Hey mate,
Have you ever tried out guided tours? Last time, my friend Yeha asked me to join her on a tour with a Korean guide. Eventually everything would be in Korean and only Korean people would participate. Who cares? As long as you have someone to translate everything for you, this is a great thing, especially because these tours are often cheaper than others. Hence, I paid $75 (approximately €51) for a day tour to Port Stephens.
That day, we had to meet at 7:00 am to take the tour bus. And this, of course, was way too early for me. Actually, we assumed to travel with a small group of 5 people, but at the end, more than 20 people were picked up by a big bus. Everyone was Korean, either students that live in Australia or just tourists of all ages. One Korean guide informed us about the whole procedure. He was also the one who kept talking and providing information in the bus for hours. Obviously, I couldn’t understand a word, but it was quite funny to listen to Korean ways of speaking.
It took us almost 2 or 3 hours to arrive at our first stop, which was Port Stephens winery/ Murray’s Craft Brewery Company. When we arrived there, I was pretty much overwhelmed by crowds of Asian people. I was really wondering if I was in Australia or somewhere else. As you can imagine, normally you don’t have a lot of time during a guided tour. It’s like getting to one place, staying there for 5 minutes and leaving for the next stop. So, the first thing (and actually only one) we did was waiting in a long queue of Korean tourists in order to taste three different sorts of wine.
To be honest, I’m not an expert when it comes to wine, so I can’t tell you a lot about it except for that I really enjoyed the white sparkling wine and hated the red wine. After three mini-glasses of wine, everyone took their last selfies and photos of the winery. And that was it! Our guide pushed us outside and everyone who liked to, could buy some real Port Stephens wines. That first stop took us hours to arrive and 10 minutes to stay. Funny, isn’t it?
To sum it up: I loved the location as it kind of reminded me of an American Western bar. It was decorated with funny and interesting pictures and also the staff was really friendly.
After that, we moved on to our next stop: sandboarding time!
See you soon with my report on our sandboarding adventure.
Yours,
H. Trang
