Our adventure continues as we say farewell to amazing New Zealand and touch down in Australia, Sydney to be precise and with only a couple of hours sleep because of a very early flight, it all seems very surreal. After only a 3 hour flight and a quick but pricey train ride, we emerge into the hot and humid Circular Quay station, with both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the background. From there it was only a short walk to our fancy hotel, thank goodness, our big backpacks and new day packs  are getting heavier with every day.

It was only 8:30am but the lovely staff at ‘The Establishment hotel’ took care of our bags whilst we went for a delicious breakfast in their restaurant and it was soon time to check out our amazing room. It was beautiful, with an open plan bathroom, surround sound music system and a very comfy bed. No we haven’t won the lottery or had a mad 5 minutes on our credit cards, this treat was kindly given to us as a leaving present from RWD where Evie used to be part of the team, and what a treat it was!

There wasn’t any time to catch up on sleep or enjoy the hotel for long this morning though, today was a day to sort our new Ozzy lives out for the next year or so. First we had a meeting at the bank to collect our bank cards and open up a joint account, next was a trip to Vodafone for new SIM cards, then to the Medicare office to make sure we’re covered if I decide to burn myself again or break any more bones. Tax numbers at the government office sorted and Evie’s uniform bought, finally we were done and were very impressed with the efficiency of it all. Each place we went, we were in and out in minutes with staff happy to help, they’ve got it right here.

We were back in our hotel room by 3 and had a lie down and a snooze. We were rudely awakened by a knock at the door, but soon forgave the intruder as it was the concierge with a bottle of champagne for us to enjoy before we went to our next appointment, a slap up meal down at Darling harbour. It was at ‘Steersons Steakhouse’ where the menu was long but almost exclusively filled with different steaks. We both had a delicious steak, Evie went for surf’n’turf whilst I had a big rib on bone steak, washed down with a nice Chianti, sipsipsipsipsip (for Hannibal Lector fans)
This second indulgent treat was a gift from Rick and Karen so thank you both for that, it was delicious and a great recommendation.

Our first very productive day in Australia was coming to an end and after a nice stroll back to our hotel we slept like logs.

Well rested and raring to go, we had our daily buffet breakfast and headed off for a walk around the opera house before we embarked on the short ferry crossing to Manly. The trip itself was great, really scenic with great opportunities for shots of the city. On the way I called my Uncle Chris’ mate Simon who, living the Aussie lifestyle, dropped everything and met us at the new Brighton hotel. We walked along the coast from there to a lovely seaside restaurant on Shelly beach where we were treated to lunch, thank you Simon, we’re doing quite well here! We met his lovely wife Aline and daughter Amelie. Then we were given a driving tour of the headland and all of the gorgeous beaches heading north out of Sydney, each seemingly getting more beautiful and less busy the further afield you ventured.

We said goodbye to the family and went for a schooner at the Steyne, a notorious pub recommended to us by Uncle Dave. This part of town is where both Kim and Dave lived at different times and was the talking point when they first met, so cheers to both of you from Manly!

We took the ferry back to the city separately after I soaked Evie and she wouldn’t sit with me, I was merely trying to cool her off in the heat being a loving fiancé, but she didn’t see it that way. She can’t stay mad at me for long though and we were friends again once we were on dry land. Tonight was a chance to chill out and enjoy our hotel room. Evie had a craving for dumplings, so after a lot of research, we found a delivery company to cycle some over to us. And delicious they were too.

The following morning after brekkie, we jumped in a cab to visit a shipyard which was the other side of the Anzac bridge, we had an appointment to have a look around one of the super yachts Evie had been involved in designing. It was massive and very nice indeed, I must say that all the finishes were beautiful, the designers must have been pretty talented!!!

We had lunch with the crew (another freebie) and handed back our deck shoes, thongs (flip-flops) weren’t allowed on site. We decide to walk back to the city, it was rather hot, but just over the bridge was the fish market, a hive of activity, with amazing fresh fish and produce everywhere, as well as thousands of Chinese people, well it is Chinese New Year, so they’re all on there holidays. It was a shame we had just eaten because it all looked very yummy, I had a couple of oysters and Evie had a chocolate strawberry though so as not to be rude.

We slowly walked from here all the way around the coastline past darling harbour, through the new barangaroo district and park, under the harbour bridge, past the Opera house and through the botanical gardens back into the city. It was a lovely walk and I think we both earned our Ladurée macaroon when we arrived back into the shopping area.

Tonight we would be meeting Rebek, Zeke’s sister who we met at his and Ellie’s wedding last summer. Fuelled up on iced coffee and a custard tart I found at a bakery, we spruced up and waited for her to pick us up on the corner of the street.

Whilst we stood there waiting for our pick-up on the corner of the street, we saw on the other side of the road Eric, the guy we had met in Fiji a couple of months ago, we knew he lived in Sydney but the chances of bumping into him in a massive busy city were very slim. We said hello to him and his family who are visiting and will arrange to see him properly next time we’re in the city.

Rebek was soon there and she drove us off to Coogee bay for a decent meal, we made use of the ‘bottle-o’ next door and the popular BYO policy that a lot of restaurants allow in Oz. It was great to meet up with her, Evie had really hit it off with her at Ellis hen-do and I got a chance to get to know her. The meal was very good and a lot less pricey than our steak night.

This only meant that we had to go off to find Sydney’s best ice-cream. The parlour was in Kings Cross and the queue out the door at 11pm is always a good sign. The ice-cream was delicious and being the connoisseurs we are, that says a lot. After we were sufficiently stuffed, Rebek dropped us off on her way home and we said our goodbyes, hoping to see her again when she visits Adelaide soon.

We had packed our bags and were ready for our next stop Adelaide. This also meant the end to our care-free spending lifestyle, instead we would be starting our new jobs. The early morning Tiger Airways flight took 2 hours, but with smooth flying the whole way, Evie seemed to almost enjoy it. After landing, we had to take a cab up and out of the city to Glen Ewin Estate. This was about 45 minutes from the airport up at the entrance to the Adelaide hills. We arrived about noon and were due to meet the owner of the estate Wendy and her daughter Kate who Evie has met before back home and is the reason we got this job.

Glen Ewin Estate was established in 1843 and was for most of its history a fruit orchard producing the famous Glen Ewin jams and preserves. When Bill and Wendy took over the estate in 1991, it had mostly been neglected and they along with their son Willa, decided to maintain the many fig trees and remove all of the other fruit trees growing on the property. They eventually moved into wedding functions after a couple of requests from friends to have their receptions on the property and now after 25 years, they run an extremely successful estate with 2 big function rooms, a delicious bistro which also sells a range of Glen Ewin wines and Willabrand figs, which is run by Willa himself and includes a pick-your-own fig orchard and fig bar.

All in all its a very busy estate, with a really rural feel, even though it is only 5 minutes out of the hustle and bustle of the city limits.
Anyway that was a short introduction to our new home for the next few months.

We had lunch in the ‘Cellar door’ bistro with Wendy, Kate and her whippet Horace. It was lovely to get to know them and we also met the management team who we had been communicating with over e-mail until now. Our first shift would start tomorrow, so for now we just had a look around the property with Kate and she showed us to her house where we would be staying for 10 days, whilst she went skiing in the french Alps with her 3 year old very cute son Rafi. We would be kind of house sitting as well as taking Horace for walks and helping Wendy & Bill with errands if needed as Wendy has just had back surgery and still needs her rest.

After moving our backpacks into ‘The Loft’ which is Kates house, we took the opportunity to see more of the property by taking Horace for a walk. We took him around perimeter of the property, through the woods, walking very carefully expecting, as wimpy Poms, to bump into a deadly brown snake or a man eating spider. We didn’t see either, although there are snakes on site. We did however, see kangaroos, pretty cool considering we’ve only just arrived and we had to keep Horace close by, because his hobby is to chase them, even though they would always win in a fight. They happily hopped off to avoid us, but we managed to get a few snaps. All go the wildlife here is new to us, so the parakeets and macaws flying overhead are awesome to us, but in reality are a pest on the farm.

We wandered back down the hill through the fig orchards consisting of 12,000 trees of 5 different varieties of fig. Im sure it won’t take us long to sample them all. We went down to the Glen Ewin House where Wendy and Bill live, and where we met the rest of the family, Willa, his wife Mary and their 2 kids Zoe (16) and Louie (15) They were all so welcoming and we enjoyed a few glasses of wine and nibbles whilst getting to know each other and having a handstand competition. Kate went off to the airport with Rafi, we’ll see her again in 10 days. We moved up to the loft and had an easy dinner before sweeping the bedroom for spiders, paranoia still being strong and we did see a red back spider on our walk home.

We slept well and popped out for supplies in the morning before our first shift started at 2 this afternoon. We were set up with our shirts and name badges and sent to seperate functions. I was introduced to the team and would be helping on the bar, as well as providing drinks service to guests and also helping with food service when needed. Evie was at the bigger function waitressing but unfortunately her new shoes had given her blisters before she had even started so it was going to be a long day for her.

Both of us enjoyed our first shifts, mine being 13 hours but I’ve done those hours plenty of times before at other wedding venues back in England so it wasn’t an issue. Evie was a bit shorter but after seeing the state of her feet i think she worked for long enough, and we have to work tomorrow too. In the afternoon we wandered over to the Fig bar and helped Willa for the final hour of the day, getting to know how it all worked, we would come back tomorrow to do 3 hours each, so it was good to get some direction before we took over. Our second wedding shift went well too and Evie was brought down to work with me this time. We had a good laugh and all of the girls, guys, chefs are really friendly and welcoming – we’re going to be alright here I think.

Evie took the first 3 hours on the fig bar alongside Carey to work the busy Sunday shift whilst I had a lie in, not for too long though as the temperature crept over 30 degrees in the morning. I swapped over with her for the last 3 hours in the afternoon and it was soon 36 degrees. we were pretty busy and it was good fun, chatting to the punters, selling kilo after kilo of figs and ice cream, beers, wine and all sorts. The heat got to one lady who was collected by ambulance after fainting. A bit of drama for our first weekend, but it was all good otherwise and we enjoyed a beer when we finished. The weekend was now over but ours was just beginning, we now had 4 days off until our next shift at work so we can go and explore.

The following day, after walking Horace, we ventured into the city. Big mistake!, the mercury hit 40 degrees whilst we were there as we darted between air conditioned shopping malls, but braving it in search of a decent ice cream, which came from the St Louis dessert co. It was unbearable however, so we paid our $16 to park for 2 hours and went back to the hot loft. Its a great time to be in Adelaide at the moment, the Fringe festival is on, there is the Clipsil 500 motor race coming up, as well as numerous music and arts festivals, we’ll hopefully get a chance to see a few things before winter sets in around May. Thankfully the temperature does drop under 20 at night so it’s not too bad once the room cools down. We chilled out, watched tv for the first time in ages and enjoyed our views over the estate.

Our next day off, Tuesday we decided just spend sorting out our tax details and some other things that the admin team needed from us. We did the usual, walked Horace, went to the supermarket, watched lots of episodes of Making a Murderer on Netflix and basically did nothing else, planning to venture out the next day instead. On Wednesday however, someone had gone sick from the fig bar, so we split the shift and did 3 hours each again. Its not a bad shift at all, getting to chat away with the customers who are mostly all very interesting and interested to find out about us and the estate, to say that we were winging it with all of the questions was an understatement, but we are learning a lot about figs in the short time we’ve been here, their conservation and varieties, having now tried them all, we can help to assist people in what they are picking, although I’m sure they eat enough out there on the orchard to make up their own minds.

On Thursday we ventured into the local shopping mall to look for a wide brimmed hat, considering we’re out in the hot sun quite a bit, this is an essential and we were in luck, we found a decent hat stall and both picked up nice hats, I even managed to find one that fit my big head.

So for the next 3 days we worked both on the fig bar and at different weddings, they were all lovely, with happy brides, grooms and guests. We’re both really enjoying the work, think we’ll give fruit picking a miss if we can. On the Sunday though we were moving up in the world. 100 metres up to be precise, we had arranged to rent a small b&b on the site from a lovely couple Heather and Grant, it’s a really nice place with great views of the orchards, nice and modern inside, perfect for us over the next couple of months and they’ve loaned us a car too, everything has fallen into place very nicely.

After we had rested up in our new palace from our weekend of work, we made our way to the beach, it was about time we ventured into the shark infested waters of Australia. For this we made our way to Port Willunga, a beautiful long beach just south of the city with crystal clear still waters, the day we were there. We stopped before we arrived and picked up fish’n’chips from Aldinga and took them down to eat on the sand. Of course we ate too much and had to have a little snooze before we swam, you know, just to be on the safe side. We went for a dip, Evie even went in up to her waste, hoping that the sharks wouldn’t eat her if she stayed there. It was a lovely day and not too hot by the seaside.

Once we had dried off,we drove about 10 minutes inland and into the McClaren Vale wine region. I had been told that there was a winemaker here with the same surname as me, so we sought him out and low and behold, there it was on the main road, the S.C Pannell winery. It would be rude not to go and introduce myself and partake in the tasting, it was very nice and we left with a bottle of Rosé and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. We never met Mr. Pannell himself but we’ll come back some day I’m sure. Before we drove home, we wandered around the vineyard and took in the views. There are hundreds of vineyards in the area and definitely room for a wine tasting day, just need to employ a chauffeur.

So from our big balcony by the BBQ at our new house called the cow-shed, on account of it being an ex cow-shed, only completely modernised we look over the Glen Ewin estate, home for the foreseeable future. We really like it here and all of the people that work and live here. For the next couple of months we will hopefully be working as much as possible and going on occasional excursions to remind ourselves that we are still technically on holiday. The blogs may therefore be spaced further apart, but we’ll still keep you updated, Evie i’m sure will let you know the finer details of everything we’ve eaten and drank and we’ll continue to take lots of photos of the wildlife running and bouncing and flying and slithering and crawling around outside and inside our temporary home. As the Aussies say ‘Catch ya later’.