Ok, ok I apologise. I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Why? For writing this in Australia; on a wine trip. Now can you see why I need to make apologise? The background is that a couple of months ago I received an email from Wine Australia asking for applications to win a place on a trip. Eleven days in Australia touring different vineyard areas, tasting wine. I needed to write 500 words on why they should take me. I wrote the words and sent them. Four weeks later I was blown away to have another email; I had a place on the trip. So, here I am in Australia. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit and to do so on a wine trip is frankly more than I could ever have hoped. Thank You Wine Australia! I’m planning to write about the trip as I go. Not, I promise, as a form of showing off, but to help me remember it, to lock away the information and because I hope it will be interesting and possibly even informative (well maybe). The trip itself starts on Tuesday in Sydney. It’s now Monday and I’ve had a couple of days to explore the city. It’s great, a bit like San Francisco, sunny, hilly, warm at present. I think it feels more similar to the US than to GB, everything is bigger, roads are wider, cars are bigger too. The coffee is excellent. Everything is very expensive. The birds sound different, very different. Luckily no spiders or crocodiles so far. Here are a few photo’s to prove I’m not making it all up.