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Newcastle, December 28


What a lovely surprise to look out our windows this morning and to see blue skies, sun shining, no humidity and then pulling into the harbour in Newcastle!  Everything looked pristine! Our daily Passages bulletin describes Newcastle as being famous for coal exporting, being the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, but also its music scene is now very famous too. If I mention Silver Chair, The Screaming Jets and Vacations, you’ll all know that they are highly successful Australian Bands and are products of Newcastle! I’m not going to take coals to Newcastle by saying any more about the place as you’ll all have been here - we stayed here a few years back ourselves but we’d never been to the Hunter Valley wine area so took a trip there today. 

Entitled ‘Cheese and wine of the Hunter Valley’ our bus left at 9am and we drove to the McGuigan Winery where we first tasted 6 different cheeses - all delicious.  Then into the wine tasting room where we were offered eight different wines, reds and whites.  

Next stop was at Tulloch Winery where they had us seated at tables with a flight of six glasses each, containing three reds and three whites.  We had a competition to identify the wines, I got three right, G got 2!  They also served delicious charcuterie platters and it was all most enjoyable. 

We’re now going through the packing, sorting process and trying to anticipate how much our bags weigh!  Regent have been very generous with gifts along the way but they’re all heavy!!!  And then there’s the terrible jacket which I’ll never wear but feel I should bring home.  

Well, we enjoyed our last dinner in Compass Rose and then outside in the Atrium there was the final night Beatles party again!  Seems it’s the norm to get some of the oldies up and bopping along. Great music of course.  OMG!  There are some VERY strange people on this sector!  

Well, this is it, back to reality tomorrow.  Thanks for coming on the journey with me, I’m sure most of you lost interest at around Nazareth or Goa but it’s been fun keeping a log of our activities!  

Happy New Year to you all and stay safe and well.  

Love Maureen XXXX😍

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