventured out into the heat, and into a dodgy internet cafe in Dubbo, to make this post on the run. We've been having a great time away so far, our trip to Mudgee was a bit of a highlight and we've taken lots of photos to put up on the blog when we do get back home. No way to upload them on the road so you will all have to wait until Thursday or Friday of next week when I get back home and can post the photos for you to have a look at.

As I was saying, Mudgee was the highlight of the trip so far. It is an old gold mining town and has some magnificent old buildings in it, most dating back to the early 1800's, which is pretty impressive for this part of the world. The old colonial style houses are still around, and the area seems to be going through a bit of resurgence as it becomes a weekend destination for sity dwellers like ourselves - bringing with them the city dollars. We stayed above a pub in Mudgee and that was both cheap and nice. It had air conditioning and we were very glad for that - it got up to at least 40 degrees the day that we were there.

There is a lot of wine being made in Mudgee now and we toured about five vinyards. My partner did the tasting as I was driving, although I did manage to sample a nice semillion and a couple of decent reds. We did buy some wine to bring back with us, a case and about four other mixed bottles, so the cellar at home will be in good shape for the summer. I even had a couple of beers on Saturday as it was so hot that I needed some liquid, and given that the cricket was on tv, and we were staying in a pub, it just felt right to have beer! It was nice, hit the spot.

Mudgee is also a foodie town, there are at least a dozen places of interest to stop in. After the first couple of places we decided that was enough, it was all just a bit too tempting. Butterscotch sauce, wicked chocolate sauce, belgian chocolate and all sorts of sweet stuff was on offer, and studioualy avoided - bar the occaisional small tasting sample of things. There were also some fine cheeses to try, the pesto infused feta was the highlight and we have some of that to bring home.

Dubbo is not quite as impresive as Mudgee. It is bigger, but there is less of the historical side to this town. We are staying in a hotel and it isn't really up to the standard that we were expecting. The best thing about it is that it has cable tv. We did get out for a few hits at tennis, but after about 15 minutes max we were completely shagged as it was 35 degrees, there was a hot wind, and there were about a million flies trying to join in our game! No good, and once you inhale some of those little buggers it really puts you off. We got in the pool after that and I did a few laps to get a bit of a work out. Today we have been to the zoo, and we've got some good shots of that which I will write about next week. It is an impressive zoo, they had a lot more animals than I was expecting as well having a great space for it. We saw the usual local animals - koalas, kangaroos, wallabies (all sorts), camels, emu - as well as tigers, lions, buffalo, zebras, giraffe, ostrich, elephants...and the list goes on. We've got some nice shots of some of them which I hope will look good once I upload them to the net.

All in all this is a good holiday, feels nice to be out of the city and somewhere different. We're here for another couple of days and then it is back to sin city. I'm looking forward to getting back to the gym, I just aint used to training in heat like this. I am a city boy, I need my air conditioned gym to work out properly - no bush background for me as they say! Check back in a couple of days for the next update.