Nic and Sal - the return!

Posted by: Nic and Sal

Hello everyone, we are back from our Christmas and New Years holiday. We had a great time! Sal says we got the best present ever - the company of our friends - Bec, Gaj, Ciaran and Kat. Nic thinks Sal is a dork, although he did enjoy seeing his friends. Below is a picture of Gaj and Bec, unfortunately we don't have one of Ciaran and Kat.

For our holiday we went to the Appalachian Mountains, which are about 300 km west of Durham. We set off in a nice spacious mini van (feeling like a group of pensioners), to which we attached an Aussie flag (it is the one mum sent us!). We are impressed because it survived the whole trip gaffa-taped to the aerial.

We stayed in a tiny town called Chimney Rock, which is in Hickory Nut Gorge. It is only a few miles from Lake Lure, where they filmed Dirty Dancing. The day after we arrived Cousin Edie was playing basketball at a school in Asheville as part of an Australian High School basketball tour of the USA. We went to watch the game, which the Aussies won 63 to 30, go Aussies! Edie was really awesome. She is the one below with the blue arrow.

We spent New Years Eve in a red-neck bar in Lake Lure. A large ex-marine hot-rod mechanic and his girl friend insisted on buying us jugs of magaritas. As a result we all got drunk, but also had lots of fun hanging with "mountain folk". We listened to a 3 piece bluegrass band (named: "Fat Boy and the Eeee-claires") and attempted to avoid our new fat friend's overtly sexual conversation. For instance, while some of our friends were dancing, he said to Sal: "Do you know how to use your legs?" and Sal, thinking he was asking her to dance, said: "not really, no", to which he replied: "Well, don't need to know much, just put them over my shoulders"... needless to say, Nic thought this was hilarious. Sadly we have no pictures of the red-neck bar. However, the guests in the neighbouring chalet decided to launch New Year fireworks, which we did get a picture of.


After sleeping off New Years Eve we decided to go out and enjoy nature. Many of the national parks in the area close in winter but we still found plenty to see. We climbed Chimney Rock (pictured below) which is where parts of The Last of the Mohicans were filmed. We also took a drive through the surrounding mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway. More pictures of the Appalachian scenery are below.

We hope everyone back home had a good New Year!

Nic and Sal

Chimney Rock Lake LureLake Tahoma Knobs...?