Steak Out

“There are billions of people in the world, and every one of them is special. No one else in the world is like you.”

– Unknown

After a leisurely breakfast and a thorough analysis of the severity of our sunburn, we decide to give the beaches a miss for today. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to look any pinker and even if it was, it definitely wouldn’t be a good look!

So we decide to go wine tasting instead. Actually, I use the royal “we” here because, as David will be doing the driving, I will be doing the wine tasting. Everyone knows drinking and driving is a lethal combination so as David is being honourable enough to be my chauffeur for the day, it’s only fair I taste EVERYTHING on his behalf! This is a task I don’t undertake lightly and I’m eager to get started at the first winery; Two Figs. My palate is on top form and we don’t leave empty handed. The cellar door is in a top spot, literally, right at the top of a hill with 360 degree views of the valley – picture perfect!

It’s not long before we arrive at Coolangatta, winery number 2. Coolangatta is an aboriginal word meaning “splendid view”  but there’s fine wine to be tasted too. We pass up the chance to eat in the restaurant, prefer not to play a round of golf and decide to give the historical village tour a miss… we’re cellar door bound! The wines are fine and we add a few more bottles to our collection!

We then decide to take a wine tasting pit stop and head to the beautiful town of  Berry,  famous for its gardens, trees, arts and crafts, antiques and providores.  We check out all the shops and can’t resist a cuppa at the Berry Tea Shop which is a tea drinking mecca. There are more teas on the menu than you can shake a stick at and their home made scones are sky high. I am mesmerised by their height and fluffiness. We have to try one and check out some of the top teas too. I opt for Silver Jasmine and David plumps for the appropriately named Afternoon Tea. So civilised; tea and sky high scones!

It would be rude to leave empty handed so I splash out on a teapot cookie cutter to add to my collection. I’ve already got a set of Aussie animals, some Christmas cut outs, a set of stars and the Sydney Harbour Bridge so the teapot will be a welcome addition to my collection of cutters.

There’s one more winery to check out and we decide to drive there via the “Tourist Drive” through Kangaroo Valley. We soon realise that what this basically entails is driving up a mountain and then down again. This is all well and good and the views from the top are unarguably spectacular. However, by the time we get to the top, our ears have popped more than a cinema full of fresh popcorn and the rain sets in so we can see little else except a fine mist and our hardworking windscreen wipers. Undeterred, we continue our mission, by-passing the township of  Kangaroo Valley itself and head directly to our final vineyard of the day.

It’s wet, it’s soggy and by gum, it’s pretty miraculous that we make it to Cambewarra Estate it all, seeing as it is I who is navigating, the only scenario that could be more terrifying, is if I were driving. Be afraid! Be very afraid! Anyway, it’s wonderful wine and we add a few more bottles to the boot for some more shake, rattle and roll on the way home.

The weather is absolutely atrocious so we head back to the b and b for some r and r. Tonight, we have a meat feast at Stonegrill where you cook your own meat on a heated hot plate in front of you. It’s a really healthy way to cook, and to eat, for that matter, not to mention lots of fun too. We’re fast cookers and fast eaters and spend longer drinking our bottle of wine than we do cooking and eating our steak! It’s too early to go home even for two old fogies like us, so we head over to the RSL (after all, it is about the only place open on a Sunday evening  in the metropolis of Huskisson) and hit the pokies! Not everyone’s a winner baby, I blow all of two bucks but David’s on a winning streak taking home a jackpot of 13 dollars! Yay!