Well... a report as such on my trip (from hell).
We set off Thursday morning heading for Coffs Harbour. The trip was pretty uneventful save for a bit of coughing in the seat next to me. We arrived in Coffs and I unloaded a couple of beers from the esky... however within a few minutes, I had the worst headache ever. The headache lasted all night and I was up every hour with a pounding headache.
Unsure as to whether we'd make it to Newcastle on the Friday, we set a goal of Taree (relatives), where we'd at least be able to make the wedding on the Saturday. As we rocketed past Taree all doped up on cold and flu tablets (the non-drowsy type), I resolved to get as far as we could, and we made it to Newcastle. SWMBO had directions all printed up, which I deviated from the first sign I saw
but I navigated through Newcastle okay, and joined us back up with the directions in Charlestown... the rest I navigated by memory, and a little bit of luck... hehe
Well, we made it to the wedding okay and through the
dry reception. I opened myself a beer when we got back to temporary home, and was very disappointed to find that all I could taste was bitterness and fizziness.
So much for the James Squire Hop Thief I'd brought with me. May as well have had a VB for all I could taste.
A midnight run to John Hunter hospital with my daughter's temperature that wouldn't come down just topped it off. As a result, we cancelled one of our nights in the Hunter, so we could be closer to the hospital just in case. With people dying around the country from Influenza-A, we weren't going to take any gambles. It also turned out that my grandfather had had another small stroke, probably as a result of drinking too much alcohol, so we had a merry old family party at the doctor's surgery.
We started getting better with the help of some antibiotics, so we decided we'd head to the Hunter and salvage what we could of the trip. It was interesting going into wineries and declining tastings (we still couldn't taste). We brought a few bottles home nonetheless. No point going home empty handed.
The second day in the Hunter we headed over to Potters to pick up a few sample bottles. I was offered a taster, and couldn't refuse, so I had a taste of their witbier. To my surprise I could actually taste it, so after my second taster, SWMBO shot over to the reception and reorganised the night we had originally planned there. I had a good chat to Keith over the afternoon, and took a tour of the brewery (without my camera... bugger!) In fact we had such a good chat that Keith had to stay the night to get his work finished.
I will reserve my tasting notes until I taste the samples I have brought home. I want to make sure that my sense of taste wasn't still a bit wonky... as I suspect I was tasting more bitterness than was actually there.
After the night at Potters, we head off for Taree to stay with relatives for a couple of nights, and then to Yamba for a night to split the drive, before arriving home yesterday afternoon. When I got in, I noticed the converted chest freezer was sitting on 19deg. It seems that a cat has tried to climb the power cord and unplugged it from the fridgemate... will have to wait for everything to balance again.
We managed to salvage some of the trip we had planned, but unfortunately wasn't up for a big session at Potters. We've decided that we'll do it again and
not get sick this time.
Apologies to Les the Weizguy... we'll try again next time.
I did manage to get home with a 750ml of each of the Hunter Koelsch, Lager, Bock, Pale Ale and witbier, and a magnum of both the Pale Ale and the Bock, so I'll have some fun giving those a work over.
