The Running Man

10 Tasks

Another weekend has just passed, and its another weekend spent at the lovely...Hunter Valley! (see previous post) However, this time it wasn't for the wines or tours, but it is because its Leo's last week in Sydney (again prev post) and he's never been to HV before. So the group of us brought him up there to stay the weekend. Well I didn't stay for the weekend (had a hardcore 3 hour volleyball session on Saturday and I wanted to spend Sunday at my new place...which I haven't spent a weekend in since moving in :P believe it or not a month ago). The group left on Fri night, but I left on Saturday morning...now here is a highlight (for me...and any guys who likes cars can relate to this) on the very first morning...I got to drive my friend's prized Mitsubishi Evolution 9!!! Now, this is a high performance sports rally car worth heaps (think of Subaru WRX and this is the Mitsubishi version), and my friend was sick on the day (but still wanted to go) and trusted me to drive it (its a manual). It was my first time driving any sort of high-performance sports car...and the trip to HV it was about 200km of straight expressway. Joy! Speed limit: 110km/h....my regular speed: 120-140+km/h...don't think I got caught for speeding. The turbo kicks in once the RPM hits 3,500 (on any gear)...the acceleration could definitely be felt. Sensational :)
in love ;)
After a pretty speedy 2 hr drive down the NSW coast, we finally reached our friend's parents place. The girls were just making breakfast (bacon, eggs and toast...what else :P). It was like out of the movies...you know quiet country town (we were in the township of Patterson...about an hr away from the HV), large garden, sitting outside with the birds chirping eating bfast with juice..hehe. Peaceful and relaxing.

Nicky and Cindy posing for like one of those Sony camera adds (looks kinda dodgey to me :P)
The group @ bfast
Anyway back to the title of this post...to make the day more interesting (and since it was Leo's last week) the 10 of us wrote up some dares which Leo had to perform whilst at the vineyards or tasting rooms (to of course embarrass and humiliate..him and probably us too :P but it was all for fun and part of the Aussie humour..hoping that we didn't get kicked out of any of the vineyards). Leo was a very good sport and went thru with all of them. Unfortunately I only got some of the dares (which I thought was the most funniest)

The first dare was to taste 5 different wines using a measuring spoon :) not terribly exciting but hey its the first one..didn't want to scare Leo off too early. Above is a picture of the wine being poured into the measuring spoon (the lady asked: "are you serious?!" when asked to do this..haha)
Good sport...
Evo 9 (again)
A visit to HV is not complete without a stop at Tempus Two (see prev post)..one of the most beautiful vineyards in the whole of the HV...serious. Here is a pose shot of all the guys who went..haha. The Melb, SA, and Syd PwC people can attest to the beauty of the place (yeah and the musician is still there playing his relaxing latin music on his guitar still). This is another one of Leo's dares...he had to get down on one knee and serenade Cindy ;) ahah...can you see all the people in the background..well they were staring at him seconds later :) Another task that we did there was for all the guys to go and dance 'ring a'ring a'rosie' (you know it?) and then fall down in the middle of the TT tasting room (with all those people looking on :P) sigh...all for a good sport...thankfully no one kicked us out...we'd just got there and had some wines to taste :P.

After stopping at the Cheese factory (delicious smoked trout pate! and blue cheese...yumm) we went to Hungerford Hill (another vineyard for lunch and a surprised birthday). The scenary (coz we sat outside overlooking the many acres of vines) was spectacular!

Here at HH, Leo performed 3 tasks...one of which was to pose and take 'model' type of shots :P also not terribly exciting :P
Leo had to also do the 'Macarena' (spelling?) on the barrels (again this was pretty much for our own amusement which we found quite funny..haha)
Next task (yes coz of time limiations we were going thru multiple dares in the one location whilst waiting for lunch to arrive)...was that Leo had to put on pink lip gloss and 'kiss' every guy in the group (on the cheek). Here is a picture of the lip gloss being thickly applied...:P
Even the cameraman was not spared :P
Some scary cross-dresser
The last dare that Leo did (coz the food had arrived) was he had to drink water from a girl's hand...


As mentioned, it was one of the girls (Alicia) birthday too..so we all had cupcakes (see the candles) at HH. Happy Birthday Lish!!! What a crazy fun-loving bunch of friends...haha
After lunch, we stopped by the Chocolate factory

By that time (5pm) since all the vineyards were closed (this is still Australia)...the group split up. Half of us going back to our friend's place to stay overnight (and no doubt drink and play drinking games) whilst the rest of us (ie. myself and 3 others) went back to Sydney. I was fortunate enough again to be driving the Evo back to Sydney...another 200km of open road!!!
A memorable weekend, not for where we went, but more for the company and the experiences :)

See more pictures @ (ignore the comments ;):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/huntr/sets/72157594530930429/

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8QbMmTlyxcO_A

posted by Darren at 5:00 AM