Swan Valley

Another great adventure to report with pictures to show!! On Saturday I met up with the Brunmeiers to explore the Swan Valley and all the great breweries it has to offer. It's nothing like sitting by the Milwaukee River after a tour of the Lakefront Brewery, but still it's pretty cool.

We started off with a round of Supa Golf not far from the first brewery. If you remember, we also did this on the Buckshow my first weekend here. But, despite already playing a round I was still awful. I shot a staggering 53 on 9 holes with two balls lost. But, I wasn't the worst as Jared shot a 55 which meant he had to buy the first round of drinks.

The first brewery we hit was Duckstein. It's a German style brewery witha great beer garden and a live band playing! We got to listen to Roll Out the Barrel as we sat outside enjoying the sunshine. This was also another place that we visited on the Buckshow, so it was fun to visit it again.

The second brewery we hit was Elmar's, which supposidly had the largest beer garden in Western Australia, but that was a major let down. After we got our drinks we went out back and all the beer garden was, was a small patio with tables and a huge lawn and no tables. The beer tasted watered down so it wasn't that great of an experience. Still though, the scenery was great as the building was beautiful and there was bushland around us.

Thirdly, we visited Ironbark Brewing and this was by far the most memorable. The food and beer wasn't especially good, but the what made it memorable was the bush fire taking place less than a mile away. Upon our arrival we could see a small plume of smoke in the distance, but nothing to worry about. Within a half hour the sun was covered and ash was falling all around us. We could see helicopters dropping loads of water on the fire in a desperate attempt to keep it under control. Still though, we had our drinks, we were sitting outside on a patio that looked like it came from the American Southwest, so we weren't too worried.

The last brewery of the day was The Feral Brewing company which had the best beer of the four. It was set off the beaten path with a winery/vineyard on one side and bushland on the other. The setting inside was the stereotypical Australian pub with a few people sitting around a semi-musty atmosphere which looks as if Paul Hogan frequents. Deciding we didn't want to see any crocodiles dragged through the front door, we took our drinks outside to enjoy the sun and the vineyards. Good times.

That night we retired to the Brunmeiers place to drink a few more beers and sleep. The following morning we got up bright and early (6 am) go go to a friends house to watch the Packers smash the Seahawks. It started out awful but what a fun game it was to watch after the Packers took control.

After the game I went home and proceeded to sleep until the mid-afternoon. Well worth it as Brett, Zareena, and myself met up with the Brunmeiers again to have dinner at Brett's cousins house. Keith and Renee were great hosts as we spent much of the time talking with Josh about his experience as a Marine in Iraq. Apparently his job was to drive into possible ambushes with his convoy, fight his way out, and then call in air support to bomb the area. Very scary stuff; stuff that I could never do. I think I'll stick with footy...