Cowra wine festival

My old school friend Toby's fiance Jenice is from the little rural town of Cowra, which is 4 hours west of Sydney, over the blue mountains. Apart from being a lush green agricultural centre, it also holds the 3rd largest wine festival in Australia. Strangely Jude and I have never been to a wine festival, so had no idea what to expect. We ended up leaving on Friday evening, and stopped of in the little village of Leura in the blue mountains for a lovely fireside dinner, which ended with Christmas pudding ice cream, which was awesome, and not surprising Jude fell in love with.

After waking to clear blue ski's we drove over the mountains and into rural Oz (where Jude saw her first ever kangaroo). Apart from the wine festival, Cowra is also know for the Second World War prison escape by Japanese prisoners, where 231 of them died after they tried to storm the prison as would rather die than live with the shame of being captured. Even the ones that did make it out committed suicide by throwing themselves under trains!

Anyway, back to nice lovely wine. Now what better way to get ready for a wine festival than go to 2 different wineries for tastings. So after about 13-15 tastings, we were ready to hit the festival. Inside we had 3 hours where we could drink as much as we liked, and serve ourselves, apart from champagne and some top top wines. Thankfully the organiser lives next to Jenice, so we had the inside scoop on the best wines. Going through the doors suddenly the excitement and pure manic of everybody hit us. It was like being at a music festival, where everyone runs around trying to see all the best acts. Our reserved approach was thrown out the window, and be decided to just dive in with everyone else, with elbows flying!

All i really remember is eating huge slabs of brie, guzzling every type of wine within the first hour, being very impresses with the grape Durif (slightly more fruity and powerful Pinot Noir, or softer Syrah).Then with only 20 mins till the end we all hit the port, and hit it hard. After being herded out, and then into the only pub in town, Jude and I thought best to call it an end as we had an earlyish start. After waiting in the freezing cold with an 18 year old girl dressed like a local in Newcastle, still no taxi appeared. Thankfully a little spotty fella comes out and says he's about to be picked up by his mum, and she'll give us all a lift home. Our neighbors would have seen a very bemused and drunk couple staggering from a strangers car, whooping that they'd found there flat. The journey home the following day was not a pleasant one!


Local flaming galahs (they have red bellies, and are worth $1k each in China)

The view from our apartment

Where do we start

Jenice and her twin Rose looking for the wine that got away!

So much wine, so little time

Helpers on hand

Tetsuya's

The first thing we did upon arriving in Sydney was to try and book up this amazing restaurant everybody kept telling up about. Sadly they were booked up till feb/march, so we were put on the waiting list thinking nothing of it. Out of the blue Jude gets phoned up saying they have a table at 7pm the following day, and do we want it. Its pricey, I'm not earning yet, hmm..... hell yeah! I'll let the following explain the place and food, but it took 4 hours for us to finish, and there were 5/6 dishes which we felt were truly out of this world.

Tetsuya Wakuda has refurbished a heritage-listed site in the city to create his dream restaurant. The restaurant offers sophisticated and intimate private dining rooms overlooking a Japanese garden. His cuisine is unique, based on the Japanese philosophy of natural seasonal flavours, enhanced by classic French technique.

Tetsuya’s serves a thirteen-course degustation menu, which is matched with wine by the glass.

He has been in the top 10 best restaurants in the world since 2003, has three Chef's hats (there version of Micheline stars) and tons of other awards.

The Menu

Chilled Corn Soup with Saffron & Vanilla Ice Cream
Smoked Ocean Trout & Avruga Caviar
Leek & Crab Custard
Marinated Crystal Bay Prawns with Soy Caramel
Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Apple, Daikon & Wasabi, and a Seasonal Green Salad
Terrine of Queensland Spanner Crab with Avocado
Grilled Fillet of Barramundi with Braised Baby Fennel
Grass Fed Beef Fillet with Nameko, Shimeji & Enoki Mushroom
Twice-Cooked De-Boned Spatchcock with Foie Gras & Red Wine Jus
Comte with Lentils
Green Apple Sorbet with Sauternes Jelly
Strawberry Shortcake
Lemon Scented Floating Island with Vanilla Bean Anglaise
Chocolate Ganache with Green Tea & Red Beans


This is his signature dish, the ocean trout.

Bring on the lamb

Yummy Tuna

The entrance.... a hidden oasis in the City

The Chef

Blue Mountains

Our first trip together outside of Sydney. We got up early to get the morning train to Katoomba, the touristy spot in the blue mountains (its called blue mountains from the oil that's released from the eucalyptus trees). The journey takes 2 hours, with pleasant countryside abound, though the journey would only take an hour if it wasn't stopping every 5 minutes!

We did a 3 hour circuit, encompassing the town, lookouts, and depths of the jungle. Apart from some wobbly legs going down the many step to the bottom, it was a pleasant day and good to get out of the city. Its quite amazing to have such wonderful countryside so close to beachy Sydney. We'll definitely have to come again, but to one of the less touristy towns next time.


Rugged up against the 7C temperature, and gusty wind making it even colder!

Echo point lookout to the West, with the 3 sisters (rock formations).

Echo point lookout to the East, with Jude looking quite Russian in her hat.

Katoomba Waterfall

The view of the valley from the bottom

A smaller waterfall in the thick of the jungle.

A hearty lunch in the heritage listed cafe Paragon in Katoomba. They also make homemade chocolate and have signed photos of all the starts who've visited.

The cocktail bar at the back of the restaurant.

New Zealand - Methven/Mt Hutt/Christchurch

I realise after a week of living in our lovely new pad that I'm not going to get any work for another couple of weeks as Oz has there end of year accounting in June. So after a very kind Jude gives me the nod, I jump on a plane to Christchurch to get some powder action. We never got to this side of the south island last time, so it was good to check it out, and see NZ in the winter. This is the area that is seen as the most similar to England, which is no surprise as it was created by the English as a home away from home. It has a rich agriculture, but also some of the best early snow in New Zealand.


Methven - A tiny little town nearest to the slopes. I noticed in the monthly magazine that the worlds ploughing competition with be held here later in the year.....Hmm, interesting!

Mt hutt is the highest ski slope in NZ, with a very flat countryside below.

This is the view over the other side of the mountains.... off piste anyone?

The temperature was -4C, but then with the wind you're easily up to -11C!

This is the winding road that you need to take ever day to get to the slopes. It takes about an hour from Methven, requires snow tires, has drops on either side, but is just beautiful. A car slid of the road 2 weeks beforehand and somehow they didn't die!

Me somehow still in one piece after a long week of snowboarding

As the slopes were only occupied by locals and a few tourists, it was easy meeting people. This is a group of crazy NZ guys, and US girl, i met who start every evening drinking jagerbombs at 7pm, owch!

Can you believe, a drum and bass night in Methven!

I got to Christchurch late in the afternoon, to check it out before my early morning flight. This is the square, with a conical statue to celebrate the millennium.

The canal that winds through town. You could easily believe you were in England.