Hunter Valley xx

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Hunter Valley was our first destination along our trip along the east coast and it was a great first stop! We were in separate accommodation as we didn't know if we'd have the campervan or not, but our hotel was only 5 minutes from the others. It was such a beautiful place to visit, vineyards for miles with amazing scenery! There were even wild kangaroos outside the little cottage Kerry Dave Margaret and Keith were in! It was like something you see in magazines or on TV !

We got there by mid morning so unpacked and headed out to do some wine and cheese tasting :-). Yes the 2 nights there included lots of wine tasting, perfect!! We bought some cheese and bread for our lunch and headed back to the cottage for a mini feast of wine and amazing cheese! We headed back out in the afternoon to visit a couple more vineyards, Kerry and Dave had been before so knew a couple of good places to take us which was good and in the evening we headed to an Irish pub for dinner, nearly all of us ordering homemade pie which was pretty yummy!! We didn't have a late night because we wanted to make the most of our only full day there so headed back to bed fairly early.

Day 2 we started the day off visiting the local zoo. It was so much fun, the best zoo we've been too!! There were kangaroos, monkeys, emus, deer, birds, snakes, crocodiles and KOALAS!!! I was so excited to see the koalas a favourite of mine since I was a kid! We got there in time to see a couple of them being taken out of their pen too and got to have a stroke and picture with them. They were so adorable but are pretty strong with their claws so we weren't allowed to hold them but a picture and stroke was good enough. They sleep a lot, a out 22 hours a day so we were lucky to see them awake! All six of us were like big kids and it was definitely my highlight of the day! Where as I think the emus were brads, he had a lot of fun winding them up with food nearly getting his hand bitten off!! We bought food too so were able to feed most if the animals including the kangaroos which were pretty timid but a few appreciated the feed, especially the ice cream come the food came in! We spent all morning there and loved every minute of it! Then we had an afternoon at some winery's (of course)! And even stumbled across one that was run by 2 Essex guys and I then found out my good friend Becky knew one of them, definitely a small small world!! It was another great day and to finish it off we had dinner booked at an amazing restaurant just by the cottage. It was delicious and apparently one of the best in the area and it certainly lived up to it's title!! We all had amazing dinners and it was a perfect way to end a lovely couple of days in an idillic scenery!! It was boiling too we were lucky with some great weather! Next stop was Old Bar, where we weren't as lucky with weather but I think was one of my favourite stops! So I'll fill you in next....

Love B&K xxxxxxxx

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