John & Colette's Adventures

Colette & I had a great time in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. It’s a pretty large wine region about 2 hours north of Sydney with over 100 wineries, some great restaurants, and one mediocre brew pub.

We got into Sydney Saturday, picked up the rental car (upgraded to a new-ish Camry – nice), and headed out to navigate our way through the big city (hey, 4 million people in a country of 20 million is a Big City). Through dumb luck we made it out of the city without getting lost. Unfortunately, on the way out we ended up driving under the Sydney Harbour in their shiny new tunnel as opposed to going over the Harbour Bridge. The Pacific Highway from Sydney is actually a secondary road with some great corners & views. It being Saturday, every motorcycle in NSW was out on it. Fortunately, they mostly stayed on their side of the road.

We eventually got hungry and went looking for some place interesting to eat at and ended up in the big town of Gosford. By this time we were tired of looking for some place interesting and ended up at Mackers (that’s McDonald’s to you Yanks). Blech.

After a few hours we arrived in Cessnock, which is the gateway to the Hunter Valley wine country. The brew pub we stayed at was pretty mediocre. Nice new rooms, but the restaurant was miserable. Bland food, average beer. Hmmm. On the other hand, the room was nice and we got to watch the Olympics in a place other than our living room.

Sunday was spent on a wine tour with 2 other couples. We hit 5 wineries in about 6 1/2 hours. The hilight of the trip was Windarra Winery which is run by a wild German expat nicknamed Mad Max. Very funny guy and made ‘unique’ wines along with his own pottery. We picked up a chocolate liquor and a white wine port. Both of which were very yummy. The rules of the house were you had to drink what you were served. No spitting! Luckily for us we weren’t driving. He also told some great jokes – one of which was poking fun at Bush, which we greatly enjoyed.

Anyway, Monday we tried doing some more wineries but we were all wined out by that point. That night we had a yummy dinner at Amanda’s on the Edge. Colette had the spatchcock and I had the lamb. Spatchcock is a de-boned chicken that’s been flattened by a large tractor tire. Or something like that. Anyway, it was good and so was the wine. I’m sure the view would have been wonderful too, but it was very dark.

Tuesday we drove back down the M1 to Sydney. This time we went off the main trail to try to get to the Harbour Bridge. Midday on a Tuesday on roads layed out by goats (or drunk convicts) with lanes that popped in and out. Fun Fun Fun. But we did make it over the bridge, got to the other side and was immediately dumped into the CBD (Central Business District) at lunch time. After a bit of fumbling around we found a place to park near Darling Harbour. We found an Info booth and booked tickets on the obligatory hop-on hop-off city tour bus. That took us to the Opera house and the aforementioned Harbour Bridge, among other places. The Opera House is actually several separate buildings and the shell is more tan than white. It really felt like we were in Australia when we first walked up the steps! We had a drink at the sidewalk bar next to the Opera House – with a very nice view of the climbers walking on top of the bridge – and then got back on the tour bus.

That night we had to make our way out to the Airport to find our hotel. Of course, I neglected to print the directions and the info we had didn’t have the full hotel name, address or phone number! D’oh! Luckily it only took a few loops around the airport area before Colette spotted a tiny little sign that said Sydney International Airport Motor Inn and Crammed In Carpark Chock Full of Drunken Businessmen and Tourists. It was PACKED! But to compensate the room was below-average and we had to cram our car into the Carpark Chock Full of Drunken Businessmen’s Cars and leave the keys with the front desk, just in case they had to play that puzzle game where you only have 1 open space and you have to rearrange all the tiles to make a photo of a monkey, to get the little Holden that’s buried in the back corner out at 3am. When we went to leave at 6:30 am the next morning they only had to back out 4 vehicles to get to our car. But we made it to the airport in plenty of time and hopped on JetStar for our trip back home to Maroochydore and the Sunshine Coast.

Wineries we visited:
Capercaillie Wine Company
McWilliams Mount Pleasant Estate
Audrey Wilkinson Vineyard
Windarra Winery
McLeish Hunter Wines
McGuigan Wines
Golden Grape Estate

and the brew pub:
Potters Brewery