Kangaroos, Koalas, & Wine

Who can resist relaxing in the sun with these cute creatures?

After an exciting Australia Day, we decided to take our first day trip outside of the Melbourne area. We rented a car (here it's called a hire car), packed up our picnic lunch, and hit the road! The whole driving on the left-hand side of the road thing took a little getting used to, but Josh kept alert and was able to get us from point A to B to C and then back again with no issues. Although, we had to laugh at how clean our windshield was at the end of the day as Josh often hit the windshield wiper instead of the turn signal!

Our first stop was the Healesville Sanctuary where we spent our morning viewing many wildlife species from the Australian bush country. So much to see! We were surprised by how small many of the species were - especially the kangaroo, platypus, and koalas. I guess pictures and television add a few pounds! And then there were the flying foxes or fruit bats - they were huge bats! We also saw a tasmanian devil, dingoes, wallabys, emus, a kookaburra, echidnas, a few raptor species (the program was cut short due to rain showers), and many reptiles and rodents. We were a little disappointed as the wombats were sleeping lazily the entire time we were there so we were only able to see large lumps of fur! No worries, we'll likely be back.

It rained on and off throughout the day. It was amazing how quickly the clouds were moving - you only had a minute or two warning that it was going to begin to sprinkle, and then as quickly as it came it left. We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the car (due to wind and rain) and then started out on our self-directed Yarra Valley winery tour.

We stopped to taste at four wineries - Oakridge, Punt Road, Sticks, Allinda - as well as trying some cheese at the Yarra Valley Dairy. It was a fun afternoon and the tasting set up was very similar to what you find in the States (Oregon or Colorado - not so much Napa). And of course we came home with a couple of cases of wine! Although the whole afternoon was enjoyable, we had an especially good time at Sticks (very artsy, personable tasting room folks) and Allinda (we talked with the winemaker himself - he was very approachable, proud of his work (especially the Riesling), and interested in talking about the state of global wine sales).

After tasting, we took the advice of the Allinda winemaker and had an amazing dinner at Cru restaurant at the Outlook Hill Vineyard. The food was wonderful and the view quite breathtaking - a perfect way to end the day!