My First Birthday in Australia...

Oysters Kilpatrick 

Main Beach - Surfers Paradise

Almost a month later and I'm writing about my birthday. It was really memorable so I still have a vivid memory of it. My husband had to work, but he was doing the breakfast show and that would mean by noon he would be home. We left and drove down to the Gold Coast, he took me to lunch to the Currumbin Vikings Surf Life Saving Club, we had oysters kilpatrick and I had a BLT and  my husband had some fish sandwich, which looked pretty good. I also had a lovely glass of Riesling, all this right over the water, it was breathtaking to say the least and considering it's winter it was a very beautiful day. After lunch we got back into the car and went up to Surfers Paradise, and I walked in the water, it was beautiful, the water was warm and so soothing to walk in it, knowing full well it was still winter, but the water temperature was beautiful . We watched the sky change colors as the sun started to set. 

On Saturday we got up early and we drove to Kingaroy where we booked a hotel for overnight. We arrived in Kingaroy and talk about a one horse town. It reminded me of a little town in the middle of nowhere. They have a peanut silo where they manufacture  peanut butter or peanut paste as some call it. We went to this place called Taste South Burnett and they have samples of wines and cheeses, though because the cheese factory was relocating they didn't have much cheese. We tried some really nice wines and the guy that owned that bottle shop knew stuff about New York, actually calling it Manhattan and he knew of some of the Long Island wineries which totally impressed me. He makes his own fudge and I tried a few but I loved the butterscotch one and he gave me a chunk for free. How nice, though we did spend just over $100 in the store, so a square of fudge was not going to break him. He gave us some ideas and pointers as to which wineries to hit and which to miss. We had dinner at the Kingaroy RSL which stands for retired service league. A place where veterans come to eat, hang out and gamble. We ordered dinner and my husband went to play some Keno. My dinner was average, I had beef stroganoff, which was very bland, I should have had the tortellini alfredo, and my wine was below average. When we left we went to check our Keno ticket and we won about $700 which was beautiful, it paid for our weekend. We went back to our spa room at the hotel and the tub was a hot-tub and it was very relaxing. Sunday we woke up had breakfast at McDonald's (2 sausage mcmuffins and 2 hash browns for me and a cappuccino)  and went to The Captains Paddock for more wine tasting we found a few that we liked and bought a few bottles. After Captains Paddock we went to Crane Winery. Crane Winery is where we got engaged last year so it was great going back there, and the woman remembered us, plus I kind of gave them free publicity in the Sunday Courier Mail, saying we got engaged up there. I love their wines and the owner gave us a free bottle of sparkling rose' because of the free publicity we gave them. We will definitely be going back there as I love their Hillside White, the Hillside Red wasn't too bad and I'm not a fan of the red wines.