Goodbye Adventure Park, hello Seppetsfield Winery

Looking back to my carreer as a ride attendant in the Adventure Park, I am quite happy to have been there! It was a good bunch of colleagues over there, very easy and relaxing work, the chance of working outdoors and meeting a whole lot of people and cultures. My last day at work was Thursday the 2nd of Feb, just perfect timing because the schools were about to start again and the workload declined significantly anyway. To finish the day off after work, to dot the „i“, a fair few of us went out for a dinner in Ocean Grove and a bit of beach cricket and swimming after that. Nothing too special but it was exactly how I wanted it – a good night out with friends and not just going for a piss (read: drink).

Oh, V8 is a great engine! Driving with one Holden V8 ute was one of the most thrilling experiences here yet. The sheer power just throws your head against the headrest! J And Bells Beach indeed is a b-e-a-utiful surfbeach, even when you're not surfing and it's a windy cold weather.

 

Next morning I packed my car and headed off, back to Melbourne once again. J Met up with some friends of mine, went out to an open air cinema in the Botanical Gardens which was screening Steven Spielberg’s „Warhorse“ that night. Good times! Saturday started off with a lovely brunch in Richmond, cosy little restaurant called „Friends of Mine“. And with friends it was indeed. At that time I already started to appreciate Melbourne a lot more than before, especially because once you know someone living there you tend to go to places which really are enjoyable and you otherwise wouldn’t find. Melbourne has a lot of vibe, liveliness, good positive emotions. Another major factor ofcourse was the fact I had found great people there. I guess I have to consider myself lucky because quite honestly I have met only really nice people here, espacially the Estonian nationals. Good on me! J

 

 

After 9 hours of driving and covering over 730km I finally reached Seppeltsfield village, Barossa Valley, South Australia. I got in contact with Travis a week before, and as I told him how I got his number, it was a deal made that I could rent a room in his house and live there during the vintage work. As it turned out he is a good friend with Lea from Adelaide Estonian House, has been there a couple of times and also had some Estonians stay at his house a year ago. Moreover, two of the latter are coming back this season. To make this even more better for me, I am living just about 15-20min away from where I work, and that’s on foot! J As I heard, Travis himself, his father and grandfather have all worked in Seppeltsfield winery, all of them are good winemakers and wine is something that is consumed here daily with dinners. Good wine, really really good wine! So this time around I guess I have to be really happy how things have turned out. J

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday were the induction days at the winery, first two of which consisted of theory and practical exercises about working in confined spaces. That in a winery usually refers to those big steel tanks the wine will be stored in. But also the area I will be working at – the fermentation tanks. Safety at work is very highly regarded here in Australia, and those confined spaces are quite a hazard if you don’t appreciate and know the risks involved. Thursday was the general induction about the winery, the work we all will be doing and the amount of work that is involved. The casual employees are young and old, male and female, first timers and others with plenty of years of experience, so it has turned out to be an interesting crowd. At least the head winemaker Fiona is very pleased, so i guess the rest of us should be aswell. Altogether it’s about 25-30 people doing different jobs during the vintage.

 I personally will be one of the 12 people working at the frementation tanks, that are the tanks where the crushed grapes will be pumped into and where the wine will be made. The tasks will include monitoring the fermentation process, the temperatures within the ferment, pumping over the juice from the buttom of the tank onto the top cap (a layer of skins), probably a lot more aswell. J I also know by now that I will be doing nightshifts, which will be something interesting, definately not easy, but why not try it. It’ll be 12 hour shifts, most likely all 7 days a week for the whole vintage, i.e. 7 weeks. And most likely the work commences on the 20th of Feb. We’ll be crushing about 5000tons of grapes which will eventually make about 3,5-3,75mln litres of wine! Now that’s a lot! Then again, everything is comparative – Jacob’s Creek crush over 100’000tons of grapes a year! Now that's A LOT, MORE! J

Meanwhile in Adelaide. Friday, 10th of Feb was another Esto Pub Night in the Estonian House. Again a good chance to meet the ones I’ve met before and maybe meet some new people, have a few bottles of Saku Kuld, maybe a shot or two of Vana Tallinn. It was all there. J On Saturday everything got even better! After some wondering around in Glenelg, the beach area I headed to see Relika and Dave, who had planned a SAUNA evening for a few of us who showed up in the Estonian House the night before. Sauna, here, in Adelaide?! Well, whatever it is, it’s better than nothing! To cut the long story short – it was an awesome evening! Even 70 degrees in the sauna does the trick brilliantly! And the sauna whisk made out of gumtree... what more can you want! Maybe a few beers and a dinner?! It was all there! Dave’s parents bought a kit sauna and installed it in their back yard after he got married to an estonian. What a nice present for Relika! As the four of us – me, Relika, Merli and Annika were utterly enjoying the emotions provided by that scarce phenomenon in Australia called a sauna, the friendly aussies apparently could barely understand this happiness! J And dispite sleeping on the floor on a thin mattress, I was sound asleep as a baby.

Sunday was a combination of spotting different things - dolphinspotting (unsuccessful), Chevrolet-Corvette-carclub-meeting spotting (very successful), old classic car spotting (also successful), folk singing (not so successful), folk dancing (fairly successful). To cut the long story short – me, Merli and Annika are awaited back to the Estonian House to take part in the folkdancing performance during the Independence Day celebrations on 25th Feb. J As I have never ever done folkdancing, apart from once or twice at school maybe and now two times over here in Adelaide, it would still be pretty interesting experience. Now it’s just a matter of making sure if I can actually get the weekend free from work.

Current week has pretty much been about relaxing, getting to the new casual staff a little more and of course about drinking good wine. Really exceptionally good wine! And suprisingly not feeling very hung over in the mornings after. Maybe it’s a sign to commence to work. And during work it will hardly be any drinking. I guess getting used to the nightshifts will be a bit of a struggle and it will take some days, if not more. On the other hand nightshift has the benefit of tolerable temperatures. Recent days have been quite hot, well over 30 degrees and when you’re working indoors, in our old gravity flow fermentation building without any cooling except open doors, imagine the temperatures in there in the afternoon.

And it’s a bloody awesome place this Seppeltsfield! Just come down here and experience it by yourself! J

Australian Open Grand Slam

The Australian Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. It was held for the first time in 1905 and since 1972 it has been held in Melbourne, Victoria. The Australian Open was last contested on grass in 1987, before it was moved to its current location at Melbourne Park in 1988, becoming a hard court event. The tournament is held in Melbourne in the Australian summer, in the last fortnight of the month of January (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Open).

It’s a nice suprise when arrive at the venue in Melbourne Park and discover that you actually do not need the grounds pass you just bought 3 hours before! J It turned out that being an ANZ Bank customer one can get the grounds pass for free, however would still need to pay additionally if interested in matches on the two main arenas – Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena. Fortunately I knew someone who did not have a grounds pass, so I was quite happy and as we were not in for the main arenas this time, all was good. 13th court was our destination as Kaia Kanepi was up against Ekaterina Makarova (RUS). It was my first time to see Kaia Kanepi play live, in fact it was my first live professional tennis match ever. Unfortunately Kaia lost, but not because she was playing badly, she was just tired, visibly. Just days after winning the Brisbane Tournament she obviously would have wanted some more time off. Makarova later also defeated Serena Williams (USA), but had to retire after losing to Maria Sharapova (RUS) in quarter finals. It was a good game though and I am quite happy to have gone. Especially because of the whole atmosphere at the venue and in the city. Melbourne is all about Australian Open in January. And as I heard the organizers have put a great effort to make the event more than just a tennis festival, so there is a huge fun/entertainment open air area for concerts, live broadcasts (if you just want to sit back, enjoy your drink and have a good chat while watching the games) and shopping.

 The second match for Kaia was a doubles game with Julia Goerges (GER) against two Americans which showed a whole different result. The girls enjoyed their game, had a laugh and with a nice support and loud encouragements from about 20 Estonians (not to mention the other supporters) in the audience, they won! J Too bad they did not give their autographs for us...

Oh, when speaking of us, I mean a great bunch of people – Andrew, Sirli, Tuuliki, Jeff, Katrin, Eva and ME! And then other nice Estonians we met during the day. J

Melbourne vol 2

I had a good feeling when I left Queenscliff on Thursday and headed to Melbourne to see my friend Martin. Firstly because just to see somebody from back home, secondly to have a good time out in the city, thirdly to meet some new people and last but not least, get out of the daily work routine for more than just a day or two. To start with I had a couple of hours to spend before heading to where we all stayed and this time I just wondered around the Docklands area, took the City Circle Tram for the whole circle to look around and just enjoyed the day. The place we stayed at was in Ferntree Gully, a suburb about 1 hour away from the CBD with the train. As I arrived I was expecting to see Martin and the hosts but instead I was faced with a bit of a suprise. It turned out we had a fair bunch of people there – Kaja and David, our hosts, Martin and his relative Janely and the latter friend Maarja. What else to do than to get to know each other and head out to the city for some drinks. The one thing that really turned me into a madman was the public transport system in Melbourne. On our way back we aimed to catch a midnight train home and as we were already running down the stairs onto the platform the train took off. A minute later an announcement was made that no more trains are going towards our required destination that night! Now, it is Melbourne, a metropolis of several million people, it’s summertime when you have a fair amount of tourists visiting and on a Thursday night the public transport seizes to work in midnight!! That’s just STUPID! Well, the bright side was we still had a chance for a taxi which eventually costed us 75aud in total!

True! :)

Docklands, CBD behind

What better way to get over the frustrating encounter with the expencive taxis than to head out to the Yarra Valley wine region and taste some goodies the next day! First stop Yering Station, then Punt Road Wines and finally Chandon! Each and every one of them a pearl of their own. An interesting discovery was Punt Road where they beside wine also make cider, a very good cider! And as I found out, also a sparkling wine out of pears using the champagne method! Now that was a very interesting and fine drink!! Couldn’t leave the place without buying one! J Chandon is the wellknown maker of sparklings and these were immaculate! That night I finally saw an opossum, a creature looking like nothing else than an opossum. He (or maybe she) seemed to be very keen on having a snack from the table, so we decided to be polite and hand him (or her) a Mesikäpp bonbon. And we named him (or her) Possu.

@ Chandon

Margus & Martin @ Yering Station

Saturday was a good day out in the city with David showing us around and taking us all to a T20 cricket game between two Melbourne teams on the MCG (read: Melbourne Cricket Grounds), also known among the locals as the Church! T20 is a new, short version of cricket that only lasts for one evening instead of a test match that goes for 5 days. It was created to get more people attracted to cricket and make it more spectacular. While test matches are between nations then a T20 match is between city clubs. There is also a third type of cricket in Australia where states compete against each other. After the cricket match was halted due to weather (read: rain) and eventually terminated we headed out the highest lounge/bar/restaurant in Melbourne. Earlier we had a chat about the highest pub in the world, Püssirohu Kelder in Tartu and I guess David wanted to match that with something of his own! J It was something like Vertigo – a very chic, elegant place up on the 55th floor of a highrise. And indeed it had a high ceiling! Fortunately it was no match to Püssirohu Kelder, because by far it was not a pub! J The toilet was a sight of its own. The urinal behind a window from floor to ceiling, facing the CBD and the MCG in their full glory at nighttime. Final stop – a brewery. James Squire brewery is something similar to our Beerhouse. But there’s nothing similar at all except the fact they make their beer on site. And it was good! Managed to get a free taste of some ales and stouts, quite liked them, especially as they were really fresh!

@ the MCG

No comments! :)

Sunday began with the aim to visit the Queen Victoria Market! Open daily usually from 6am till 4pm, except on Monday and Wednesday when its closed. Well we made it, just barely! J Got myself some bits and pieces for almost no money at all (read: considering the costs in AUS). We also had a nice walk to the Melbourne Park where 2 weeks later the Australian Open Grand Slam was about to start. To finish the day we headed to St.Kilda beach and got there in time to watch the sunset. It felt kind of good to see the sun set into the sea as most of the time here you cannot really witness that.

The meeting point

Monday morning at 11.50am I opened the door to the Medibank office to have the x-ray and medical examination done for the second year visa. The reason I need the second year visa is because of the upcoming work in the Seppeltsfield winery. To cut the long story short, the visa application and medical checks costed me about 600aud, but it only took 4 days to receive my visa grant! Super fast considering some people wait for theirs for months. Later on I met up with Martin ad Janely and headed to the Eureka Tower for a look over the city. Eureka Tower is a just under 300m tower on South Bank in Melbourne opened in 2006. When completed, it was the world’s tallest residential skyrise, now on the 6th place, it also is currently the building with the most floors available for residential occupancy in the world. It has 556 appartements with the highest one of them at 273m above sealevel. The sight over the city was magnificent!

The Eureka Tower

Looking over the Albert Park (F1 season starting just there in March)

MCG & Melbourne Park

Melbourne CBD

It sure was  a good 5 days in the Melbourne, this time with great people and loads of good memories! However, I was not done with that city yet because of Australian Open. I made up my mind to come back and finally see Kaia Kanepi’s play live!

Christmas and New Year's

It’s about time to settle the debts of last year! About time to write something about Xmas and NYE as more new things are coming up and at some point it’ll be too much to remember all at once.

Last time I finished with pre-Xmas gettogether which was a great success! Christmas was really good aswell. I took off towards the farm in Shelford on Saturday after a good night out with some people from work! As I said, here the Dec 24th is not as important as it is to us at home, but we still had a great dinner at James’ & Terhi’s – seafood evening. Ridiculous amount of incredibly delicious food and to top it all up – estonian home made mushrooms! What a feast! Apparently every gettogether here is crowned with great food and grog (read: booz (read again: alcohol)). On Dec 25th everyone came together again already at 11am and started unwrapping their presents. No poems or songs or acts, just straight to presents. I was told not to bring anything along, but as I was given some things (3 good red wines to be exact) I felt a bit stupid. Nevertheless, as I did not have a clue what to bring then it wouldn’t have made much sense and as I heard, they have had many overseas guests over for Christmas, so they already have kind of a tradition to treat them aswell. So it was all good!

Interesting feeling this however, having Christmas during summertime and 30degrees outside. Did not feel like the real thing to me! J One real thing from home was still there, except it was the incorrect date, but who’s counting. Sirli brought along some lead and everyone poured their luck for next year! My figure looked like either a tree or a cactus, depending on which side I looked. So my interpretation is that either I will spend my next Christmas at home or traveling. Seems doable, doesn’t it. J

Andrew, Jared, Margus

Andrew, Jared, Brydie, Sirli, Andrew, Barbra, Robert, Terhi, James, dog,
dog, dog, Margus, dog

Boxing Day, Dec 26th is THE day for cricket. This year it was Australia vs India playing on the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds). It is a popular event for the whole nation, the stadium is usually packed and many-many more follow the game on TV. As it is a test match, it lasts for up to 5 days. Read more: http://www.mcg.org.au/History/Cricket/Boxing%20Day%20Test.aspx

What concerns the Boxing Day shopping, then that was correct – most retails have their busiest day of the year just that day! And the prices can drop to ridiculous lows, therefore I was happy not to go shopping, it would have been a madness!

New Year’s Eve was a bit of a dissapointment for me. Not that it was boring or anything – I was spending that night with a good bunch of people from work and we had a good time, but somehow I hoped it would be more significant. I guess in the cities it feels more real, because of the fireworks and loads of people, however in the suburbs you really cannot have big fireworks because of fire bans, the TV does not offer such entertainment as I am used to at home. So it was a good night with good company, but nothing significant. Moreover, the next day was a working day so I was preparing myself for a calm night. Did not happen though! It was a BAD hangover! Lucky me I did not start at 8am as some of us did, I actually went to work at 11am and was still feeling done and dusted. And all of us were still lucky! Monday, Jan 2nd was the hottest day I’ve experienced here yet and we had the busies day ever in the park! 45 degrees was recorded in the park and we had totally almost 8200 people through the gates (NB – full capacity is 7000)! I would not have made it that day with a hangover. J

More photos again available at Picasa, (soon). J

Within the next days I will also get myself together again and write about the great 5 days I spent in Melbourne.

A quicky to Adelaide

Pühakiri

In the beginning of December (01.12 - 05.12) I had a quick trip to Adelaide and back. There were plenty of reasons, all of them excellent! Even considering the driving of ca 800km within a day.

First up was the Adelaide Estonian House pre-Christmas dinner. I just could not have missed that – bloodsausages, sauerkraut, ovenbacked potatoes, selfmade mustard (important ingredient was estonian vodka), Saku Kuld and great people. As I arrived early I was glad to help out in the kitchen with the sausages. And they were big! Not those small tiny ones were are getting used to at home, but huge, thick and extremely tasty, cooked together with chunks of bacon. DELICIOUS!

Secondly I was not going to miss the Foo Fighters concert I had bought a ticket for. At some point I was hoping to get rid of it and buy a new one for Melbourne concert. However, I sticked to Adelaide and it was worth it! I’ve never been to a concert with 3 warm-up acts. Moreover, when one of those acts is Tenacious D starring movieactor Jack Black (or maybe he’s a singer who also makes movies), then what more can you want. Foo Fighters themselves gave a 3 hour show which was just mindblowing! Some time later I read an article that FF concert in New Zealand managed to have an effect on the system that measures seismic activity (earthquakes). The rythm and vibration of the music was very similar to a small earthquake. So that’s how these guys rocked!!!

Last but not least was my meeting with the head winemaker in Seppeltsfield winery. I applied for the vintage job there and told I could come for a visit / interview when I was in Adelaide. So Monday morning 10am I was knocking on the door. Fiona, the head winemaker took me for a quick tour around the premises and showed the place where the casual vintage staff will be working. Great place, great feeling and to top it all up, great success! She offered me the position, I accepted the offer! J Induction will take place for a couple of days in the beginning of Feb, the work will start some time later in Feb, depending on the weather. Good stuff! J

...meanwhile in Victoria...

Central Train Station

The Shrine

CBD far back, MCG
(Melbourne Cricket Grounds) on right

At Shrine with Iris

CBD at night

St. Kilda, looking at CBD

Melbourne was nice... and rainy to start with on Saturday. Which in fact is not a big suprise as one can easily experience 3-4 seasons within a day in Melbourne – sunny, rainy, windy, during winter even some slush. And quite frankly the same goes for the whole southern part of Victoria, based on my „extensive“ experience here. J In Melbourne I managed to spend just a couple of days unfortunately, but I’ve already taken off some days at work in January to stay there a bit longer. The first thing I liked were the trams. Moreover the city circle trams are free of charge, so that makes life a bit easier. I also quite liked the architecture of the new buildings in the Docklands area, a bit of a reminder of Hafen Hamburg, but not as bold in design.

Melbourne was founded in 1835 (47 years after the European settlement of Australia). Melbourne was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847. In 1851, it became the capital city of the newly created colony of Victoria. To read more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne.

Sunday was luckily a totally different story in regards of the weather, which gave me a perfect moment to go wondering. First up was the Central Market. The good thing about the big markets down under is that you can literally buy almost everything and anything you need from there. After that a quick look around the CBD area, the Shrine of Rememberance (built in 1934) – initially meant as a war memorial for the men and women who served in the WWI, but later (now) the memorial for all Australians who have served in war since (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Remembrance). And what better way to spend a Sunday evening than enjoy live irish music in a pub with some imperial pints of beer (so far Victoria is the only place they serve real pint, not the joke-pint of 0,375ml).

On Monday I headed towards the other side of Port Phillip Bay, to Queenscliff where Sirli and Andrew were expecting me along with his grandfather – Andrew or commonly known as Pop. I felt good to arrive as living in hostels and not having a chance of unpacking my belongings is eventually tiring. The first days I just more or less relaxed, did almost nothing except went out and about with Sirli, went swimming and had a good chat with Pop. It blew my mind to hear he is 93 years old! And still fully alive, enjoying his beers and wine during every dinner. And he is a huge fan of Vana Tallinn as I was told. Well, a remarkable man he is!

AdventurePark is the place I found work at as an RA – Ride Attendant. So far the workhours have not been too great, but that’s just probably because I am comparing the farmwork and earning a lot more and working a lot longer. On the other hand as I am almost the oldest casual worker and have the great foreign accent I have still got a fair amount of hours. More will start to come after Christmas and in January when holidays really kick off! Last Friday we had a good night out in Geelong when Daniel invited me to come along as some of the casual staff headed out for a beer. It turned out to be a good and long evening as we unexpectedly met up with the whole management team. A good way to get to know everybody a lot more, including the owners.

 

 

The good thing I discovered here about golf is that you do not need a Green Card as you do in Estonia. So it really doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at playing golf, just rent a set of clubs, pay the fee and off you go. A couple of weeks ago I had a good time at Queenscliff Golf Course, located on isolated Swan Island. Otherwise it’s closed for public because of some military area being on it aswell, but if you are going for a game of golf, you are more than welcome to come in. And you can do it while some kangaroos won't let themselves be disturbed just there on the course. :) Golfing is probably something I will continue doing when back at home. Good fun this game! Also there’s a good beach for surfing in Ocean Grove, not too far from Queenscliff, but so far haven’t had time to go out there.

Now, probably the most interesting topic for everybody reading – Christmas celebrations in Australia. Fortunately enough I will have to experience how an Aussie family celebrates it as I will join Andrew’s family for that. Last weekend however we had a warm-up event when Bridie, Andrew’s sister had her birthday combined with housewarming party, again combined with pre-Christmas lunch. A big gathering, nice people, many dogs, heaps of food, more to drink, and one present from each. Stealing Santa has been their family tradition for many years. The idea is that everyone bought a present for up to 30aud and something that would be suitable of a grown-up. All presents were put in the centre of the room and the order of the people choosing the gifts was done. Then the first person picks a gift. The second person now has a chance of either to pick a new one from the pile or steal the previous present. The third one again has the same choice, either to pick a new one or steal a desirable one from those already picked and opened. The game is also known as White Elephant Gift Exchange or Thieving Secret Santa – read more on Wikipedia.

What concerns the actual Christmas, then so far I know here only the Christmas day is relatively important, 24th the Christmas Eve does not really get that much attention and then 26th is the Boxing Day which on one hand is a day where more or less everything is closed, but as I read it also tends to be a huge day for shopping. What is more correct – we’ll see! J Details about Xmas will follow in due time.

What concerns the New Year’s Eve then so far I do not exactly know. But as alwasy here, there’s a good chance something will come up J

Again it would be interesting to know how many people actually read all this I write here, so if you would give me some feedback, I’d be thankful!

Enjoy your Christmas everybody and take a chance of really taking the time off! J