Tone & Trace come and play!

Yeayyyy! It's been great having Tony and Tracy over to stay. They're not new to Australia or Sydney, but we still managed to show them some new sights!
We went up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse on the Northern Beaches and had a lovely picnic on the rocks at the top.
Dean took Tone fishing at Bradley's Head and they both got squeamish when a fish had the nerve to get caught on Tone's hook!!!





























Tone & Trace had met Phil on their previous trip down under, so we took them over to see Phil and Bianca in their new house in the Blue Mountains - called Treetops - so beautiful! And of course, we took them to the Three Sisters and did a 6 hour walk - the usual stuff...!
Oh, and the obligatory trip to the Hunter Valley for a well earned piss-up!!

Hunter winos

Wow, what a brilliant idea! We drove up to a cabin in the Hunter Valley that me, Dean and Phil had stayed in last year. We noted that they offered tours of the region, which we intended to participate in, sometime in the future. That time had arrived and we highly recommend it to anyone, it was excellent value.
There were only the four of us and we really did receive personal treatment. We were taken to two wineries, a champagne house, a chocolate shop and a cheesery (this is what they called it)! At each wine boutique we had our own personal ‘wine guide’ who produced about 10 wines for us to try, starting with light whites through the rosés and reds to finish with the ‘stickies’ (the Australian term for sweet after dinner wines and ports). The champagne house was the same sort of thing and we tried pink and red bubbles for the first time. It was an excellent afternoon and proved to be a bit too much for me – I crashed out on the sofa almost as soon as we got back. Mind you, everyone was in bed by 9.30 that night!!
Here is the cabin we stayed in - very peaceful:
Mum awoke the morning after to a glorious day and was just about to go out on the veranda when she saw this local wallaby with a joey in her pouch. She quickly grabbed the camera, still blurry-eyed and manage to capture this great photo.