Weekend Adventures - Sunday

Despite the tiring day we had the past 2 days, we were all geared up at 8 to drive down to Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges!

Yarra Valley
this is a beautiful huge land with lots of vineyards and orchards! we got lost a couple of times and din know what was happening n wondered where the wineries for free wine tasting were! then we realized we were using a lousy map!! which hardly has anything n is so difficult to use...

luckily i managed to find a good map which shows accurate landmarks which we can follow and also designated tourism areas for travellers. so i ended up doing most of the navigation for Yarra Valley. haha!! can u imagine ME navigating?? my cg mates'll prob go "HAHA... how can gerri navigate? she's got absolutely no direction sense!!" (really... coz i'm always e one making the wrong turns n landing everyone in the wrong places in the hospitals! haha!)

hey! i did a damn good job k... we managed to find our way to more than 5 wineries, a magic rose garden, the big bouquet and en route to Mt Dandenong. A pretty refreshing trip (nope... we din get groggy from drinking too much wine...)... in e sense tt we picked up some wine culture along e way, admire the beautiful vineyards, made frens with the vineyards owners... most of them offer free tasting of their wine... u can taste most of their wine... the red wines like pinot noir, merlot, etc... and the whites like sauvignon blanc, chardonnay. e wines from different wineries taste very different... even if they haf e same name, say chardonnay for eg. so u actually gotto really taste it, see if u like it... n buy it if u do!

I bought a sauvignon blanc coz e minute i drank it, i loved it!! it has this very refreshing taste tt's not too rich... i think the trip also made me realize what kinda wine i like... i tend to like the more fruity type compared to e nutty flavours and also e blander kind... trying to sound like a wine connoisseur... haha!

i also fell in love with this sparkling pinot noir from a really posh winery... e guy there was really nice n taught us lots of stuff abt wine culture... explaining to us what's e diff between shiraz and merlot, etc... it seemed to be the only place tt had sparkling wine and it tasted really nice! so i couldn't resist it n bought one immediately... their wines r relatively cheap i think... to think tt they're all freshly made.. most of them are 2003's or 2002's.. can't find them anywhere else except in their specific vineyards... i bought e sauvignon blanc for only 20 and the pinot noir for 16!! not bad huh???

the rose garden was.... WAAHHHHH!!!!... i was like... r u sure this place exists on earth??? r u sure it's not heaven?? haha!! i've never seen SOOO many roses at one time... all sorts of different colours n patterns on their petals somemore! the garden boasts of its more than 200 varieties of roses!!! took lotsa photos.... and hey!! there was a rose bush named after me! took a photo n kept a dropped petal in my book... haha... so beautiful k... geraldine... (okai.. i mean the rose)... hahaha!

the big bouquet is this place which sells gerberas... beautiful place too but a pity we din haf enough time n din wanna pay 7.50 for a haphazard tour of the place... mandy would love e place though... her fav flowers... haha!

Dandenong Ranges
din like dandenong ranges much coz we din spend much time there... it was just this drive up the mountain and then at various observation points we get panoramic views of melbourne city and the surroundings... nothing much...

there are some attractions around among the ranges coz it's actually a self-sufficient town kinda place... ppl actually live there... but there weren't enough time to tour the place... coz we spent too much time at beautiful yarra valley.. almost din wanna leave yarra valley actually... haha!

Yup! so tt was a fantastic weekend spent! lotsa getting lost, getting close to nature, getting frustrated! most impt is we all learnt stuff from e trip and got our very own experience in these wonderful spots of Victoria. and of course, got back home to Austin campus in one piece! YAY!