Oh Sweet Adelaide!

It was definitely time for a girl's trip so my friend Heather and I began the planning, we decided on Adelaide for the shopping, dining and wine country. It began at the business lounge at the Alice Springs airport, you see due to our last minute planning we were forced to fly business - can I hear a collective aaahhhh.  While in the lounge, where they have free alcohol - we poured some wine and decided to get the first "girl's weekend" photo for FB - what we did not realize is that on the table, in the corner of the magazine, there was a headline about being gay - and of course our FB post read - GIRLS WEEKEND BEGINS!, you can imagine the comments!

We arrive in Adelaide a few cocktails later and head off to the Crowne Plaza - we were fortunate enough to have booked our trip during the Fringe Festival (highly recommend) and everything was located within walking distance of our hotel.  We began the evening with a margarita at a pop up Mexican spot.  What is a pop up spot? Why it is a bar that takes over empty buildings, fill them with old furniture, park a food truck out back and serve drinks - only open during the 4 week Fringe festival.  We then ventured to an Italian restaurant for dinner, where apparently Heather thought we were at a table for 6 by the amount of food she ordered - I was in charge of drinks and I cam back to the table with the largest, fullest glasses of wine allowed!  We then headed off to the theater (a pop up theater) to see a female comedian - she was hilarious but one of the best parts was that someone had brought their 14 year old son to a raunchy, female comedian show - in a room with only 25 seats he stood out like a sore thumb, you could tell he threw her off her game

One of the Pants Down performers.

.The next day was a shopping frenzy - I could almost imagine the Australian Gov sending us a personal thank you for stimulating the economy.  We went crazy after the lack of shopping we have had here in the Alice!  We then headed to the main area for the Fringe festival, the Garden of Unearthly Delights - where we had tickets to the Pants Down Circus (sounds more exciting than it was).  We bought a bottle of wine for the show and headed in - it was a lot of acrobats and laughter - great time.  We walked around the Garden for a while, checking out the scene - it would be fun to go this event every year!  Then came a Mexican restaurant for dinner - queso - yes, please - enchiladas - yes, please - rice - yes, please - oh and a pitcher of margaritas!

Whispering Wall

Can you hear me now???

On Sunday we had scheduled a private driver to take us to the Barossa Wine Valley - we started with a trip to the Whispering Wall, where you can stand on either side of the wall, a good 200 feet away,  and hear each others voices.  We then went to get a bird's eye view of the valley before we began the wine tasting.  Our first winery was Kellermeister, and after tasting just about everything they had to offer we had purchased a case of Boots Cider as well as a case of wine.  We then headed to Chateau Tununda for some more tastings, 2 cases later we were on our way to lunch - thank God - food!  We stopped at  Artisans of Barossa , where you have gorgeous views, lunch and wine from 7 vineyards.  Our view pretty much stopped at Simon, one of the vineyard owners - who did the tasting of 12 wines for us personally.  At this point, I think I am a comedian saying brilliant things like "Simon says, drink more wine" and Heather is intently listening to all of his talking points - we bought more wine.  At the last stop, Rockford wines we saw some amazing antique wine barrels and old machinery, oh and then we tasted wine and bought a case!

Kellermeister winery

Barossa Valley

Hanging with Simon.

It is our last night in Adelaide and we decided on Chinese food for dinner - we hop in a cab to Chinatown and begin our search of the perfect place for dinner.  We stop at one place that looks nice and grab a table - we look at the menus, look at each other and quietly get up and leave - not sure what the menu said but it had pictures that looked awful!  We finally decide on a spot - just busy enough to know it is good - but not so busy that we could not get in.  The fact that there were dead animals hanging in the window did not bother me at all at this point, I just sat in the chair facing Heather!  It was actually very good Chinese food.

Sydney

Our first day in Sydney was spent walking around Circular Quay, where the Opera House and Sydney Bridge are located and the Rocks area where we were staying.  The area around the opera house was full of street performers, we stopped to watch many but the favorite was the "girl in the box". Dillon and I both loved watching the birds, not sure what the long beak bird was we kept seeing but we got a pic. We then headed to Darling Harbor, by ferry, to walk around and visit the Sydney Aquarium.  It seems our family has subconsciously decided to visit a zoo or aquarium, or both on every vacation we take.  The aquarium was quite large and so was the crowd, I think JD's mom loved the 3 stories of ramps to get to and from the shark tunnels (by the way, that is a joke!).

Girl in Box street performer.

For dinner we decided to go to The Hard Rock Cafe, JD had heard good things from other people visiting Sydney.  Disappointment does not begin to describe this meal, I first ordered a margarita and actually had to send it back - those who know me know I can drink almost anything - then my burger came out raw and that went back also - while the second margarita was OK the second burger, not so much - my vision of a margarita and a burger in an American chain had vanished.  After dinner it was a beautiful evening so we walked around the harbor - there we saw the "World's Largest Rubber Duck" that was on display for the summer.

Darling Harbor and the Rubber Duck

Zorbing

Day 2 started with a visit to the Rock's markets, a little light shopping was in order and we even ran into some friends from Alice Springs there.  Later, we took the ferry over to Manly Beach.  Once we got off the ferry and exited the terminal the boys spotted the zorbing area and the bungee swing, so we delayed our short walk to the beach just a little longer.  The boys, who are pros at the bungee swings, thought that was fun, but they loved the zorbing!  How funny it was to see the boys stand in a ball and watch it inflate around them.  The beach was beautiful and packed, we walked to the water's edge and put our feet in to find the water incredibly chilly, this did not stop the boys at all though - they swam for a good hour and a half. I was excited to see a small Mexican cafe  on the boardwalk, it has been sooo long since we have had Mexican food - well the excitement did not last long, I think it was too much expectation placed on a Mexican restaurant in Australia.  I will say though, that sitting in an outdoor cafe, facing the ocean, palm trees swaying, listening to music while drinking a Corona was as close to perfect as I could get.  Walking back to the ferry we came across another outdoor market with street performers - one of the dance crews picked Jake up and carried him out to dance, he lasted a minute or two before he decided he was done!

Manly Beach

Jake and the street performers

Our view from the Mexican cafe

The dino that sprays.

Day 3   We took the ferry ride over to the Tarunga Zoo, once you arrive you take a gondola ride to the top of the zoo to then begin your descent down.  The zoo animals get some of the best views anywhere in Sydney, you could see the opera house and Sydney bridge from many locations.  It was a beautiful zoo, I swear we walked 5 miles at least - it was huge.  They had animated dinosaurs everywhere with one that sprayed water on the kids - boys loved this one!  The seal exhibit was the best I had ever seen, they had indoor and outdoor viewing areas - Jake and Dillon spent most of their time taking pictures of the animals with their new Christmas presents for Nannie and Papa - Ipad minis.

The Seal Theater

Bondi Beach

Day 4 began with a hop on hop off bus ride through Sydney.  We made it three stops before we hopped off for some shopping, I was hoping to find a fascinator for the upcoming races back in Alice - but even an experienced shopper like myself was overwhelmed with the 9 story department stores so we hopped back on our bus.  We were able to visit many of the famous landmarks, including St. Mary's Cathedral - very impressive! We drove through many of the ocean front suburbs and then arrived at Bondi Beach, another hop off point.  We headed to Hurricanes for lunch and it was perfect, a cold beer and sharing a delicious burger with JD while listening to the surf!  We walked over to the beach, there were not many people swimming due to the high winds and rough surf - I can honestly say I have never seen an ocean with so many waves and white foam - very hard to capture in my pictures..  After our walk we hopped back on to head to the Sydney opera House for a tour there - even the boys enjoyed the tour  - the architecture and history behind it was impressive.

Inside the opera house

St. Mary's Cathedral

Inside the Opera House.

We spent our last night enjoying dinner with Carolyn and Bob before they would be heading back to the U.S.A. and us back to Alice.  Then JD and I hit up the Fortune of War bar, the oldest pub in Sydney, established in 1828 while Carol and Bob watched the boys.  Soon we would be at the airport headed home but not before picking up a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts  - you see there are no doughnut shops here in the Alice!