Arianddu wrote:DrFU wrote:Taking my 86 year old mom on the dream cruise to the Great Barrier Reef. Starting out in Sydney, then Airlie Beach, Willis Island, Port Douglas, & Brisbane.
And yes, I love wine.
Sadly, Queensland has no wineries and if there is a decent beer brewed there I haven't come across it yet (although I am quite prepared for it to exist.)
If you are spending any time at all in Sydney, try for a day trip out to the Hunter Valley to the north or the Southern Highlands to the south-east and do a winery tour. If you really want to experience the best wines in Australia, you really need to do South Australia and Victoria, but the Hunter has some nice vintages (a lot of NSW wines is pretty much vin de table.) A good place to start if you want to research some Aussie wines to look out for while you are here is the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation - http://www.wineaustralia.com
Aussie beers - can't go wrong with Coopers, Beard and Brau, Boags, Mountain Goat, Cascade, Moo or James Squire. If you can find Moo Wheat Beer, drink it! If you can find Boag's Honey Porter, I'll cry. Tooheys is the standard NSW beer on tap - it's not bad, in the same was Bud isn't bad but also isn't much to write home about. This is a pretty good website for Aussie beers - http://www.beerguide.com.au/ - their reviews are pretty spot on in my experience, if you want some names to look out for, especially for the microbreweries.
Wonderful, Ari, thanks! I will check out the websites and do my research. We have two days in Sydney before we sail, so the wine tour is a definite possibility.