Wine harvest festival

We went to 2 vineyard (Pialligo and Mt. Majura) near Canberra (about 15min from Canberra).

There was an event at Pialligo Vineyard at 10am - Grapes picking and Grapes stomping.

We went early to take a tour at the vineyard.

The grapes in the photos are cabernet sauvignon. It tasted very sweet.

Video of JiaHuey eating fresh grapes on the spot... hahahaha... It was sweet and juicy.

Photos of Carbonet Sauvignon - grapes for making red wine

Workers were busy picking grapes box by box while we were busy taking photos...

View of Pialligo Vineyard

The Event started!!!!!!
Each of us took a bucket, our aim is to fill up the 2 buckets - Handpick riped grapes. :)
See Videos below:

There were some unriped grapes as well which looked very beatiful..


Two full bucket of fresh grapes that we picked.. :) It was a great harvest. We managed to fill our buckets by picking grapes from 2 or 3 trees.

We carried the 2 buckets along the path back for the stomping event.


We poured the 2 bucket of grapes in to a big container for stomping.

Both of us took off our shoes,
rinsed our leg (they provided a bucket of water),
step into the container
and
started to stomp the grapes...





It is really a cool experience, stepping on the freshly picked grapes. Short video of grapes stomping:

After we got out of the container. Unexpectedly, the vineyard owner asked us to drink the fresh grapes juice (the 1 we stompped) ... I thought she was kidding.. but she took out cups for us...

OOOoooooo NOooooooooooo....... It was really like the TV program "fear factor"

End up,... We DRANK IT!!!!!! See the Video of 2 of us drinking it.. hahaha... :)

It was DISGUSTING!!!.... But infact.. it tasted good. No machine-squeezed fruit juice can beat it. KC drank twice.... hahahaha... But he feel stomache after that..
hm... i think it is psycological effect, because i am fine.... hehe...


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We went to next wineyard after the event finished - Mt Majura wineyard.

We bought a lunch hamper and had our lunch there.


After lunch, We went for a wineyard GUMBOOT Tour.

We had to wear the gumboot provided by the wineyard to prevent bugs that might destroy the plant.

KC is the 1 who chose the pink color boot. Not me!!! hahaha.....


All the grapes trees were covered by net to prevent Birds from eating.

But we saw some birds were trapped in the net.. haha...


We saw different type of grapes... Pinot Noir, Riesling, cabernet sauvignon and so on...



We saw alot of spiders 'hanging on air' at the middle of the path between 2 rows of grapes plant.. We nearly crashed them.

It was really fun to join the harvest festival at the wineyard in Canberra. :) And suprisingly, it only took us 15min to get to the destination. We should go there more often.. hehehe... :)

Beijing - The Great Wall

Mutianyu 慕田峪 is a section of the Great Wall in China located in Huairou County 70km northeast of Beijing, about 1.5 hour driving distance from Beijing.


The Mutianyu Great Wall has the largest construction scale and best quality among all sections of Great Wall.

We hired a taxi there and took cable car to get straight to the great wall.

we walk to the left for few KM and turns into a very steep climb to its highest point.

The views from this section were really amazing!

Built mainly with granite, the wall is 7-8 meters high and the top is 4-5 meters wide.


Compared with other sections of Great Wall, Mutianyu Great Wall possesses unique characteristics in its construction

There are total 22 watchtowers on this 2,250-meter-long great wall section.




We put our ear to the wall, listened to the shouting of million of workers who had dead while building this wall.. :p
KC did it the funny way hahaha...




The steepest part of the great wall.



It was quite scary to look back while walking up the steep staircase..



The view is amazing when you get up there.. There are villages at the inward of great wall.


Another side of great wall is the mountains


2 Videos we captured:

We climbed up to 1 of the tower. It is quite hard to find the entrance.. :) The broken staircase is quite steep as well.

Both the outer and inner parapets are crenelated with merlons, so that shots could be fired at the enemy on both sides - a feature very rare on other parts of the Great Wall.

Some parapets are saw- tooth shaped instead of the regular rectangular form.



Below the parapets, there are square embrasures the top of which are designed in an arc structure, different from the traditional round embrasures.


It is used by soldiers to shot at the besiegers.


We brought some cookies, biscuits and fruits we bought a day b4 at Beijing local supermarket for lunch there. :)

We found a section with best great wall view, sit down and had our lunch while enjoying the beautiful scenery.






Another part of the great wall, leaves are red or yellow, touching the mountain tops with gold.


This gave us a totally different feeling of the great wall compare to the previous view.

Mutianyu is less crowded, so we managed to enjoy the scenery and capture a lot of nice photos.




Treking along the great wall towards the toboggan area, trees dress the hillside green at this part of great wall.

This section of great wall were built mainly with granite, the wall is 7-8 meters high



We took wheeled toboggan ride down from the wall on a winding metal track to the foot of the wall. It was exciting!!



We really enjoyed the descent by toboggan which rounded off an amazing and memorable experience.








We bought some dried fruit from the market at the foot of the wall before going back to hotel.

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