Ridin' the Winebus

In the planing phase for this trip, I had investigated the possibilities for visiting some of the wine growing areas. Visiting the wineries outside of Melbourne seemed like the easiest, since they are roughly an hour outside the city. I never really acted on this though. I e-mailed Dan on Wednesday and asked him whether he'd like to do this on Friday and he said yes. I went online, but almost all the tours seemed to be booked. On my last shot, www.winebus.co.au I found space. Honestly, based on their advertising, this seemed like the least serious of the tours offered, but it was available. I sent the link to Dan and he was OK. If you read Thursday's post, you know the rest of the story.

The Winebus!

Dan and I met up at the designating pick-up point, but again, it was rainy and cold. The bus arrived on time and we were cheerfully greeted by our driver, Ian, who seemed delighted to have some Americans on board. It turns out his son lives in Philadelphia. Of the 12 guests on the van, we were the only non-Australians. Our first stop was around 10:30 and it seemed pretty early to be tasting wine, but that was the program. This winery was run by Italians, so we got a good espresso out of it as well. We were o the balcony overlooking the vineyards when our driver pointed out the kangaroos. Finally saw my first kangoroo in Australia, albeit at a distance.

Our next stop was Tokar Vineyards. By now the sun had come out and the group was starting to meld. We were having lunch at Tokar so the first order of business was to select our food. Interestingly, many vineyards have full-service restaurants  open to the public right on the grounds. While we were tasting, I got the first questions about the state of affairs in the U.S. Dan and I had discussed this  and knew it was very likely. I imagine this will continue during our time at the conference. Lunch was delicious and Tokar turned out to be the most attractive of all the vineyards we visited.

Arriving at Tokar Vineyards

To be continued . . . Gotta catch a plane!