Although I think that “Mewfest” should be renamed “Spewfest” in honour of Stu.
Friday 6th April, 2007
Dedicated to Stu who also has requested an increase in “schooner rants” (the best of which to date appears to be my exploratory analysis of the installation of Internet Explorer on a Compaq Presario laptop).
So to celebrate Easter for 2007 I invited the boys up to Newcastle for a weekend away (foster will of course claim this to be his birthday celebrations and nothing to do with the fact that a public holiday allowed people to escape Sydney for alternative entertainment). Those present included: Stu, Stair, Seb, Steve (Foster), Shehadie, Mike + Foster’s mate Josh.
The first contingent of Stair, Foster and driver Josh headed up on Friday - originally intending to attend around lunch but rather arriving “fashionably late” (well, Foster was organising the transport up) at around two in the arvo. We headed out to The Queens Wharf Brewery for some lunch and a beer before heading back home to enjoy the entertainment of Borat while Foster had a nap and we awaited Seb and Stu’s arrival (separate of course, we were using our GHG credits accrued during the last holiday up north to Booti Booti National Park for Australia day). Not sure of what the heathen that had arrived in Newcastle would like to eat for dinner, but fairly certain that it wouldn’t be the trendy meal of fish on Good Friday, we headed down into Darby Street to find a spot to eat at. After much deliberation (namely Stu demanding steak and Steve something that he could purchase on his meagre salary from the thousandaire factory) and a few “table for six, erm, no sorry, not enough room” we decided to go to a local Vietnamese.
The offer for dinner had little semblance to that offered by the Vietnamese restaurants in Sydney or Melbourne (or indeed Paris, as I discovered during my Europe trip a little over a year ago), and was more like a Chinese restaurant namely slightly differently to lure the unsuspecting novacastrian in to leave money in exchange for food. Meals were duly ordered and Seb and Foster scampered to the local general store to grab some additional supplies for the evening (due to Good Friday restrictions on all things Australian). Food was eaten, BYO was drunk and the bill eventually paid before we left to wander back up Darby Street to my place.
With no pubs open (thanks to the “Honorable Right Reverend Fred Nile”) we had a few quiet ones before retiring for the evening while watching a riveting game of Rugby League. Then came the moment of the night.
Stu hadn’t looked too good after crashing out on the couch clutching his oversized fluffy bunny rug around him he passed out. While comments were made he mumbled them off so we let him be - after all, Stu’s been there before. Randomly we heard a gurgling sound as the contents of his stomach decided that their new abode wasn’t to their liking and subsequently enacted an escape plan resulting in what looked like the classic science experiment of a bicarb-soda and vinegar “volcano”. After he had finished spewing (and had woken himself up) he looked at himself and sheepishly said “sorry joel” while everyone was in hysterics and all I could do was shake my head. Following a sloppy attempt to clean up his mess (we now have a slightly odd coloured patch on the couch) everyone crashed to bed for some sleep.
Saturday 7th April, 2007
Waking up early (despite some people’s hangover) due to the entrance of the sun into the sleeping quarters of the temporary lodgers we decided the best fixit would be to hit up the local café for some greasy breakfast. Atleast that was the plan. Stu had to be different, of course. While there were bacon and eggs (or variations on that theme) all round with a cappacino, Stu opted for the fruit salad with yoghurt and honey and an affragatto (a shot of coffee with icecream). After we’d polished off breakie (including Seb’s heroic effort on his attempt to eat every meat based option on the menu) we headed back to allow the resident waxheads time to commune with the rolling salt water (in their misguided hope of catching a few barrels). Due to the high winds the swell predicted by one Charles Butcher were nowhere to be seen (Charles has since lost his job as the resident surf forecaster) and the boys came in rather than sit out in wind blown whitewater. By this time Shehadie, the resident man of steel, had arrived for a spot of R & R following a long stint on site at a West Australian mine and it was time to hit the Hunter Valley and discover some of the wineries. In the meantime Stu had decided it an opportune time to slink away back to Sydney, vainly hoping no-one would notice the absence of the man behind the weekend’s most enduring moment.
We headed out past Cessnock to the mass of vineyards, cheese shops and tacky tourist attractions (packed of course with, as one Miss Devine would put it, the Glorious Hordes of Middle Australia) for a days entertainment. First up was the tourist information centre and time to determine the plan of attack. Foster, as to be expected, managed to find a fault in every option without so much as visiting the locations. The plan of attack included the wineries “___ Ghost”, “McGuigans” and De Brgionginos, the Bluetongue Brewery and the local “Irish Pub” for lunch. With the resident whinger placated by free booze we managed to have a pretty good day out, with a few bottles of wine purchased plus one of the last cases of the Bluetongue Ginger Beer available (as they’ve ceased production of what is a rather nice drop). Seb had what can only be described as a chest beating challenge over wines with one of the wine tasting guys at the last spot we stopped at, but ended up buying a bottle from there (quite a nice white too).
Getting back to Bar Beach we grabbed a few beers before heading out to find a spot of dinner. Settling on Delucas Pizza, a nice little pizza shop, we had quickly ordered a mass of pizza and a few beers to go with the BYO wine that we picked up during the day’s outing. Alistair, having gutsed the best part of a third of a bottle of vodka managed to strike up a rather in depth conversation (with more than a handful of foul words included) with the owner. I think that the place was glad to be rid of us when we moved on to The Delany, the local across the road, for a few beers.
Foster, as always, was complaining about every tiny insignificant thing possible and we eventually moved on from The Del to head on into town. We’d been told that the CBD Hotel is the place to head for a good night out and as such headed off in the general and vague direction where we were told we could find it. The stumble around eventually got us to the venue on Hunter Street. Upon arrival we were looked over by the local oaf who informed us that the only non-white member of the party (Shehadie) would no be allowed in. Everyone else was fine. When we asked (politely, well, the polite yet forceful method that only Sebastian can get away with) why it turned out that there was a ban on entry of patrons wearing “surf shirts”. This only served to fire Seb up further, since we all were wearing the outlawed shirts, asking what he was wearing (a shirt with “Hurley” splashed across his chest in a 10cm high font) to which the aforementioned oaf replied “Hurley, that’s ok” (demonstrating the highly tuned knowledge of the global surf culture). Well, since the place would not let in our one half-Lebanese mate we decided to find some more accommodating locations to enjoy the night. The first that we found on the way back up the street appeared to be the local scremo/emo/(Foster can update me here with his choice of options for the other styles, genres, sub-genres, sub-sub-genres, cross-sub-genres etc) which definitely wasn’t to the liking of the group and so we headed back up to the end of Darby Street to the infamous O’Finnigans for the rest of the evening.
While there was a fair amount of moping from Foster, most of us had a good night out (minus the experience with what we could only describe as rascist door policy at the CBD Hotel).
Sunday 8th April, 2007
The end of the weekend for most of the guys. Breakfast was once more had down on Darby Street at Goldbergs where a large amount of Bacon and Eggs was consumed. The first contingent to flee Mewfest for the big smoke of Sydney was Seb (to a car show in Sydney), Alistair (studying for some Law exam or other) and Josh (well, Josh was heading to the middle grounds of the Central Coast for a family event). This left Shehadie, Mike and Foster to be entertained so a drive and lunch down at Bar Beach was had (along with an entertaining game of “train-the-seagulls-to-attack-the-tourists” courtesy of Mike and Foster) before the group disbanded completely and the three guys headed back to Sydney.
Overall an enjoyable weekend was had and it was nice to get the guys up to Newcastle instead of me travelling down to Sydney as I have done most weekends to date.