More Great Ocean Road Australia

I have just left my wildlife retreat. Currently (December 2019) Australia is experiencing an outbreak of fires. I start actively watching for news updates because the fires escalate day by day. I may need to alter travel plans or even leave the country.

Today I am heading to an airbnb in Port Fairy Victoria. I am staying in an adorable cottage for the night and stopping at some sights along the way.

Gibson’s steps

My first stop of the day is Gibson’s steps.

The steps provide a pathway down to a beautiful beach. Today the Gibson steps are closed due to storm damage and erosion. I just soak up the view up top instead.

Great Ocean walk

From the parking lot I notice a trail marker for the Great Ocean Walk. I read later that that it is an 100k scenic walk along the coast. Today I only walk a little bit of the trail since I hadn’t prepared for a long hike.

12 Apostles

I head back to my car for the short drive to the twelve apostles, a collection of limestone rocks off the coast.

I plan to head to the next rock formation down the road, Loch Ard Gorge, but I see a sign for a cheese and food trail and suddenly decide it is more important to follow that trail then to stop at any other roadside wonders.

12 Apostles Food Artisans

I follow the road with the food trail signs until I get to the first stop Apostle Whey Cheese. I skip the chocolate stop (Gorge Chocolates). I know you must be thinking there something wrong with me but I prefer a block of cheese over a chocolate bar 99% of the time.

I partake in a cheese sampler, tour the grounds and purchase to cheese to go.

I also pick up an official copy of the food map.

I head off to the next location but stop to look at some cows on the way.

I am heading to a brewery nearby, Sow and Piglets Production Brewery. From the website it appears that they sell sausages and such to eat. Beer samples and sausages sound good to me. When I arrive I find the brewery is closed for tastings. I must have arrived off season. If I want to try the beers I have to go to their microbrewery location in town.

Instead I head to the town of Timboon. My first stop is Timboon Railway Shed Distillery. It is a whisky distillery and restaurant. I try a couple whisky samples and then sit down for a late lunch.

I finally try a sow & piglet beer.

Right around the corner is an ice cream shop. I head over to Timboon Fine Ice Cream where they have some unique and fun flavors (at least to this American).

I order one scoop of Orange & Cardamon and one scoop of Rhubarb & raspberry. I really love the flavors.

After my ice cream I head back on the road. I plan to go straight to my Airbnb but I drive by Cheese World and I cannot help stopping.

They have Meredith Dairy in stock. I first learned about Meredith Dairy in central Florida where a local cheese monger sells the marinated goat cheese feta. It probably is one of the best cheeses I have ever tasted. Meredith Dairy cheese is produced in Victoria; in fact I emailed the farm to see if they gave tours before my trip and sadly they do not. In the USA we import the feta but some of their other products are new to me. I pick up some cheese to take back to my cottage tonight.

I check out the cheese store’s wine collection which is unfortunately heavy on the not so great wines we can already try in the USA. Luckily I already have some bottles I purchased a couple days prior.

I head to my cottage in Port Fairy to rest for the evening. It is an adorable cottage named Elizabeth Margaret Brady Cottage built in 1860.

There is charming bedroom and a cozy living room with a working gas fireplace that I use that evening.

The cottage can hold a small family. There is an attached area with another bedroom and bathroom. It is a pretty large place all to myself. There is also a washer on sight. I am happy to be able to do laundry.

There is complementary wine. I can add it to my wine and cheese tasting for the evening.

I prepare some snacks and a cheese plate and relax by the fire for a evening. Today has been a great day.

Şirince

Şirince is a little town near Selcuk known for its wine tastings. The idea is to visit for the day. Maybe do some shopping, maybe try some wine.

Şirince is where I was almost kidnapped. I joke but I was once again in an uncomfortable situation. I agree to a wine tasting at an outdoor bar. I try to be nice and smile. I am told the building is old and there is some old decor upstairs. I agree to go see it. Then it gets uncomfortable. There is no one else up there. The guy wants to sit up there with me and drink wine together. Because I am uncomfortable and don’t want to give him the wrong idea I tell him I want to go back down. I drink my glass of wine on the lovely patio downstairs but quickly because I don’t want to stick around any longer.

I do not have the knack for tasting. I walk into a tasting room and are given many to taste. I guess I am supposed to walk out at that point because what am I going to do with bottles of wine; I leave for Cappadoccia the next day. But I feel guilty. Even though there is no markings of expectation of purchase for the tasting (that I can read) I feel quilty and awkward. I am talked into buying two bottles after the insurance that the airline will allow them (note: it is a lie). I drink as much as I can while I am still in town…is my first travel hangover coming? The other bottle I secure in my backpack to bring to Cappadoccia. I needed more weight in that backpack like I needed a hole in my head.

Actually loving a Chardonnay and a Merlot, go figure

I meet a Turkish girl and her Swedish Fiancé. They are marvelous. They notice I am alone and converse with me. I end up spending the afternoon chatting with them instead of wandering to more tasting rooms. It is just what I needed when the only interaction I have had in days is the unwanted advances of Turkish waiters. Truth be told I am mostly ok with being alone but I have been lonely. These are what another traveler friend refers to as backgetters (visit her website, it is inspiring). I soak up her knowledge on everything related to Istanbul (I plan to return) and then we wish each other well. I hope I meet more people like this during my travels.

Port tasting in Porto

My visit to Porto has been very pleasing. It is a nice relaxed city and to top it all off Porto has Port.

Port is fortified wine made in Porto but the grapes are actually grown in the Douro Valley (not too far away).

We stopped by some tasting rooms one afternoon. The tasting rooms are actually across the river from Porto in Gaia (you can walk across a bridge or take a water taxi to get there).

I saw a recommendation somewhere for Augusto’s so that was our first stop.

Augusto’s port is not distributed and can only be purchased in the tasting room. It is a small family winery.

We had a tour and a tasting. Money toward the tour can be used toward credit for purchases.

They talked about how Port was made and we got to taste a couple different ones.

Of course they get you just buzzed enough to make bad decisions. We didn’t end up shipping anything home (super expensive) but I did purchase a sampler of different ports. I spent the next few evenings trying to finish them off so I wouldn’t have to take them on to my next destination.

After that we stopped at a newer hip tasting room: loud music and crowded. No tour but it was fun to taste some others.

We might have stopped at one more bar that night to try one more. Maybe. You know, bad decisions :).

A couple days later I was still in Porto on my own so I visited one more winery.

I really enjoyed my Port time in Porto.

View of Porto wineries

Calle del Laurel

One of the best things to do in Logroño is take a tapas stroll down Calle del Laurel. It just so happens that my hotel room is located in the middle of it all.

I only scheduled one evening in town so after some daytime sightseeing I return to my room to freshen up for my food crawl.

During the day the street is easy to navigate but at night it becomes very busy

Logroño does pintxos right. You can find a few cafes that will offer many choices like below.

But what is different about most of this crawl is that there are specialty stops, meaning many places have their item that they do well. In addition most places are paired with a local vintage. So basically you have unique food and wine pairings at each spot.

Logroño really knows how to eat well!

As it gets later the street gets more crowded.

Probably my favorite of the night is Bar Volapie. There are many choices to eat but the specialty is the peel and eat prawns. I enjoyed my prawns and wine.

The crowd keeps getting thicker and I keep getting fuller so it is time to go back to my room. What a great night!

My cute little room

I definitely recommend Logroño as a stop in the region.

The rhine vineyard hike

The Rhine Vineyard Hike

Or what I like to call it, “when Carlos tricked me into hiking 13 kilometers (8 miles), mostly uphill.”
More on that later.
The Rhine Valley is beautiful and known for its romantic boat cruises.
The Rhine river was an important transportation river for trade and whatnot. Seeing the opportunity, many set up castles and villages along the river to “tax” the boats that would pass by. It all seemed a little robber-baron/extortion like; but with out that happening, none of these cute little villages would have been formed around the castles.
Also prominent in the area is vineyards on steep hills. The grapes are used to make the village wines. We decided to dedicate some time to hiking through the vineyards. The forecast for the day was overcast and rainy. We decided to grab our ponchos and go for it.
Preparing for the hike was kind of hard. The maps we saw at the city center weren’t too helpful.

Map example

Most pick a town and do the circular trails from the town. But we wanted to take a trail from town to town and no maps really mapped that out clearly. We decided to google map it out before we left and determine that the next closest village was 4 km away and determined it was a good distance for me. We also dipped into the tourist office before we left to get some not so helpful maps. Finally we stopped at the grocery store for snacks and water. Due to the expected rain I decided to leave my DSLR back at the hotel.

Not really helpful

We had a hard time finding the start of the trail because there was construction going on around the trail head and an odd donkey path sign. We finally found what we were looking for and started up the stone stairs. We ended up going down the path of the trail that is basically part of the town loop to get to where we wanted to go. We could have started left, the slow glide uphill or right, stairs after stairs after stairs. We started right of course. Not on purpose, at least on my part. At least it gave us a great view of the town from this lookout point.

4 km into the hike, close to the next town, we realized the town we were heading to was not on the train route. If we walked to this town then we would have no idea how we would get back to ours (other than walking back the way we came).

At some point we decided the only way was forward to the next town on the train route – 8 more km away. All while following the handy red wine trail signs and random chicken signs. I also thought I heard dub-step off in the distance. Skip the hike for mid day dance party? I never did really determine where the music was coming from so we just moved on.

It was lonely since not many others took this trail. And we did have some rain. But the light mist was welcome since it wasn’t enough to make things muddy and kept us cool along the way.

The views were beautiful

Pretty steep vineyards. I later find out they have a machine to help with this.

At some point my bladder wasn’t waiting anymore. There wasn’t much area to go “in the bushes” but no one else is around so I went to some brush. The only time we saw some serious hikers (only 3) it was only minutes after I had my bathroom visit. Whew close call!

So basically the up and down and pure distance of it all was more challenging than I was prepared for. I took many breaks and pushed through but times like in the picture below made me upset that we had to keep going down the mountain just to climb back up. The views were really amazing and I am sure I would have been singing a different tune if I was in better shape.

See that road across the way, we just went down it

Just when I thought I could go no more we reached the road that went down into the town Oberwesel. We walked by a couple where the woman was having a meltdown. Did her husband take her on a 12 km hike and her legs gave out? Who knows, I am just surprised it wasn’t me. I am known to have a meltdown or two when I am exhausted. This time I was good, tired, but good. We almost got tricked to hiking longer when we saw trail signs pointing uphill toward a castle. I send my husband to check it out and indeed it was trickery, the trail took us away from the town we were heading.

When in town we wandered around a bit aimlessly looking for a place to get a meal since we couldn’t handle any more walking around for a little while. After some back and forth we settled on a nice meal at the highly rated Historische Weinwirtschaft. It is located in the oldest half-timbered house of Oberwesel. The decor was very old world romantic. I definitely recommend it for a nicer meal if you are in town.

Fried blood sausage and apple slice on mashed potatoes

Pork loin in chanterelle cream sauce and spaetzle

After our meal (and wine) we stumbled back to the train station and took the short train ride back to our town. One would have thought we would just go back to the room and call it a day but it was still totally daylight out. The long days of Germany (5 am sun rise and 10 pm sunset) definitely threw us off. We decided to have a beer at the local Brauhaus. Kleines Brauhaus is a beer garden in an old carousel. We had just enough energy to try one or two of their beers then go back to the hotel to pass out.