On the Bike Again: Dalmatian Coast Croatia 2009

Greetings from Brac, on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, where I am typing very clumsily on a Croatian (Hvartska) keyboard. As such, I plan to keep the descriptions of the last amazing week to a minimal amount and let the photos tell the story.I got here a week ago and what fun was it that Sheri Tarr from Melbourne was also in the region! We met up and had a great time, as always. Here we are walking around Dubrovnik last weekend.

The time with Sheri was too short. On Sunday, it was time to meet the Backroads gang! Here is our boat that we have been riding around on, I am not kidding about this. It is awesome, and has taken us to all four of our desintation islands (Mljet, Korcula, Hvar and now Brac). Tomorrow we will sail back to Split on it (and from there we split for home...ha ha ha...).

I am so excited to be back on the bike! Here I am in the town of Cara on Korcula, day 2...taking a break by the sea. All the villages are increadibly quaint and look like this:

We stopped to taste some wine at the Toreta Winery in Smokvica. Here is one of my guides, Lennie, tasting wine with one of the family owners. The following day, we visited the Lavender Lady (Korcula is known for fresh lavender) where we heard all about her trade and got to stock up.

There are many cats in Croatia, I have made frinds with some.

We have seen the most beautiful flowers, such as this bougainvillea.

Last but not least, we have biked really LONG WAY. Michelle Pearcy once told me, what goes up must copme down. In the case of this country, what goes up must come down, then go back up and down but up a lot more, and so on. Today was the first time I actually cussed at the hills on the route. I did 30 miles and more than 3000 feet before lunch, so I guess that is not too bad.

More to follow soon!

Gretchen 2.0: [Just Over] A Year Later

"Any given moment can change your life, you just have to be there"

-Curly Girl Greeting Card from Lake Wanaka, NZ

"Everybody needs a change, a chance to check out the new

But you're the only one who sees the changes you take yourself through."

-Stevie Wonder

It's hard to believe it was more than 12 months ago when I made my first post to the blog. Since I got back from my last trip a month ago, I've had a lot of time to reflect on what the year meant to me. It's hard to sum up in words, but there are times when something will happen and I'll think, "This is what Gretchen 2.0 is all about!" For example, in the picture at the top - I'm in a helicopter on top of Fox Glacier in New Zealand. My friends have given me the front seat for the ride down, and I've just realized what a fantastic view I'm going to get.

Tomorrow, I'm starting a new chapter as I begin my new job. While I could keep hanging out for longer and be happy, I know there is a time to move on and now seems like the right place.

Rather than philosophize on the blog (something I try to avoid), I made a list of everything I did this year. I'm sure I left a few things out, so apologies to anyone who got slighted inadvertently. A lot of my blog readers were involved in these things, and to all of you I say a big THANKS! Let's do it again soon.

• Things I did during Gretchen 2.0, in no particular order:
  
  Rode my bike through a rubber plantation in Vietnam in the pouring rain
  Visited a sheep station in New Zealand
  Learned to ride the bus around Austin and Sydney
  Got to know my neighbors
  Spearheaded a vicious animal hearing which never happened
  Worked with my homeless neighbors in downtown Austin
  Wrote a book
  Bought new clubs and worked on my golf game
  Worked out a LOT…
  Visited with friends I hadn’t seen in years
  Hiked in the Smokies with my dad
  Went to Vegas three times!
  Got Neil married off
  Snorkeled in Bali and contracted a skin rash
  Visited Botanical gardens in Singapore, Adelaide and Sydney
  Saw the Sydney Opera House for the first time
  Rode in a helicopter over a glacier and landed on top of it
  Saw Milford Sound from the air and from the ground
  Visited the tomb of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi
  Bought too many purses to count in Thailand and Vietnam
  Cleaned up my own yard for the fall
  Went to Thai cooking school and learned to make Thai food
  Took a cooking class in Vietnam
  Saw the hotel where my dad was based out of when he was a journalist in Vietnam
  Stayed in a hotel on top of the tallest building in Bangkok
  Saw rainbows in Austin, Thailand and New Zealand
  Said goodbye to my loyal cat and longtime friend, Hugh
  Had too many massages to count
  Helped my sister move into her house in Portland, OR
  Fixed Lory’s thermostat
  Helped Susan and Pablo move into their first official home in the US
  Helped Andrea bail out her backyard after a thunderstorm tested the drainage system
  Met some koalas from afar but did not cuddle with any of them
  Fed kangaroos and saw a joey in its mothers’ pouch
  Lived in the same clothes for 2 days when my bags got lost on the way to Fiji
  Saw John Mayer and Maroon 5 concerts
  Made great Australian friends sho I know will be lifelong
• Wore lots of sunscreen (thanks Valerie!)
  Tasted wine all over Australia and New Zealand
  Sat on a beach in Fiji and contemplated my navel
  Tried possum jerky and whitebait in New Zealand (yuk)
  Realized my mom is my best friend
  Went to church in Austin and Australia
  Running on Sunday mornings with Eric, Eddie, Valerie and the gang
  Had a psychic reading
• Lived in the Gluskoter’s house in Singapore for 10 days and made myself into a local
  Took my mom to Asia for the first time
  Rode the Star Ferry in Hong Kong and went to the top of Victoria Peak
  Lived on my own for a week in Bondi Beach – bringing up average age on Bondi Road
  Attended and even co-hosted some of Fifi’s fabulous parties
  Three trips to LaGrange, TX starting with the Gretchen 2.0 kickoff party
• Rode in a tuk tuk through Siem Reap Cambodia
  Saw the sunset over Angkor Wat
  Stomped grapes in Milton, Australia
  Walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge
  Walked along the Sydney coastal beach path
  Walked with Sheila along Marginal Way in Ogonquit, Maine
  Ate lunch at Stonewall Kitchens in Maine
  Learned how to say “hello” in Fijian (Bula!)
• Skiied in Breckenridge in mid-April
  

I still plan to keep the blog up to tell about my adventures, it may not get updated quite as much, but I know you'll understand...

The Great Grape Crush

As many of you know, I decided to delay my return to the United States a few days because I was having so much fun in Australia. Also, I got invited to experience a real life grape crushing at the home of Heather and Mark Stewart in Milton, New South Wales. Heather and Mark have been making their own wine for several vintages, and each year they host a crushing party. Along with Sheri, Joylene, Chris and Gini - I got to join in the fun and reunite with my friends from the Vietnam bike trip.


Before it all got started, Joylene came to Bondi and braved a couple of days at my surfer pad. Here we are on the Coastal Walk:



We arrived on Friday evening and had a great dinner at the local pub. Saturday, some people swam and others of us walked on the beautiful beack at Mollymock. Sheri realy liked the way the seaweed felt on her feet:

We could not dawdle, because there was the business of grap crushing to attend to. Only women are allowed to crush the grapes, in the spirit of Lucy and Ethel. If a male accidentally forgets this, he has to worship at the shrine Mark designed as penance. First of all, we had to get dressed appropriately:

We were a little worried, but not deterred, when we saw how many grapes there were. Mark has them brought up by horse trailer from the Barossa Valley, where I had just visited a few weeks before:

Grapes defintely exfoliate your feet, but I am not sure if it is on a good or bad way. One tip is do not wear light pink nail polish unless you want it to have a purple tint.
That night, there was a big party. Heather made these cocktails only for the ladies, sort of a secret ritual for the grape crushers. She is a fantastic hostess and fed everyone until we were ready to pop!

Many thanks to our hosts and to everyone who came out to New South Wales for my last weekend in Australia!

Bondi Bohemian

Several folks have been asking how things are going now that I am traveling solo. Here is the update.
After being looked after 24 x 7 by Backroads, some adjustment had to happen. There was also the matter of budget air travel very early in the morning which landed me here in Sydney even earlier (2 hour time difference). So it is no wonder I was feeling dazed and confused upon arrival.
Let's just say the flat I rented in Bondi Beach is not going to earn a Travel & Leisure award soon. About 300 square feet, it is fine for one and maybe two people. Problem is, the rest of the apartments in the building seem to have 3-4 people living in them, all under the age of 25. The place is just plain LOUD. And it's not a design icon, either.

I should have mentioned the part about the hot plate and coin laundry, but another time. On the plus side, even though the elevator is about 100 years old and on the verge of breakdown, there is a good view while you wait for it:


Nonetheless, I have embraced my surroundings and the neighborhood, and am coping quite well despite no hair dryer (request for which was turned down by the landlords) and no coffee maker. Actually, there is a a coffee maker, it is just located in Barry's downstairs. I have adopted Barry's as my personal cafe... they make a mean flat white. Yummy!

Right. So, the objective has been, spend as little time in the house as possible! No problem, we are in Sydney and there is plenty to do and see. I have mastered the needed buses, adding to my repetoire with Cap Metro in Austin.

Saturday, I traveled by train to the Blue Mountains and got in a 4 hour hike - very strenuous. Reason being 1) to get to the trails you hike up and down 1000 steps each way and b) the trails are not very well marked, which results in extra mileage and about 35 seconds where you wonder if you might have to be rescued. Eeeek. Great workout though.

Sunday, I went to church at the Anglican Church in my neighborhood, St. Matthews. There were only about 12 people there, since it was only 8:30 in the morning. Everyone was very nice and they invited me for coffee and muffins afterwards, which of course I accepted. I extended everyone an open invite to St.David's if they are ever in Austin.

Sunday afternoon, I attended the New South Wales Wine Festival in Hyde Park. Great time, thanks to Chris Seton for the recco!

Monday saw more sighsteeing around Sydney including the neighborhoods of Paddington, Surry Hills, Kings Cross, Chinatown and Darlinghurst. All good times. My favorite activity has been visiting bottle shops looking for Samuel's Gorge wine from McLaren Vale. I have not found it so far, but am determined to score a bottle before I leave.

Chris and Ginni Seton hosted me for an awesome dinner at their beautiful home in Tamarama last night. It was great to meet Ginni, and to be reunited with yet another of the Vietnam by Bike gang. Everyone is excited for the weekend at Mark and Heather's in Milton, where we will be crushing grapes! Yeee hah!


The weather here could not be more perfect! Today, Tuesday, was Beach Day. From my place in Bondi, I walked to Clovelly Beach (about an hour hike) and ran back through Bronte and to North Bondi. That was about a 45 minute run, so I'm calling it equal to a Sunday run with the normal gang. This afternoon I have bummed around Bondi, had a massage, looked at the ocean, blah blah...

Since this is for sure my last post until I am on American soil, I have two things to say:
1. To all the friends I met along the way, new and less new - thank you! This was an experience to be remembered.
2. To the folks at home, I love you and miss you, and will be home soon.

Signing off for now...

-GThis is where I plan to stay next time...

Australian Wine Country: Hunter Valley, McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley

When it comes to food and wine, all you readers of the blog know that I simply love them. That's one reason coming to Australia was so exciting. I am a fan of Australian wines, and to get to visit the wineries in person was a longtime dream. Today we'll hear the highlights of our travels in New South Wales and South Australia. I can only hit the highlights because I seem to have a 20MB limit at the hotel in New Zealand, more on that later...

From Sydney, we traveled for the day to Hunter Valley via bus. This was interesting and informative. Our tour guide, Fritz, is a bousterous fellow with a penchant for bommerang throwing. We bonded with him, as you can see...

We also saw some interesting lawn art, including this statue of Russell the Rhino by a local artist. A crudely lettered signpost warns visitors that Russell may charge them if children or others try and climb up on him. Yikes!

In Hunter Valley, our favorite winery was Robin Drayton. You can check them out at http://www.robyndrayton.com.au/home.asp, but they don't export to the US. Boo!

From there, Andrea and I flew to Adelaide. The city of Adelaide is a great place to kick off a wine tour. We did just that by visiting the National Wine Centre (http://www.wineaustralia.com.au/). Here's Andrea brushing up on some important aromas...

The Wine Centre is next to the Adelaide Botanical Garden. Here I am amongst the roses, how quaint...

The first stop in South Australia was McLaren Vale. We visited the D'Arenberg Winery, home of the Stump Jump, one of my faves...

And took this photo in front of the Chapel Hill Winery, which we did not visit, but felt compelled since we both went to Chapel Hill. I probably did not mention that it was about 100 degrees there!

Our faves in McLaren Vale were the Red Dot Cafe at Penny's Hill for food (http://www.pennyshill.com.au/ourstory/) and Samuel's Gorge Winery (http://www.gorge.com.au/). Penny's Hill does some exporting to the US, including Carolyn's favorite, Woop Woop Shiraz! But Samuel's Gorge does not. Samuel is a zany fellow. Here he is chatting it up with Andrea:

On the way to Barossa Valley, we stopped at Mount Lofty for the abortive koala mission. Barossa was much more productive than the silly wildlife park. For food, we loved the Vintners' Bar and Grill in Angaston (http://www.vintners.com.au/), and Maggie Beer's Farm store (http://www.maggiebeer.com.au/home/). Torbreck Vineyards was among our favorite wines (http://www.torbreck.com/) - and you can get them in the USA! The accommodations in Angaston at Walnut Cottage were fantastic. Look them up if you are going that way, http://www.walnut-cottage.com/.

Finally, it was off to Melbourne to see the big city, catch up with some great friends, and try more wines with all that great food. Here we are on our last night in Melbourne, enjoying a New Zealand pinot noir.

I am in New Zealand now, and Andrea is on the way home. I know you all want to hear about the bike trip, but I only have 20MB so you have to wait for that. Here's a preview of some of the scenery to whet your appetite. Check back soon!

Why Someone Else Should Pay for our Australia Travels

Today's post is, in fact a business case.

Specifically, we have determined that there is a substantial amout of legitimate business for us here in Australia. OK, not for me, because I don't work these days. I'm simply the chaperone/butler/court jester in this whole thing. However, Andrea is legitimately employed with a multinational paper company. Here's how she describes her work:

"Let's see. I make paper packaging goods and have to ensure that our quality standards are upheld worldwide (read: we call it corrugated, you say cardboard). "

Great. Here is a big stack of corrugated boxes from the Irongate Vineyards. Careful competitive inspection was needed as Andrea's business is looking to take over the wine packaging market in Virginia.

I came up with the idea that they should also go into the wine barrel business. Paper, wood, it's all from trees.

Several days later, we drove through the town of Oakbank in South Australia, when lo and behold, we happened upon one of the paper plant's major customers, Stihl. We decided to stop in for quality control. It was surprising to see the sheer number of Stihl products carried in this little town. Further inpsection yielded pay dirt! A box from Andrea's very own plant.

And she even got to meet the store manager and territory manager! We successfully determined that Andrea's packaging product holds up extremely well when shipped from Virginia to Australia! There was no damage to the product at all.

The next day, another Stihl retail outlet was spotted in the town of Angaston, where we were staying! It was clean and properly stocked. Unfortunately, the competitive packaging shown below did not fare as well as the one from Andrea's plant. The store manager was very dissatisfied with the quality of the packaging. Andrea plans to contact the customer upon her return to the USA to seek award for this specific packaging structure.

Beware the lady with the chainsaw!

Welcome to Australia: The Quest for The Elusive Koala

Greetings from the great land down under! I've been in Australia for a week, and even though it is a very well developed country I haven't seem to have had much internet access. So, for the next few days I plan to update my blog readers on the happenings thus far.

Today's post involves a favorite topic here on the blog: cute animals. There was one thing I really, really wanted to see in Australia, which was a cute koala bear. Even more than that, I wanted to cuddle with a cute koala, which is supposed to be possible.

Supposed to be.

Stop #1 was the Sydney Taronga Zoo with Sharon and Andrea. We loved the zoo and had a great time. But we arrived too late to get our pictures taken standing under a koala. Which may have been OK because koalas have been known to pee on people, according to the guide Moon Handbooks. Nonetheless, I took this photo of a cute koala:

And this photo of some napping kangaroos. In case I haven't mentioned, it's hot here.

Anyway, this really informative Australian guy on the plane on the way over told me about a park called Cleland Wildlife Park, on Mt. Lofty outside Adelaide. You can look them up at http://www.parks.sa.gov.au/cleland_wp/about/index.htm. But I have to tell you, I really don't like these people or the guy who suggested them. Taronga Zoo was as close as I got to a koala!

Why? Because apparently when it is over 32 degrees Celsius, they don't let the koalas come out to play. Even if you came all the way from the USA! It was 36 degrees when we got there, which is close to 100 degrees F. And the people at the park were a bit snooty about the whole thing. I was devastated.

Do you know what koalas do when it is that hot? They sleep wrapped around their eucalyptus trees like a pretzel. Observe:

Like everyone else, Wikipedia conveniently leaves out this fact. Here's what they have to say about koalas:

The Koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The Koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The Koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.

Anyway, we did have fun at the Cleland park despite the fact that it was bloody freaking hot. Andrea and I fed kangaroos, here are some pictures:

Sharon - kangaroos drool a bit so it may be good you missed this part.

I'll keep up with my quest to snuggle with a cute koala. But at this point, don't hold your breath.

Tomorrow we'll hear about why Andrea's entire trip should be a business writeoff.

Andrea's favorite animal in Australia is the bandicoot, which is kind of like a giant rat. Here are a few of them. But the bandicoot is not the reason her trip is business related. Tune in soon!