Three breweries and a distillery : a visit to Morisett's industrial area.

Over breakfast, a chance mention of some excellent op shops in Morisset saw us blatting around Lake Macquarie for a Saturday outing. Alas! What we didn't know until we arrived to find the shutters up was that said op shops were run by 7th Day Adventists and thus closed on Saturday. A change glance at google maps though meant I found something better. Did you know there were three breweries in the same little industrial estate? A new mission for the day was developed!

Brewery One: The Yard Brewery & Smokehouse

The largest and most commercial of our stops, this warehouse also contained a smokehouse and cafe. A very professional set up that could clearly cater to large groups and even had an upstairs section as well as outside dining area.

Food menu was American style BBQ with some burgers and pizzas thrown in. I wasn't hungry as I'd just come from an excellent and large breakfast with girlfriends so I told Matt I'd just eat his chips. He had a smoked kranski with jalapinos and hot dog stuff. Slightly too much stuff really as the result was messy but tasty. The chips by the way were EXCELLENT.

We shared a tasting paddle of 4 x 145ml mini tulips; lager, ginger beer, a Czech dark beer, and a stout. Well crafted and complex beers. Also very nice coasters.

Brewery Two : Lake Mac Brewing Company

A quirky set up complete with arcade games (frogger, pac man, donkey kong, etc) and an air hockey table, this destination had quite a crowd in the beer garden. Wings, burgers, and loaded fries were menu staples of this small venue.

Our shared tasting paddle was 4 ponies of your choice and we chose the lager, Lake Mac dry cider, Irish red ale, and porter. The cider was easy drinking but I found the beers a bit to bitter/hoppy for me.

Brewery Three : Bread and Brewery

A real micro brewery with seats for around 20 people. We sat at the bar and enjoyed our mini tasting paddle in a different way - one beer at a time (5x100mls) to allow us to enjoy the flavours without distraction of what comes next. The brewer Jay and his offsider, Mason (a part time Anglo Saxon and blacksmith), loved to share their passion for brewing and story telling. Each brew came with a story. We had an oated pale ale (return to sender), a smoked amber bock (by the horns), brown ale (brownie mcbrown ale), 2 types of beer blanket (a honey and chipoltle porter), and finished up with a sour style (g'h'ose't of the coast with lemon myrtle and salt). Probably our favourite visit because it was so interesting. 

       

Brewery Four : Not a brewery : Central Coast Distilling Co

This one wasn't on our radar until we parked outside Bread and Brewery and noticed the near neighbour. They've been open around 8 weeks but their offerings are super smooth. The cocktails looked amazing but we settled for a tasting paddle of 6x 15ml served with garnishes and Fevertree mediterranean tonic. Signature gin, pink gin, citrus shift, london dry style, chilli and fingerlime, and finally smokey chipoltle. As well as recommending which garnishes went with which gins the team gave us a little serve of nibbles. I liked the citrus shift and Matt liked the London dry so we bought both to take away.

An unexpected delight, you can visit all these venues yourself.

• https://www.yardkingsbrewingco.com.au/
• https://lakemacbrewing.co/
• https://www.breadandbrewery.com.au/
• https://www.centralcoastdistillingco.com.au/

PS we stopped at Salvos at Warners Bay on the way home where I scored a brand new set of Spiegelau martini glasses for $20. An excellent end to a fun day out! 

Goodbye Tiger

Seems an approriate blog post title as we bid farewell to China and I was reading Richard Clapton's autobiography on the plane on the way home!

We chose not to join the optional tour on our final day and instead visited AP markets (the good fake stuff) under our own steam. I told Matt next time I visit this type of place I'm not taking him with me as he's too impatient to really enjoy the barganing! Despite that, he actaully bought several really NICE things while I just got a few t-shirts! Hmmm, where are my jade earings?

The metro in Shanghai was very easy to use and I would love to visit this part of China again. It was 18 yuan for a day pass and connections were simple. Our hotel was a bit out of the way in the financial district but we had a nice suite (welly posh with a seperate lounge and bedroom + kitchenette) and it was only a couple of minutes walk to the metro. A few more minutes walk to to a local area, but sadly no things on sticks although there was a supermarket and we did have an interesting walk around. This was probably one of the more inconvenient locations for individual evening activites.

Night

and day views

and a view of hotel from the metro!

So... what did we think overall?

Great value for money - yes, absolutely. You squeeze a lot in to a short time.

Airline being full service airline - hell no. No upgrades to premium economy were available on the way over and on the way back they were $500 (my mental limit was $300 each). Not a drop of alcohol passed our lips. I would have liked to be offered at least a wine or beer with our meal. Very limited entertainment options, thank goodness I travel with a kindle! 

The tour packed a LOT in and the days were very full. We were on the go with most days starting early and finishing late. You need to be prepared for long days, even though there isn't masses of walking it is on hard surfaces and in the sun - so wear supportive shoes and wear a hat! Take snacks for the first day or so, although you can buy some really interesting chip flavours. If you're a coffee fiend take an aeropress and ground coffee (& longlife milk if required) to preload before breaky - the coffee machines at breakfast buffets had long lines and you might miss out on amazing dumplings. If you get wheezy/have asthma make sure you take appropriate medication as the air quaility was horrible most of the time. 

The hotels were all away from the city centres, in some areas this was OK as there were still plenty of options for late night dining, in other areas (like Shanghai and Beijing) not so good.

The majority of the guides were very pushy about tips - despite the brochure saying they recommend AUD$12/person per day but it's up to you they very much considered it part of their wages and were not afraid to chase you for it and tell you how much you "owed" them. Two guides we thought were claiming way more than they were worth and way more days than we were with them. One asked for a whole day less so got a bit more from us. And of course one was "just right". You be the judge but don't be afraid to push back and say no firmly. Given that all of the Chinese etiquette guides I've read say that tipping is not customary (and in fact in one restaurant when we left a little change on the table they chased us to return it) don't be mean, but also don't be bullied. We worked out our 12 day tour was actually TEN days as day one and twelve were travel to and from Australia (we arrived about 1 am which meant getting into the hotel around 3am on day two and the guide left us at the airport in the early evening of day 11 for a departure after midnight on day 12) and paid our tips accordingly.

We did enjoy most of the optional tours. We didn't do the shows but many people did and said they enjoyed them. Probably we paid for/did more tours than we needed to but it does make it easy when someone else does the logistics (unlike the rest of the places we visited English was commonly spoken in Shanghai so it is totally the best place to skip the extras and do stuff by yourself). We also had an e-sim for internet access and live access to google translate, this made life much easier and meant family could call us on whatsap (and vice versa) without global roaming charges.

Unless you REALLY REALLY want Chinese medicine/tea/silk/etc be entertained by the sales pitch but don't buy at premium prices! Haha you may notice I didn't mention the reproduction terracotta warriors or walruses there...

Watch out for the ebikes that are silent and deadly. I have no idea what the road rules are and I suspect nor do their riders but regardless of the direction of the traffic they seem perfectly legit setting up their own counter-flow.

Hotels were generally a bit tired but all had kettles. Not all had fridges. Common areas in several hotels had microwaves.

Group size wasn't too bad (the bus was not quite full) and we travelled with a great group of people. No charging facilities for phones and cameras or loos on the buses but no legs were that long. Take tissues/loo paper as there are public toilets everywhere but they don't have paper. Practice squatting unless you're willing to wait for the single disabled/family loo in most places.

What am I doing next? Why checking out the tripadeal 2fers for the northern lights!

Shangahi hi-lights

 We started and ended the day by the river.

First up, we took a promonade along the Bund where the architecture is very European (also as seen in the opening credits of the excellent Chinese/Australian production, Miss S)

Then a brief trip to the Shanghai Museum which makes extensive use of multi-media and concentrates on modern history - 19th and 20th century with just one floor of early history. We probably should have skipped the optional 1/2 day tour we did in the afternoon and just taken our own time to look at the French and Old Chinese areas.

 

Lunch in the French Quarter was our first non-Chinese meal since leaving Sydney! Of course Matt found a brewery.

Second lunch was in Chinatown. We tried out the wibbly-wobbly soup dumplings. They are huge - and you get a straw for the soup, no trying to balance it on a spoon! Although it would have to be a very large spoon to manage it. This one was hairy crab and sweet corn. Delicious!

The next part of the tour was so boring no photos - dumped in a high end shopping street to window shop/kill time. I'm sure some people found the shopping opportunites great but the normal shops (things like uniglo etc) were dearer than at home and I'm not really in the right pay grade for Tiffany or Cartier.

Another optional tour in the evening and this one was one not to be missed, an evening river cruise to see the city lights. My tip is to go straight upstairs to the top level and pay the 50 yuan each for seating! You get a snack (water, chips, and biscuits) as well as a much better, much less crowded view. The lights were really astonishing.

It was still quite light when we borded. China has one time zone - as a result dawn is around 4am in Shanghai at this time of year! 

The views were harder to snap when you didn't pay for preferential treatment.

Although we had the opportunity prior to the cruise to eat in a restaurant where you paid according to the weight of the food you selected from the buffet we were still full of our lunches then - so post boat ride, a late night raid on the convenience store netted us a microwave meal. Not a michelin star special but also not unpleasant. Amazing range - they had a large selection from simple pot noodles/just add boiling water, sambos (very popular), and TV dinners. They also a variety of snackfoods and have beer and spirits, just no tonic water! We went for the pork and chicken which also came with rice.  Not sure where the green vegies were that were in the picture because they weren't in the box! Oh well, potato chips are vegetables too amIright?

Lingering but not for long

After leaving our peaceful hotel, Suzhou's sales stop was a silk factory. I didn't steal any silk worms to take home to our mulberry tree and I didn't buy any clothes (although I DID see some designer items I quite fancied they weren't in my budget)

A much anticipated cruise on the Suzhou Grand Canal waas next. Really interesting old buildings but again, a dying community as the lack of modern sanitation meant most young families don't want to live here. We were disappointed to hear that the locals were not allowed to use the canals as transportation, it was tourist boats only.

We wandered the markets before a visit to the Lingering Gardens, classical Chinese gardens - crowded but beautiful. Can see exactly what inspired the Chinese Gardens of Friendship in Darling Harbour! I would like to visit here again at our own pace.

the rubbish picker.

Every tourist place we have visited has sold ice creams in the shape of various things you can see. This one of a pagoda and flowers looked better than in tasted.

These beautiful girls were happy to pose for photos.

Next up, another bus ride and on to Shanghai for our last few days. Another room high up in the hotel gave us a great view. For a change we didn't have things on sticks, we ate at a local restaurant that specialised in beef noodles.