Hunter Valley

It’s a 2-hour drive from Port Stephens to the Hunter Valley, which seems like a cakewalk having clocked up almost 10,000 kms in the last few weeks. We enjoy a delicious lunch at Roberts Restaurant where the kids can run around the beautifully kept gardens whilst we polish off the coffee and cakes. The estate also houses the Pepper Tree Winery with some decent wines particularly the 1998 Merlot. On to Tyrell’s where there’s a handy breathalyser test on site that I pass but Karen doesn’t. I knew she’d been sneaking extra samples at the tasting whilst I was boring the winemaker with questions about microclimate and vintage variations in the Hunter. Despite some good aged Semillons we plump for quantity rather than quality with a ten litre vat of Tyrell’s tawny port. Not a bad option as we plan to do a bit of partying in Sydney/Canberra/Melbourne. Also it’s half the price of the bottled port although exactly the same liquid in different packaging. Once the VISA has safely cleared we are warned not to leave the giant plastic container in the car too long in the heat of the day, as they have been known to explode…

After a quick break at the cheese and chocolate shops we nip into the local Blue Tongue microbrewery for a mixed ‘tasting’ case of stout, lager, Pilsner and Ginger beer. We travel to our apartment through scorched vineyards where ironically many of the grapes have been left on the vine due to excessive rain at harvest time. We also pass our biggest road kill so far in the form of a giant wombat – at least we’ve now seen one in the wild ?! The apartment is split into two with connecting doors so we can put the kids to sleep one side then enjoy Mr and Mrs Smith on the other (the movie!!). A huge thunderstorm keeps us up but fails to wake the kids.

We see wallabies and horses grazing side by side on the way to breakfast and then it’s off to Wyndhams. The wines are good and reasonable so we buy a mixed case and sign up to the free year’s Wine club membership to get a cheaper deal. We also try a delicious 1998 Show Reserve Cabernet but resist the temptation to buy as quite pricey. We have to keep to some sort of budget on this trip that is turning into one long jolly….