Road trip to the Hunter Valley and Central Coast

The day after Boxing Day we went on a road trip up to the Hunter Valley and Central Coast with Dave's parents and their campervan. It took us around 2 hours to get from Sydney to Cessnock, which is in the centre of the Hunter Valley, Australia's oldest wine growing district. We settled into our little cabin on a lovely campsite complete with it's own vines and then headed out to a nearby cafe for some lunch.

The first vineyard we went to was Tempus Two - we sampled a few wines and also went to the Very Smelly Cheese Shop adjacent to it to sample some cheeses. The whole vineyard was quite disappointing because it was very commercial and obviously geared towards tourists and making as much money as possible. The views, however, were beautiful (even though it was raining).

We decided that we'd try and find something less commercial so the next day we visited the McWilliams winery. Here, we had a proper tour of the vineyard; it was quite interesting to see how wine is produced on such a massive scale, especially when I compare it to my Dad's

yearly home brewing!

After two days in the Hunter Valley drinking lots of wine and eating some wonderful food, we got back on the road for the last few days of our trip. We headed towards the coast ending up in a little seaside town called Umina. Again we stayed in a small cabin on a campsite, which was right by the beach. Thankfully the sun decided to come out after days of rain so Dave spent the day body-boarding (and got the worst sunburn since we've been in Aus) whilst I sunbathed and read!

By far the best part of the holiday though was Dave's near miss with a possum that we saw on the campsite after a post-dinner walk on the beach; as he was taking a photo of it (it was really tame and he managed to get really close) it swiped it's little paw out and almost knocked my camera out of his hand. Vicious little bugger!

Christmas Day

Mine and Dave's first proper Christmas Day together! We started the day with cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels whilst opening all our presents. Santa was good to me this year (Dave) and bought me a beautiful pearl necklace plus tickets to see Cats, my favourite ever musical, in Perth! Lucky me :)

We then decided to go for a pre-dinner walk, as it was still quite early, to the Royal Botanic Gardens; surprisingly there were lots of people about having picnics and eating out at the various restaurants around Circular Quay.

Christmas dinner consisted of the obligatory turkey (first one I've ever cooked!), roast potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin, peas, carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce and various other things! The turkey was deliciously moist - I was very pleased with it. Dessert was a Christmas trifle made by my own fair hands, which was also delicious. The rest of the day was spent watching Christmas TV and eating the mince pies and fruit cake that I had made a few days before.

To match our traditional English Christmas dinner, it even rained, English style - very fitting and it made a big, warm meal not so silly in the southern hemisphere!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a hot day so whilst Dave was at work until the afternoon I busied myself making a lasagne (a little tradition we have at home) and sunbathing. I then met up with Dave who was down by Darling Harbour having Christmas drinks with his work colleagues.

After our delicious lasagne we took a walk down to the Harbour as there were Christmas carols being sung by the tree. Unfortunately, they turned out to be very disappointing so instead we found a lovely

spot in Jordon's bar with a beautiful view and ordered a bottle of champagne to celebrate Santa's impending arrival. To our surprise at 9pm there was an amazing fireworks show over the Harbour - if these were anything to go by, then the New Year fireworks over the brid

ge were going to be amazing!

A few more glasses of champagne later (and feeling a little worse for wear) we headed home for a Christmas film and the last sleep before Santa made his visit.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone - hope you all have a wonderful day full of presents and food! We miss you all loads. Lots of love, Lucia and Dave xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Remember those Lindor chocolates...?

We opened them the other night and they were disgusting. Coffee, orange and raspberry flavoured Lindor?? Seriously, the orange ones were just about palatable, but the other two flavours were disgusting. Let this be a lesson to you Lindt, don't mess with a tried and tested formula. Milk chocolate Lindor (maybe the white chocolate ones too) are really the only way to go...

Dave's parents arrive in Sydney

Dave's parents arrived in Sydney on Friday so went to meet them at their hotel on Friday evening for a couple of jetlagged drinks. On Saturday they were due to pick up their campervan so we went with them early in the morning to the rental place - it took quite a while to sort everything out but eventually we were on the road to the campsite that they had booked for two nights. That is an actual picture of their campervan by the way - talk about advertising to the world that you're a tourist!

Despite some dodgy Googlemap directions from Dave's dad we eventually found the campsite. Only 20 minutes or so out of Sydney, it's situated in the Lane Cove National Park which is beautiful - I never even knew it existed until Saturday! Back at our apartment we decided to organise a picnic from David Jones Foodhall (if we could do all our food shopping here, trust me, we would!) at the lounge area by the pool to make the most of the gorgeous weather. We spent the rest of the afternoon splashing around the pool, sunbathing and reading (like most weekends recently) whilst Dave's parents chilled out a bit and got over their jetlag. Saturday evening we went out for a few drinks and a posh curry by Darling Harbour. The photo on the left is the view from the restaurant - beautiful hey?

Sunday was Dave's cousin's birthday (she lives in Sydney) so Dave's mum surprised her by gatecrashing the party. After a few drinks we decided to go for a wander around the Opera House and a drink at the Opera Bar to make the most of the evening sunshine. Then back to our flat for what turned out to be  a delicious BBQ (beef, parmesan and sundried tomato burgers followed by Dave's delectable chicken skewers, various salads and a good bottle of vino bianco). 

A rather exhausting weekend but lovely nonetheless. Dave's parents return on 24th December just in time for the Christmas festivities - that is lots of mince pies, chilled mulled wine and Christmas cake!

THE bread!

Erin the little honey bun got me the bread - the delicious fruity, nutty, cinamonny bread that she sometimes has for lunch. I have a whole loaf of it. I'm going to have to put it in the freezer to ration myself I think. It's been sitting under my desk all day emitting the most yummiest smells - I'm rushing off home now to toast some and slather it in butter. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's finished....it will be a sad, sad day.