My we have vacation fatigue, though today lessened it a bit.
Today's events: visited Clonakilla winery. Visited Dan Murphy's which has really good wine prices. Walked around the Australian National Botanic Gardens for an hour or so. Checked in to the hotel, cracked open the bottle of malbec I bought at Dan Murphy's. Ooooh, bad stuff. Convinced Chris that we need better wine, and to drive to the Vintage Cellars in Manuka to get some to go with our room service pizza and Scooby Doo, showing at 7:39pm
So we picked the wine. I can't even remember what it is now, a mere 14 hours later. And we started looking for a restaurant with BYO because it'd be more interesting than room service pizza. The first one we went to said "Private Function - Henschke Dinner". Hey, that was advertised inside Vintage Cellars! Tonight? Chris went in and talked with them, they had a few more seats, we said sure but were woefully underdressed, so we dashed back to the hotel, changed shirts, and sat down at 6:30... not leaving until midnight!
And we tried all sorts of wine and food. Though there were seven courses, they were moderately sized, so we didn't walk out stuffed. The wine was another story. We tried, oh, twelve different ones, old 1990 rieslings, a totally new 2002 Coralinga Sauvignon Blanc from the Adelaide Hills, newer Pinot Gris, some different stuff, and ending in a 1994 Hill of Grace, arguably Australia's second most famous wine. All the wines were good and quite decent, but strangely only a few left me impressed. Hill of Grace, sad to say, wasn't one of them. The Sauvignon Blanc was--how do you make that wine taste like passionfruit? I don't know, but it does.
We also saw two people, retired teachers here in Canberra, who insisted we go on a picnic and a bushwalk with them! So today, the 17th, we'll meet up with them and do a small ramble through the woods. They love to share their cellar wine, so we'll see what they bring along. Sounds like an interesting day.