We decided to have a return trip to the Hunter Valley with Dave & Sian. We also decided to get back to a roots a little and booked to stay on the caravan park which was great – an awesome setting to win by A$40m at Electronic Australian Monopoly! After having a rather large night on the sauce getting to the Hunter and then playing Monopoly we were all rather hung over the Saturday morning, some more than others, but by noon we were at the first cellar door and into the wine! By the third cellar door I had bought a case of wine and signed up for a wine membership – it would be a long & expensive weekend!

The wine was great, so much we brought back three dozen bottles! We visited some old favourites: Audrey, Pepper Tree, Tinklers and found some new gems: Tower, Piggs Peake to name a couple.

Fo the Monday we headed north again and went fishing in a tinny. Although my venture with the rod was fruitless (again!) Davey boy did catch a couple and almost promptly stepped out of the tinney to avoid the fish on the end of HIS rod! Needless to say, I had to un-hook his prizes and release back to the wild!

A top, top weekend! And we have something (for a while) to remember it by…

The festival was a great chance to try lots of new stuff, I even tried Tuna and Red Snapper – the Red Snapper was amazing and I would most definitely go to the Flying Fish, the restaurant where the dish came from!  We also sampled lots of wine from local and inter-state wineries, as usual we ended up drinking way more wine than eating any food, needless to say I was a wee bit tipsy by the end of the night (no change there then!) and very wet from the torrential rain that caused the festival to be flooded and come to an abrupt end!

We arrived a little later than expected, due to being stuck for 2 hours trying to get out of Sydney, however arrived in time to visit one winery, which was still open – just.  After tasting the wine portfolio of Tintilla (and realising that this was a great way to get drunk for free, if you should so wish!) we opted for their lovely sparkling red, sold to us by the guy it was named after and who said its perfect with kangaroo wellington!

That evening, to keep things fair, we visited the Bluetongue brewery and sampled some of their beers – something for Peter. The Bluetongue premium ale came up tops as did their Ginger beer which is a fab straight off the beach drink!

The next two days we got into the swing of things and visited McGuigans – not only wine but cheese tasting too – again something for Peter!, Harrigan’s, Tyrrells (where we had a great wine tour), Audrey Wilkinson (the first winery in the Hunter Valley), Lindemans / Rosemount, Pepper Tree, Petersons, Savannah, Scarborough, and Tinklers (excellent boutique winery). Of course we obliged and bought some wine too!

Whilst at Hunter we got to see some of Australia’s wildlife – Skippy and Lama’s, who look like baby camels!�