Yarra Valley

7th July

Wine... ish...... gooooooot..... *hic*

People count: zx, alex, z-x, rf and me!

So it was a day of wine tasting. Weather was wet and gloomy, but that didn't exactly dampen our spirits. The alcohol-prescribing aspiring driving paediatrician didn't want to enviously watch us drink wine while he had to abstain, so he dragged his sister along to drive for the day. Lol. Much entertainment, too ^^ (As also mentioned in the quotable quotes...)


Nice buildings somewhere in Melbourne, because I like old buildings. Weird white marks on the picture, if seen, hints at the general condition of the car. =P

Train crossing, cars to stop. Have I mentioned that I like trying to form words from number plates? Like in Singapore, when I see SGL I think OOOH my initials!! Heehee and when I see SDS I think of sodium dodecyl sulphate. I can't remember what I managed to find in Melb, but I recall trying very hard to find a plate with TMD on it. Mission failed.
Gloomy day. Eeyore would be proud.

First stop: Uh, Some Lavender Farm.

We got cheated!! The guide book says that lavenders bloom in winter AND the farm was open, but it wasn't! ROARRRR. Oh well, still gotta take a picture =P

Next up: 1st wine tasting stop! This was after going to Seville Estate (or something like that), which was one of the award winning vineyards for a few years running. The wine tasting area was a small charming shed, and there was this really adorable dog (probably a mutt) with a tail that moved in circles - unlike other dogs whose tails wag from side to side, this one went in a really nice circle!

Anyway, wine tasting. I am clearly not an expert in wine, and so I thought it would be quite weird to try glass after glass of wine without knowing what exactly to erm, look (or taste) out for. But I guess at the start its just a matter of drinking them (some people spit but I think that's such a waste...) and deciding what you like better. In general, wine is tasted from the lightest to the darkest, and I cannot remember the details about body and taste and acidity and all so I shall not comment further.

Must mention that I didn't like red wines, but this trip had changed my mind to some extent. Hmm. Updated preferences: I don't like Rosé wine, Riesling is still a favourite (yay for german grapes!), Pinot Noir is surprisingly nice (Red wine!) and so is Chardonnay, but I still don't like Shiraz. Was really tempted to get the Pinot Noir here, but decided against it, unfortunately. Darn.

1st group photo of the day! I think we stacked a few log stumps and used it as a camera stand.
Gloomy, gloomy weather. (I'm sorry I'm whining.) And this picture certainly does not show that we were all FREEZING - After the camera flash went off, we hurriedly retrieved it and ran for the warmth of the car.

Trigger happy people in the backseat! (Sorry alex)

Next wine stop: Tarra Warra vineyard. (Say Tarra Warra a few times, quickly!) Also another award winning place. This place was a lot larger than Seville Estate. We were hoping to stop there for lunch, but the restaurant was not open. Thankfully, the cellar door was, so it wasn't a wasted trip!

2nd wine tasting stop! I caved in and got a bottle of Pinot Noir - although I preferred the one at Seville Estate, but this wasn't too bad either. Its sitting at home now, my little wine stash.

Happy wine tasters! Uh, the guys.

Zx and I, who happily took a sip of every glass and gave the rest to me. Not that I minded that much... except that it had consequences... later.
Nevertheless, it was good. Yay! Lovely, lovely wine.


The skies cleared a little, giving way to blue! We noticed that the cellar door overlooked some really pretty scenery, so out came the cameras =)
And then... thanks to the wine... my face started turning its usual shade of, uh, pink. My ears and face felt quite warm. At least I wasn't sprouting rubbish, and still retained the presence of mind to evade certain evil people (guess who! Older than me!) and associated camera in my direction. Think a video survived though. Oh well.

My face isn't that red, waaaaaaad. (But I think I look slightly woozy. Hmm.)


After the scenery ooh-ing and ahh-ing we all piled into the car once more in search for lunch, and found it at Innocent Bystander. (At the recommendation of TW's staff.)


And.... this is where I got quite sick.
I wasn't stupid enough to drink wine on an empty stomach (breakfast and biscuit!), and it certainly wasn't the greatest amount of alcohol I've ever consumed within a short period of time, but for some reason the ethanol hit my system hard and I suddenly felt nauseous and faint. Had to pass the additional bottle of wine we got at IB, while trying to put more food into my stomach, resting a bit and praying very hard that I didn't vomit all the wine like some incorrigible drunkard. (Not to mention the waste!) Ah well. Shared some duck thingy with zx, and to my utter horror it tasted like lamb (I don't like mutton). Clearly, I didn't have very fond memories of that particular lunch. =X

Oh, but they had really interesting signs hanging from the ceiling!
There was a foosball table thingy in there, and zx and I beat z-x at foosball. Heehee! Girl power muahahaha

Zx was really keen on visiting Healesville but alex wasn't that interested, so we dropped him off somewhere in the area and went to look at adorable animals. It was quite near closing time, so it was a pretty rushed trip.

And uh, since we're back in sg, I think I can safely confess this: After learning our lesson on Philip Island (aka no aussie student id, no student fares), z-x bought the 3 admission tickets using his student card, and when the staff asked to see the other 2 students using the tickets, zx took rf's student card and I pretended to have left mine back home. Hurhur. -_-" Since you don't want my nus card..... =P

I did a few stupid things in the gift shop, and there is a surviving picture, and I am NOT putting it here. Drool in envy if you must. ^^

Cute animals omgggggggggggg~~~ It was crazy, we saw a little joey munching grass alongside its mother, and when it got bored it just climbed back into the pouch!!
Joey joey joey!

I have no idea what this animal is, but it has a nice, long tail. (I swear no thoughts of laboratory cervical dislocation are running through my head now. Honest.)

This is probably a kookaburra.
Put a medical student, a TCM student and a life science student together in a place filled with animals, and stupid comments inevitably come out e.g. the quoll and dingo was diagnosed with OCD, we saw a sign on an aborigine tale about how the platypus came to be (an evil and lonely water rat raped an innocent duck and the platypus was the result of this not so harmonious mating) and made loads of terribly stupid comments which thankfully elude my mind now, the crane exhibit was closed (a sign said that this was to give them some peace and privacy as it was the mating season), the wombats were utterly lethargic and the wallabies were cute, too. Which led zx to conclude (earlier) that aussie is full of furry, adorable AND horny animals. Oh well.

And it was another reptile free day! Yahoo!

At the Healesville entrance =)

After that little animal wonderland trip, we picked alex up from uh, somewhere, and dinner!

Well, I fell asleep after a while (all the alcohol) but I woke up to z-x yelling "STOP STOP STOP!" to find that we were in the middle of nowhere =x Okay la we were somewhere up Mt Dandenong, on a dirt road, in the dark. Apparently the GPS was programmed to show the most direct way up and it showed the route up through the forest. The slopes were really steep, the bends were really sharp and the road was really narrow at so many points. It was terrifying, honestly, and I was praying so hard that we would emerged unscathed at our intended destination. =X The relief upon hitting the tarred main roads once again was indescribable, seriously.

After some more searching, we arrived at Sky-high restaurant. (Or something like that) It was drizzling a little and my hands went quite numb, but the scenery of the city of melb at night, with all the lights, was amazing!!
This picture doesn't do it much justice, honestly.

Of course, dinner! Me, zx and the exhausted rf.
I think zx and I shared a meal and dessert? While koping alex's fries. Oh yes, alex has a scary appetite for someone his size. He ate a full pizza in the afternoon at IB, and then scarfed a humongous burger for dinner. This was also the site of the $14 in coins and masculine pink pouch, as mentioned earlier in the quotable quotes post (which I am too lazy to replicate, too bad.)

After being fed and watered, we uh, went down the range by a much more sensible route (stupid gps!!!) and headed to z-x's place to finish up the wine from IB in the afternoon, since it was apparently the nearest to the ranges. We discovered that the toilet was/is blindingly white - everything in it (furniture, that is) was white. Oh, and that people who are really ticklish themselves should NOT poke others and laugh at their reaction ^^ I think the score is currently 4-2 or 4-1: either way, I win. =P

Then it was back to hostel. Sleep. Z.