Abseiling anyone?!

After our travels around Victoria the four of us headed north to Hunter Valley, famous for it's wine production! Ad got the unwanted job of being our designated driver and luckily didn't take the advice of friends who had assured us that it didn't really matter if you were a little bit over the limit as the the police never stopped anyonw. Typically, Ad was stopped and breath tested in the middle of the day but all was fine as he'd been swilling and spitting!

Visiting the vineyards and seeing how the wine was produced was amazing and tasting (although I definately had far more than just a taste as I finshed off Ad's glass as well as my own!) was even better. The hotel we stayed at also had a micro brewery so we ended our tasting session with a paddle of beer samples much to Adam's delight!

After a couple of days relaxing in gorgeous accomodation surrounded by vineyards we headed back to Sydney to meet my sister. As you can imagine, the reunion included several glasses (or was that bottles Katy?!) of wine - a reunion pattern definately seems to be forming!

Early the next day we headed out of the city towards the blue mountains, stopping en route at a wildlife centre where we got to stroke koala's which looked very cute but can apperently, according to Adam, scratch your face off!. Also got to hand feed kangaroos which was lots of fun until the mad emu (I don't know why there was an emu in the hand feeding kangaroo bit) randomly started to race around with it's neck stretched out which I personally found a bit freaky!

We had such an amazing time in the Blue Mountains. The views out over the three sisters and the forest below were just stunning. Loved walking down the Giant's Staircase (thank goodness we didn't have to go back up though!) and through the forest. Really thankful of the cable car that took us back up and provided with us some more awesome views. Got a completely different perspective of the forest when we viewed it from a cable car with a glass bottom, so weird to look straight down and see the views directly beneath you!

However, the highlight of our stay in the Blue Mountains was saved till last. We were taken out to a remote cliff face and given harnesses that resembled big black rubber nappies to wear - next seasons must have I'm sure! We then walked backwards over a 90m cliff with just a rope attaching us to solid ground - that's right - we abseiled . . . and it was awesome! Our last drop included a drop of about 20m where you couldn't reach the cliff face and so just had to lower yourself down on the rope. This was amazing as you got to spin around and take in the views, only our instructor failed to mention that it was going to happen. Very amusing once you had completed this unexpected act to stand at the bottom and watch as the person whos turn it was next hit the free fall descent and went into a state of panic and tried to air run / shout expletives very loudly!