For some odd reason I awake early today, refreshed and look out of the window to watch dawn rise above the Sydney Opera House - not a cloud in the sky which bodes well for my visit to the Hunter Valley - carefully arranged by one of our key wine suppliers. 0715 am and Paul greets me in the lobby and we have a quick spot of breakfast before heading over and picking up the car for the 2.5 hour journy to Cessnock and the heart of the Hunter Valley. Upon leaving Sydney and onto Highway 1 (nothing like the M1) [View Full Entry]

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The first 'real' city that we had encountered; we found Brisbane to a pretty lively, cosmopolitan place and it roughly marked the halfway point for us and our epic road trip along the coast of Oz. We'd heard a lot of good things about the place and weren't disappointed. On day 1 we explored the botanic gardens (which is actually just a big park) and around the river making time to swing by some of the malls and squeeze in some shopping. We checked out Fortitude Valley, the up and coming bar and cafe scene was meant to be good here [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone from the Hunter Valley. We came here today after 3 nights at Forster. It was good to catch up with our niece Anna, Simon and children. Sue came up for the weekend too from Sydney. We visited the Hunter Valley Gardens this afternoon, which were very good, and are going on a wine trail tomorrow, being picked up from our campsite here at Cessnock. We are due in Sydney on Thursday. We are now booked there for two weeks, as we have the wedding of Chris' cousin's daughter Jane, and then the following week Tracey, kent and girls are [View Full Entry]

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Wine. Vin. Vino! The Hunter Valley Wine trip. A day of drinking, basically yeh. It is a two and a half hour drive north to Hunter Valley from Sydney. THe Macquarie exchange group on campus arrange a bus for 58 of us to go to 3 wineries and bluetounge brewery. Friday, Sept 5 it rained all day. Our bus driver got lost going in circles around the vinyard maze and eventually took down a barbed fence turning around. We all laughed and yelled for him to stop, but I don't think he cared, and then we got scared a bit of [View Full Entry]

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We have just had the best time!! We left Bundaberg and our Home Exchange people and headed to Hervey Bay. We stayed at another wonderful Big 4 Tourist Park and signed up for a day tour of Fraser Island. We have been tossing around how we are going to see Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the largest sand island (I think) in the world. It is a 4WD vehicle place only because there is only sand, no pavement etc. There is some accomodation over there but not a lot of choice. In the end, we opted for a 1 day tour [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday Steve, Meagan, Mum and I towed the caravan up to Muswellbrook to spend the weekend with my sister Anne (Bo). We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday and left just after lunch on Sunday. It was lovely for Bo to be able to spend part of Mother's Day with mum. While we were there we did a bit of work on the caravan. We made a new table and tidied up the silicone on the outside. We also made up a piece of timber to go in the van as a spare bed. Meagan spent time working on her assignments [View Full Entry]

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Zo, Australie zit er bijna op. We koersen verder richting het zuiden en overnachten in Port Macquairie omdat de stap naar hunter Valley net iets te lang bleek. In Hunter Valley naar Wollombi doorgereden en langs verschillende Wineries gekomen. Bij underCliff nog verschillende wijnen geproefd en meegenomen en door naar Mulla Villa (B&B door Gerian & Marnix getipt, nog bedankt!). We verbleven in een cottage naast de paarden en honden (zaten ook wombats maar helaas niet gezien) en hebben 's avonds heerlijk gedineerd met BYO formule (Bring Your Own wine). De volgende dag na een heerlijk ont [View Full Entry]

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My trip to the Hunter Valley For anyone who doesn’t know the Hunter Valley is famous wine country close to Sydney. I won a day trip to visit it at the Sydney Uni orientation. My friends Sarah and Nicole decided they’d like to tag along. I thought the day would be very educational and teach me to appreciate wine…or atleast be more knowledgeable about it. Hope winery The first winery we stopped at was called Hope. It was a smaller more local type of winery than the others we visited. We pulled up in the bus about 11am. In the [View Full Entry]

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Relieved that we managed to sort out our tight schedule for touring Australia, we were back at work for another week with a slight skip in our step, dreaming of our upcoming travelling. On Monday after work I headed into town to pay the remainder of our bill with the travel agency. Banks in Australia not only charge for the simplist of bank accounts, they also make it extremely difficult for customers to withdraw anything over $1000 in any 24 hour period. Despite having internet and telephone banking with them, and asking permission for a larger EFTPOS payment, I was advised [View Full Entry]

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4th March - 9 March A few weeks ago we took a few days off work for a long weekend with Alison. I was picked up at work on Tuesday and we drove up to the Hunter Valley. The place we were staying was very nice and had a few vines in our backyard---although I think the grapes were past their prime! On Wednesday morning we took it easy and did a wine tour around lunchtime. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon going to wineries but got home in good enough time to go for a walk in the [View Full Entry]

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