Da' Bears

A few weeks ago we had our first 'friends' visit us in Sydney all the way from Chicago. It was a great to show them around Sydney and the Hunter Valley. Thanks Nate and Julia for making the trek around the world - hope you had a good time!

Hunter Valley - Visit 2

During the Queen's Birthday long weekend, we decided to get out of Sydney (along with our friends Mickey and Alane). Because this was decided on a spur of the moment comment, we had limited time to plan so we decided on Hunter Valley. Although we had been there before, we figured this would be a good trip to have with our U.S. compadres (i.e. relaxing country side, lots of wine, kangaroos, etc...) and it is an easy drive .

We stayed at a bed and breakfast, Pindari House that Mickey and Alane found. Jess and I are not what you might consider 'regulars' at the B&B's - so this was a small step out of our comfort zone. Luckily, we had a wonderful host, Monika, and an even better watch dog known as Honey.

Overall it was a great weekend getting away from the city life, touring the wineries, eating good food, and playing Australia's version of monopoly known as 'squatter' - based on sheep farming of course. Winery highlights (in my opinion) included Pokolbin Estate and Tyrell's Vineyard.

Weekend in the Valley

This past weekend we decided to get away from the city and headed to the Hunter Valley wine country. We left a little early from work on Friday and drove the 2+ hours to hunter valley. Side note: what Sydneysider's call "highways" is a little deceiving...it is really just a two lane road with tons of lights and cars and traffic...go figure. Anyway, after a little city traffic, we finally saw a real "highway" with posted speeds of 110 km/hr (~70 mph). The road took us through some amazing country side in a national park. We even drove over a bridge that had giant wind socks so the trucks could tell if it was safe to pass.

We rolled into our weekend palace, Patrick Plains Estate, around 7pm. We then managed to get into Cracked Pepper for a nice dinner before calling it an early night. On our way to dinner we spotted our first wild Kangaroo...of course our camera was back at the hotel so we have no proof.

On Saturday we started our wine tasting early with our first stop at Hungerford Hill. We picked this spot mainly for the building, which looked like a giant wine barrel. Our next stop was Tempus Two / Roche Wines, which had a very impressive industrial style Cellar Door (aka tasting room). At both locations we learned about the most well known Hunter Valley wine - Semillon, which is crisp and and full of citrus at young and becomes golden with honey scents as it ages. We rounded out Saturday with Tastings at Poole's Rock, Pigs Peak, and our favorite of the day - Wombat Crossing.

We took it easy on Sunday morning with a late breakfast and reading the paper. On the way out of the valley we stopped a couple more wineries (why not?) - the most notable was Tinkler's Winery.