Sunday, November 10, 2013

Toast to the Coast



Last weekend, Geelong hosted the annual event Toast to the Coast.  An event ticket and bus ticket gets you free rides from winery to winery in four nearby regions surrounding Geelong.  They have music and food at every venue, and of course: endless wine tastings.  I had heard a few people mention the event and I was super excited to be able to go.  A friend in my running group hooked me up with a group of her friends who were going to the event, so I was looking forward to enjoy the day with the group.  But that's not exactly what happened...

The group ended up driving themselves in their car, but the car was full and they didn't have a seat for me.  That was a bit weird, but I had a ticket for the bus that went to each of the wineries, so we planned on just meeting up at each winery to enjoy as a group.

We went to the wineries in the Moorabool region, and the first winery on the list was Austins Wines (http://www.austinswines.com.au/).  The weather the day before was beautiful and sunny, but the day we went (Sunday) it was on-again-off-again raining and chilly.  But even though the weather was spotty, I did my best to enjoy the day out.

Lingering storm clouds




The first part of the day was actually quite fun!  Aaaand... then I was ditched.  Well, not intentionally ditched, but...yeah.  I hopped on the bus and it continued onto the next winery, Clyde Park Vineyard (http://www.clydepark.com.au/).  Unfortunately, the group I was with drove themselves to a different winery.  And, the winery they went to was the last one on the list for the day and was in the complete opposite direction of the winery that I was headed to.  By the time we figured things out via text, we were on opposite sides of the tour.

Being all by myself, I decided to make the most of the day and enjoyed myself at the other wineries.  I met a few people here and here during tastings, and I also enjoyed some quality time to myself.  It was actually kind of poetic.  The wineries were surrounded by such beautiful scenery (when it wasn't raining), and doing the tour on my own forced me to sit back and enjoy the atmosphere.

A passerby was kind enough to take a photo of me in front of Clyde Park
   

The third winery on the tour was Lethbridge Wines (http://www.lethbridgewines.com/).  All of the wineries had beautiful grounds, but I think that Lethbridge was my favorite.  Also they had wood-oven pizza that I enjoyed, that could also be why it was my favorite ;)


Their homemade wood-oven pizza was THE BEST!
Moorabool Ridge was the next one on the list.  By that time, the group I was supposed to be with had made it back on track, so we met up at Moorabool Ridge for a bit.  I found my people!!!!  Unfortunately that was just about the time that the sky opened up and it poured for a good 45 minutes.  Thankfully, I was able to get a few photos before the weather started.


A sunny moment during the bipolar weather



  
                                                                                        Then the sky opened up

And... due to the rain, the group of people I knew left to go to the second winery on the bus route.  It was late in the afternoon and I decided to call it a day.  I jumped on the next winery bus and rode back to the train station in Geelong.

Overall, it was a really fun event.  I think it could have been 35% more fun (maybe 47% more fun) if I had gone with a group of friends (ones that actually stuck around), but even by myself, it was a great opportunity to see the beautiful countryside as well as taste some of the fancy Australian wines.  It was great to be outside, and it was a good lesson in learning how to have fun on my own.  I'm still slowly meeting people here, just doing my best to be patient :)

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