Hunter Valley

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Geo: -32.771, 151.303

An early Virgin flight into Williamstown where we picked up a Thrifty hire car - a Mitsubishi SUV.

It was an easy 50min drive on the new expressway into Pokolbin. While checking out the visitor centre we signed up for the Hunter Wine Selectors periodic wine deliveries. Then to Tyrrell's for a wine tour and tasting, an excellent lunch at the Muse Kitchen at Keith Tulloch's Winery, tasting again at Pepper Tree and Lambloch, and a mousse tasting at the new Sabor chocolatier on Broke Rd. Picked up some groceries at the Hunter Valley Gardens shops and then checked in to Wyndham at Leisure Inn around 4pm.

We learned that a French oak tree grows for 120 years before felling, and typically one tree produces only two 225l barrels! The canny French have been planting four or five oak trees for every one they harvest, so no shortage is expected. But you wouldn't want to be a cork plantation owner in our new world of screw-top wines. The bark of the cork trees can be harvested once every three years, after the tree reaches nine years of age.

We enjoyed a late afternoon wine on our deck, watching dusk settle on the hills and a pretty lake in the foreground. Ducks, parrots and wallabies busied themselves for evening and we were all startled by the sudden entrance of four draught horses who apparently escaped from a neighbouring property and galloped around our villa's green spaces. They too settled down and grazed quietly beyond the lake. I wonder if their owner has retrieved them yet.

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Photos

At Sabor
And the best mousse was - the plain chocolate. Varieties were mocha, Jaffa, hazelnut, white and plain.