Hunter Valley Escape

This past weekend I decided to get out of the city and go to wine country. The Hunter Valley is about two hours north of Sydney, and is a popular weekend getaway for city people. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was for 40 degrees Celsius (also known as 104 Fahrenheit) on Saturday. I was feeling some serious regrets as I left my nice beachy suburb, but I decided to brave it anyways since the tour I booked was non refundable.

The bus picked us up from Central Station, and wound its way through the Northern Suburbs until we had left civilization behind. We stopped for coffee in a tiny town called Wollombi, and before I knew it we were at the cellar door of Lindeman’s. They were SUPER generous with the tastings, and I ended up buying a bottle of port here to drizzle on my ice cream this summer. We had lunch and more wine at Hunter Cellars (where I picked up a Shiraz), and finished the tour at McGuigan’s, where I bought a cheap red blend. While most of the group was heading back to Sydney, I was dropped off at the hostel in the middle of a vineyard/cow pasture a couple of kilometres outside of Cessnock. It was more like a cabin than anything else, with a wooden veranda surrounding the whole building. I was greeted by a five foot snake on the driveway (non poisonous according to the caretaker), who slowly slithered away under the porch fortunately not to be seen again during my stay. It was BOILING hot by this point so I went for a dip in the pool, had a shower, and sat in the shade drinking my red blend out on the deck. As night fell, there was an electrical storm from all the heat. I took a video of what it looked like-it’s not the best quality, but you can kind of tell how dramatic it was!

The next day was equally lazy. I walked into town and watched the early bird showing of Skyfall, and by the time I got back it was time to return to Sydney. Great weekend!