After a very busy week, I was really looking forward to getting out of the city, going to Hunter Valley and doing something different, it was definitely worth the wait, I ended up having a fantastic weekend...so this will probably be a long entry today…so much to tell!!
Sue and I met early on Saturday morning and walked to the bus station together. After buying a few bits and pieces for our breakfast the coach was about ready to go. I was a bit surprised as it was a big coach, but there were only about 12 people on it. On the bus we met the owner (Mike) of the place we would be staying at, he’d been in Sydney to watch the rugby, so we got talking to him for a bit, then everyone started falling asleep….apart from Sue and I, who were chatting all the way there! Actually he thought it was really funny, he couldn’t wait to see us when we’d been drinking, he thought it couldn’t get any worse than how we were on the bus….we were obviously talking and laughing a lot!! We kept looking out the windows so we didn't miss anything, it was mostly trees, but in some parts, there was some really lovely scenery, lots and lots of trees and a couple of lakes and rivers. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there. We were staying in Cessnock which has a population of 22,000, it’s a lovely town, the houses were really pretty. It ended up being 8 of us from the coach that were staying at the lodge, we all paid up, then got shown to our rooms, which were very basic, just a bunk bed in there, but it was clean, actually it was absolutely freezing in there so we didn’t hang around long. We had about an hour before our wine tour, so we had a look around, the lodge was nice, there were probably about 12 rooms there and a big communal kitchen and lounge. We introduced ourselves to all the other people that had just arrived, there was a couple from London Toni and Ben, 2 other English lads Ram and Will, a Frenchman, Matthew and a Dutch guy called Tom, they all seemed really nice and we had a laugh, so I thought, this is going to be a good weekend.
So at 12pm, we all jumped on the mini bus and set off for the wine tour. The guide was an Ozzy guy that worked at the lodge, he was a typical Australian, when we first arrived he had a massive sun-hat on, it was a shame it didn’t have the corks hanging down, he would have looked great! So he was giving us a talk about where he was going to take us on the tour, I must admit at one point I stopped listening cos I saw my first real life Kangaroo in the wild, so I was pretty excited about that. Anyway, he told us he was going to take us to the smaller family run wineries as they were a bit more personal and friendlier than the big firms, like Lindemans and Rosemount Estate. Our first stop was Reg Drayton wines, we all sat outside on the terrace around a big table, and our wine tasting began. We drank all sorts, whites, reds, fortified wines, dessert wines, I must admit I started to feel a bit tipsy, and we still had 3 more wineries to go to! The owner gave us a talk about all the different wines and how they make them, it was really very interesting. Now in Australia because of the lack of cork trees and the expense of buying cork, they are all starting to use screw top wine bottles (which I found a bit strange because in England or Germany that is not usual) but apparently the wine can keep with a screw top for even longer than a cork, and obviously there is less risk of corking the wine. In Australia as you probably know you can take bottles of wine to a restaurant, and they charge you corkage to open it, one of the lads asked if they’d start charging screwage instead..which we all found highly amusing…(remember we’d been drinking!) The next stop was the Iron Gate winery, which was beautiful, unfortunately we had to stand inside to taste the wines. We had lots of different wines to taste and the girl taught us a new technique called ‘fluffing’ which again we found hilarious…wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, anyway, it involved putting the palm of your hand on the top of the wine glass and shaking it which releases more of the flavour, Will loved this so he started doing this with every glass, even the reds, but what was really funny was that whenever he did it, he couldn’t’ keep his hips still, so it was like him doing this mad dance, very amusing!
After all this wine Gordy (our guide) decided we’d better get some food inside us, so he took us to the Hunter Valley Gardens for lunch.
By this time I still hadn’t tasted a wine that I really loved, so I was hoping our next stop would be the place to buy some. This place, The Hanging Tree, didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely beautiful there. It’s a really small winery that is only open to the public at weekends, the setting was stunning, there was an old shack on the front which was the building they used to use years ago (very Little House on the Prairie’esque) with a couple of horses roaming around, then out the back there was a pond with loads of ducks, and flowers. The inside was full of old antique furniture, it’s so hard to describe it. The owner was a lovely lady, we sat out on the veranda and she brought us out wine trays and tasting cards and left us to it. All 3 of the white wines I really enjoyed, so I couldn’t decide which one to buy, in the end I bought the limited edition Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, or SSB as they call it in the wine trade (these Ozzies shorten everything!) typical as it wasn’t the cheapest wine, but I thought I would treat myself. After that it was to the Smelly Cheese shop for some cheese tasting. The first couple were really nice, marinated feta cheese and some sort of Lebanese cheese, but the others were not to my liking...gorgonzola, which had the same texture of margarine, yuk…and some blue veined cheese, which I’m not a big fan of. While we were there, Sue and I decided to buy a cheaper bottle of wine for the evening, as we wanted to save our good wine for a nice dinner. Next stop was champagne tasting, can’t remember what that place was called! We had some lovely champagnes there and we all chipped in and bought some Pink blush for later. We were supposed to have a chocolate tasting after, but the owner was a bit funny and decided not to let us, this was really annoying cos I’d looked forward to that all day. The shop smelt gorgeous, they had a big chocolate fountain which they used to dip strawberries and marshmallows in, mmmm, I ended up just buying a small peanut butter praline, even that cost me $2, I could have bought 2 mars bars for that!!
So it was time to go back to the lodge as it was 5pm. Everyone got back and relaxed for a bit, we opened our wine and had a chat, then Gordy and Mike lit up the pizza oven and the fire in the garden. We all wrapped up and went outside to sit by the fire…..bear in mind it was pretty cold at this point. After an hour we were told we could make our pizzas, what a great idea that was, they gave us the base, and we all put on our toppings and in the oven they went, I tell you that was the best pizza I’d had in ages (well apart from Dave’s last week!) So we had a couple of hours outside having a laugh, actually a girl had turned up later on, and she comes from Poole, which is just up the road from where I used to live in UK, small world! Next it was pub time which was only a 5 minute walk up the road, it was a bit misty and very dark, so we all stuck together. I had a bit of a funny moment…I was walking up the road, happily chatting away to Toni, and the next minute I’d gone crashing into one of those waist high posts by the side of the road…luckily for me it bent down and pinged back up again, apparently it nearly caught poor Tom who was walking behind me, so this had us all doubled over with laughter for about 5 minutes, Sue said it looked like a cartoon from the back!! We finally made it to the pub, had a few games of pool, a bit of a dance, it was karaoke night, I tried to persuade the others to sing, but they weren’t having any of it, only the owner Mike sung, he loves it, he was up there every other song! At about 12 most of us decided that we needed to get back as it’d been a really long day, so we walked back and went straight to bed…. strangely the room was actually warmer than it was earlier.
Had a really good sleep, but still woke up pretty early, but we’d booked a horse ride, so we had to be up anyway. We all cooked breakfast together, some of the guys were looking worse for wear, they’d been up drinking and ended up in the sauna till 4am.
After we’d cleared up, Sue and I walked over to the horses, I was actually really nervous as I’d only ever ridden a horse once before, and that was when I was about 10. My horse was quite a small one, I thought I might actually crush her! Her name was Vegemite and she definitely had a mind of her own yesterday, Vanessa (their owner) taught me how to steer and the basics. I was a nervous wreck…. Vegemite kept deciding to just wander off to see the other horses on the way, so Vanessa ended up leading us for the first hour or so. After that I got a bit more confident and asked if I could ride without being led. The weather was perfect for it, we walked through all different pastures, and we saw a mob of kangaroos, behind the trees, there must have been at least 20 of them, that was amazing seeing them, I tried to take pictures, but my camera zoom didn’t get close enough unfortunately. We rode through one pasture and there were 2 random cows that must have jumped over the fence, so Vanessa told Sue and I to go through to the next field while she tried to round them up and back into the next field. Unfortunately the cows went a big mad and one of them started running straight towards me and Vegemite, I was so scared I thought it would run right into us, but she turned at the last minute, Vegemite didn’t even flinch!! So my legs were like jelly after that and I was shaking quite a bit. There were a few hairy moments, mad cows, horses and dogs on the way that kept running up to us, but on the whole I really enjoyed the ride, although I was quite relieved to get off…. mind you that was a feat in itself, I think my legs had moulded to the shape of the horse and I was stuck there for a few minutes, Vanessa’s husband had to push me off. Actually he took a photo of us, and Vegemite and I look like right midget s compared to Sue and Blue!! I was in agony when I got off, I literally couldn’t walk, my knees, my legs and my bum were killing, well, we were on the horses for 2.5 hours! our plan was to jump on the bikes and ride to the zoo after, but I couldn’t have done that, so Mike gave us a lift in the end.
The zoo was a small family run zoo, we had a really enjoyable afternoon there, we fed and touched Randy the kangaroo, he was a friendly chap….we had ice cream cones filled with his food, which he ate out of our hands, but in the end he only wanted to eat the ice cream cone. There were lots of other kangaroos there, but they were all lying down looking very relaxed. We saw albino wallabies, they looked a bit like large rats, there were lots of really unusual birds, again they were only interested in eating the ice cream cones…monkeys, deer, emus, ostriches, and the best bit was Gumdrop the koala. She was soooo gorgeous, the owner took us into her pen so we could touch her and have our photos taken with her, she looked just like a cuddly toy, sitting on her branch looking cute. They have such thick fur, she was 6 yrs old and was actually quite big, apparently they sleep for 20 hours a day, it takes all this time to digest their food, so basically they don’t do much!!
Sue had her picture taken with some sort of python round her neck, I wasn’t going anywhere near that! I did however touch a shingle back lizard, very strange looking thing, the scales were really hard like the nails on your fingers. We helped the owners wife feed the wallabies with bread and lettuce and we learnt quite a lot about all the different animals, then it was time to leave to make sure we got back for the coach back.
We arrived back in Sydney at 7pm, by this time I was feeling exhausted and my throat was feeling a bit sore, so I went home did my washing…my clothes stunk of horses! and had an early night.
The whole weekend was so great, it was so much better than going to a hotel where you never really meet anyone, I’m so glad I found this travel deal…the owners made sure we had the best time and the people we met were great, the weather was fantastic….what more could you ask for. I’m feeling very stiff today though, my back is hurting now too…maybe I'll give the gym a miss tonight!!
I hope you managed to read this through till the end, it’s a bit long eh!!
Sue and I met early on Saturday morning and walked to the bus station together. After buying a few bits and pieces for our breakfast the coach was about ready to go. I was a bit surprised as it was a big coach, but there were only about 12 people on it. On the bus we met the owner (Mike) of the place we would be staying at, he’d been in Sydney to watch the rugby, so we got talking to him for a bit, then everyone started falling asleep….apart from Sue and I, who were chatting all the way there! Actually he thought it was really funny, he couldn’t wait to see us when we’d been drinking, he thought it couldn’t get any worse than how we were on the bus….we were obviously talking and laughing a lot!! We kept looking out the windows so we didn't miss anything, it was mostly trees, but in some parts, there was some really lovely scenery, lots and lots of trees and a couple of lakes and rivers. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there. We were staying in Cessnock which has a population of 22,000, it’s a lovely town, the houses were really pretty. It ended up being 8 of us from the coach that were staying at the lodge, we all paid up, then got shown to our rooms, which were very basic, just a bunk bed in there, but it was clean, actually it was absolutely freezing in there so we didn’t hang around long. We had about an hour before our wine tour, so we had a look around, the lodge was nice, there were probably about 12 rooms there and a big communal kitchen and lounge. We introduced ourselves to all the other people that had just arrived, there was a couple from London Toni and Ben, 2 other English lads Ram and Will, a Frenchman, Matthew and a Dutch guy called Tom, they all seemed really nice and we had a laugh, so I thought, this is going to be a good weekend.
So at 12pm, we all jumped on the mini bus and set off for the wine tour. The guide was an Ozzy guy that worked at the lodge, he was a typical Australian, when we first arrived he had a massive sun-hat on, it was a shame it didn’t have the corks hanging down, he would have looked great! So he was giving us a talk about where he was going to take us on the tour, I must admit at one point I stopped listening cos I saw my first real life Kangaroo in the wild, so I was pretty excited about that. Anyway, he told us he was going to take us to the smaller family run wineries as they were a bit more personal and friendlier than the big firms, like Lindemans and Rosemount Estate. Our first stop was Reg Drayton wines, we all sat outside on the terrace around a big table, and our wine tasting began. We drank all sorts, whites, reds, fortified wines, dessert wines, I must admit I started to feel a bit tipsy, and we still had 3 more wineries to go to! The owner gave us a talk about all the different wines and how they make them, it was really very interesting. Now in Australia because of the lack of cork trees and the expense of buying cork, they are all starting to use screw top wine bottles (which I found a bit strange because in England or Germany that is not usual) but apparently the wine can keep with a screw top for even longer than a cork, and obviously there is less risk of corking the wine. In Australia as you probably know you can take bottles of wine to a restaurant, and they charge you corkage to open it, one of the lads asked if they’d start charging screwage instead..which we all found highly amusing…(remember we’d been drinking!) The next stop was the Iron Gate winery, which was beautiful, unfortunately we had to stand inside to taste the wines. We had lots of different wines to taste and the girl taught us a new technique called ‘fluffing’ which again we found hilarious…wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, anyway, it involved putting the palm of your hand on the top of the wine glass and shaking it which releases more of the flavour, Will loved this so he started doing this with every glass, even the reds, but what was really funny was that whenever he did it, he couldn’t’ keep his hips still, so it was like him doing this mad dance, very amusing!
After all this wine Gordy (our guide) decided we’d better get some food inside us, so he took us to the Hunter Valley Gardens for lunch.
By this time I still hadn’t tasted a wine that I really loved, so I was hoping our next stop would be the place to buy some. This place, The Hanging Tree, didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely beautiful there. It’s a really small winery that is only open to the public at weekends, the setting was stunning, there was an old shack on the front which was the building they used to use years ago (very Little House on the Prairie’esque) with a couple of horses roaming around, then out the back there was a pond with loads of ducks, and flowers. The inside was full of old antique furniture, it’s so hard to describe it. The owner was a lovely lady, we sat out on the veranda and she brought us out wine trays and tasting cards and left us to it. All 3 of the white wines I really enjoyed, so I couldn’t decide which one to buy, in the end I bought the limited edition Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, or SSB as they call it in the wine trade (these Ozzies shorten everything!) typical as it wasn’t the cheapest wine, but I thought I would treat myself. After that it was to the Smelly Cheese shop for some cheese tasting. The first couple were really nice, marinated feta cheese and some sort of Lebanese cheese, but the others were not to my liking...gorgonzola, which had the same texture of margarine, yuk…and some blue veined cheese, which I’m not a big fan of. While we were there, Sue and I decided to buy a cheaper bottle of wine for the evening, as we wanted to save our good wine for a nice dinner. Next stop was champagne tasting, can’t remember what that place was called! We had some lovely champagnes there and we all chipped in and bought some Pink blush for later. We were supposed to have a chocolate tasting after, but the owner was a bit funny and decided not to let us, this was really annoying cos I’d looked forward to that all day. The shop smelt gorgeous, they had a big chocolate fountain which they used to dip strawberries and marshmallows in, mmmm, I ended up just buying a small peanut butter praline, even that cost me $2, I could have bought 2 mars bars for that!!
So it was time to go back to the lodge as it was 5pm. Everyone got back and relaxed for a bit, we opened our wine and had a chat, then Gordy and Mike lit up the pizza oven and the fire in the garden. We all wrapped up and went outside to sit by the fire…..bear in mind it was pretty cold at this point. After an hour we were told we could make our pizzas, what a great idea that was, they gave us the base, and we all put on our toppings and in the oven they went, I tell you that was the best pizza I’d had in ages (well apart from Dave’s last week!) So we had a couple of hours outside having a laugh, actually a girl had turned up later on, and she comes from Poole, which is just up the road from where I used to live in UK, small world! Next it was pub time which was only a 5 minute walk up the road, it was a bit misty and very dark, so we all stuck together. I had a bit of a funny moment…I was walking up the road, happily chatting away to Toni, and the next minute I’d gone crashing into one of those waist high posts by the side of the road…luckily for me it bent down and pinged back up again, apparently it nearly caught poor Tom who was walking behind me, so this had us all doubled over with laughter for about 5 minutes, Sue said it looked like a cartoon from the back!! We finally made it to the pub, had a few games of pool, a bit of a dance, it was karaoke night, I tried to persuade the others to sing, but they weren’t having any of it, only the owner Mike sung, he loves it, he was up there every other song! At about 12 most of us decided that we needed to get back as it’d been a really long day, so we walked back and went straight to bed…. strangely the room was actually warmer than it was earlier.
Had a really good sleep, but still woke up pretty early, but we’d booked a horse ride, so we had to be up anyway. We all cooked breakfast together, some of the guys were looking worse for wear, they’d been up drinking and ended up in the sauna till 4am.
After we’d cleared up, Sue and I walked over to the horses, I was actually really nervous as I’d only ever ridden a horse once before, and that was when I was about 10. My horse was quite a small one, I thought I might actually crush her! Her name was Vegemite and she definitely had a mind of her own yesterday, Vanessa (their owner) taught me how to steer and the basics. I was a nervous wreck…. Vegemite kept deciding to just wander off to see the other horses on the way, so Vanessa ended up leading us for the first hour or so. After that I got a bit more confident and asked if I could ride without being led. The weather was perfect for it, we walked through all different pastures, and we saw a mob of kangaroos, behind the trees, there must have been at least 20 of them, that was amazing seeing them, I tried to take pictures, but my camera zoom didn’t get close enough unfortunately. We rode through one pasture and there were 2 random cows that must have jumped over the fence, so Vanessa told Sue and I to go through to the next field while she tried to round them up and back into the next field. Unfortunately the cows went a big mad and one of them started running straight towards me and Vegemite, I was so scared I thought it would run right into us, but she turned at the last minute, Vegemite didn’t even flinch!! So my legs were like jelly after that and I was shaking quite a bit. There were a few hairy moments, mad cows, horses and dogs on the way that kept running up to us, but on the whole I really enjoyed the ride, although I was quite relieved to get off…. mind you that was a feat in itself, I think my legs had moulded to the shape of the horse and I was stuck there for a few minutes, Vanessa’s husband had to push me off. Actually he took a photo of us, and Vegemite and I look like right midget s compared to Sue and Blue!! I was in agony when I got off, I literally couldn’t walk, my knees, my legs and my bum were killing, well, we were on the horses for 2.5 hours! our plan was to jump on the bikes and ride to the zoo after, but I couldn’t have done that, so Mike gave us a lift in the end.
The zoo was a small family run zoo, we had a really enjoyable afternoon there, we fed and touched Randy the kangaroo, he was a friendly chap….we had ice cream cones filled with his food, which he ate out of our hands, but in the end he only wanted to eat the ice cream cone. There were lots of other kangaroos there, but they were all lying down looking very relaxed. We saw albino wallabies, they looked a bit like large rats, there were lots of really unusual birds, again they were only interested in eating the ice cream cones…monkeys, deer, emus, ostriches, and the best bit was Gumdrop the koala. She was soooo gorgeous, the owner took us into her pen so we could touch her and have our photos taken with her, she looked just like a cuddly toy, sitting on her branch looking cute. They have such thick fur, she was 6 yrs old and was actually quite big, apparently they sleep for 20 hours a day, it takes all this time to digest their food, so basically they don’t do much!!
Sue had her picture taken with some sort of python round her neck, I wasn’t going anywhere near that! I did however touch a shingle back lizard, very strange looking thing, the scales were really hard like the nails on your fingers. We helped the owners wife feed the wallabies with bread and lettuce and we learnt quite a lot about all the different animals, then it was time to leave to make sure we got back for the coach back.
We arrived back in Sydney at 7pm, by this time I was feeling exhausted and my throat was feeling a bit sore, so I went home did my washing…my clothes stunk of horses! and had an early night.
The whole weekend was so great, it was so much better than going to a hotel where you never really meet anyone, I’m so glad I found this travel deal…the owners made sure we had the best time and the people we met were great, the weather was fantastic….what more could you ask for. I’m feeling very stiff today though, my back is hurting now too…maybe I'll give the gym a miss tonight!!
I hope you managed to read this through till the end, it’s a bit long eh!!
1 comment:
vikki,
that sounds like so much fun - a perfect weekend. really glad you got to opportunity to taste and have a good time.
the bit about the screwage is very funny!
jane
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