Well what do you do in Lake Macquarie

This turned out to be the best shopping trip I think I've ever been on... Well actually we were sent out to do some clothes shopping, and before we knew it we were standing inside a pub with a schooner in hand. And how did we get here I hear you ask? Well it was mums birthday the next day and it was decided that everyone would wear purple as it is the old girls favourite colour, and so I grabbed the two bookends and me favourite drinking partner and set off on this difficult time consuming task at hand... to find some shirts. And wouldn't you believe it we found all we needed in about ten minutes, so what can we do with the extra shopping time we had allocated to this difficult task?

Presto!

And you couldn't of asked for a nicer drinking hole then the old Pippi's Hotel, I have found memories of sitting inside this old girl in my past life.

But as you can see this old girl has had a few major facelifts since yours truly sat his old bum on one of it's bar stills, of cause it was all for the better and talk about going upper class it even has it's name on the pool table!

And just so you know me and Plucka kicked the young fellas ass at pool.

Now we still had some time on the clock so why not just pop into 'an old lady off a pub' in Warners Bay, another one I haven't been to in well over twenty odd years, but crikey talk about changing times...

The last time I was at The Warners Bay Hotel Ansett was still bloody flying ha, ha, back then it was just a quiet little old pub out the back of John street but now....WOW it has had a massive upgrade with sadly pretty well much off the old girl disappearing, but in a good way as this is now really a nice place for a night out for the young folk.

Nestled in spitting distance of the smelly old salty shores of Lake Macquarie this old favourite has really changed but all for the good, it seems to have been opened up out the back into the alleyway and even up into the bloody roof top, so this is really a place to get lost in but as long as you find a bar... who cares.

From there we made our way back along the lake towards an old favourite back when it's name wasn't that famous...

The legend of the working man Pub... The Great Northern! I can remember hopping off the train to make my way over the old wooden bridge to sink a coldie at this old pub in Teralba, the last time was a bloody long time ago but nothing has changed which was nice.

As you can see me old mate Plucka Duck had just taken off his glasses and copped a face full of sun ha, ha, so yes it was the sun, and no he wasn't on day realise from Morisset mental hospital. And what is a good remedy for sunburnt eyes... Of cause a beer! and what beer do you order in a pub called The Great Northern... A Great Northern! Okay it wasn't rocket science but you might be surprised how many people can't join dots!

The old Great Northern hasn't changed a bit except now it has sports screens near the roof all around the whole pub, and so you could say it's changes are all for the better. Every bloody sport you could point a bloody stick at... I'm in heaven.

Now that we had a few beers in our tummies it was time to sneak in just one more pub, and in keeping with the tradition of hitting pubs around the lake we headed past Toronto out to 'Where the wild people live'... Wangi Wangi.

To an old favourite The Wangi Hotel. The locals reckon that the place is that special they named it twice... Wangi Wangi! And talking about special things... No not Plucka's smile, but I have to wonder if maybe there's something that Jodi isn't telling us, just joking.... The sun came out again ha, ha, that excuse is starting to warn thin mate ha, ha.

Plucka and little chief....

And buy the way the other special thing was it's $15 snitty n' chips, honestly can you really beat that.

And yes the old fellas again smashed the young bulls in the pool games...

And it turned out we had just another time in our 'Shopping trip' to drive to one more grand old pub.

And that grand old girl would be The Lake Macquarie Hotel or the Morisset Hotel as yours truly use to call it, and again not much had changed on the outside.

Harrison ordering a round of beers for the rest of us, doing what all good sons should do.

And just like the outside the inside didn't seem to have changed much over the years, and that's how we like it some times. It keeps the fond old memories alive in the old scone.

Fairdinkum it was great to have the opportunity to bring the kiddies (and Plucka) around to some of my old drinking holes, I really enjoyed sinking a few schooners and getting back some of my old memories. But it was getting on and it was that time to head back to mums for a sneaky beer and a feed, Live doesn't get much better...