Friday, 15 April 2016
All the rooms at the lodge were located a little way off from the main facility, which meant that we had to undertake a short walk through the sub-zero mountain air – it was quite bracing and a good way to wake us up. Again, we had beautiful blue skies to greet us. After a quick breakfast we packed up ready for the next leg of our trip, leaving the mountains for wine country (again). But before we left the park we were so impressed with Moro Rock and also the groves of giant sequoias that we just had to spend a few more hours exploring them before heading off.
Michelle, still a bit sore from all the climbing of previous days decided she didn’t need to climb those 400 steps of Moro Rock again so sat this one out. This was a bit of a pity because the views on such a clear morning were spectacular. Mountains that had been obscured by clouds the previous evening were now visible. From here you could clearly see Mount Whitney, which at 4,421 meters is the highest mountain in the whole Sierra Nevada mountain range. At this time of year there was still a lot of snow around. Trevor was understandably upset that he didn’t bring his skis!
After taking a few quick photos, it was time to revisit those glorious trees. We’d spotted another grove as we were driving about and decided to check it out. This time it was a loop trail around a place called ‘Round Meadow’ which was ringed by massive sequoias. With beautiful blue skies the golden bark of the sequoias really shone – a sight to behold. We wondered around the trail and took heaps of photos. Unfortunately you really don’t get a sense of what this place is about from the photos, but trust us, it is truly spectacular.
After lingering longer than we planned, we finally got back in the car and headed off to our next destination – Paso Robles. Paso Robles, for those of you who don’t know is a small town mid-way between San Francisco and Los Angeles about thirty minutes drive inland from the coast. In wine circles its well known for producing great zinfandel, syrah and various Rhone blends. It also happens that coinciding with our holiday there was a big international wine tasting event called ‘Hospice du Rhone’. Trevor, the great researcher that he is, stumbled across this event when we were planning our trip, and when he realised that it exactly matched our itinerary he had a grin from ear to ear. Not to mention, Michelle was not too distressed about this news either.
The drive from the mountains took us right through the heart of California’s Central Valley, where we drove for hours and hours through the food bowl of America. Even coming from Australia where we have large tracts of farmland, the size and scale of this was pretty impressive. The other thing we noticed on the way was how dry the place was. Even in early Spring, when you would think everything would be lush and green, we passed by a number of large dust storms. Lots of farmers had put up signs like ‘Pray for Rain’ or ‘Dams not Trains’ or ‘Without Water, Where Will Your Food Come From?’ Pretty depressing really.
So, back to wine… We had booked in for Hospice du Rhone basically the day the tickets had gone on sale and we were really looking forward to this event. With over 150 produces, including wineries from USA, France, Spain and Australia (yes there was a couple of Aussies represented– Molly Dooker, Jasper Hill, D’Arenberg and a couple of others) we were in for a treat. What we hadn’t realised when we booked was that the first day of the event (the day we were there for) all the wineries were showcasing their old wines, with a number bringing out +10 year old vintages– yay! The only problem with an event like this is that there is just too much wine to try. Also, American’s don’t do miserly pours, so we ended up having to tip a lot of wine into the spittoon, which upset Michelle quite a bit! The event ran for three hours from 4pm to 7pm.
As part of the event we had also booked in for a wine dinner which started promptly at 7:30 so there was not time to dilly dally. The theme of the dinner was that everyone had to bring a bottle of wine to share with the table. Knowing well in advance that we were coming here, we had organised to bring some wine from Australia – we had also been fortunate enough to get one of Australia’s best producer of Rhone style wines, Yarra Yering to help with supplying us with some discounted wine to take with us. Between us we brought a Dry Red No. 2, an Underhill Shiraz and an Carrodus Viognier so that people could try some great Aussie wine.
As it turns out the dinner was awesome. Many people on our table were wine makers or in the wine trade and everyone wanted to show off some special wines. There would have been about 2 bottles of wine for every person on the table and with so much wine to go around, many of the other tables shared their bottles around too.
I know what you are thinking, these people are piss pots and you may well be right. It was a real struggle!
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