Wine tour day - Mar 30

It looked like rain in the morning so I put up the tarp. The good news is we were scheduled for a half day wine tour so, who cares if it rains today!

 

The wine tour bus (pronounced drunk bus) picked us up at 09:30 at the campground. Pippa was our driver and did an awesome job of driving us around and giving us information about the winerys and the area. We picked up another couple and headed off on the tour, three winerys and the Olive factory. The other couple were Brian and Phoebe from Wales. Our first stop was the Saddlers Creek winery where we tested out 8 wines, both white and red, and received a wealth of information on how to pair wine with food. We spent over an hour there before moving on to Iron Gate Estates were we repeated the process. Next we dropped by the Olive Factory for tasting of a variety of olive oils, salsas, hot sauces and other delicious stuff. Last stop was Ivanhoe Wines for our last tastings of the day. Good thing too because neither Diane or I had been using the spit bucket! I mean come on, a spit bucket!).

 

The whole Hunter Valley has been growing grapes and making wines since the early 1800's the wineries and cellar door are beautiful, well established. We managed to pick up a couple of wine glasses with Hunter Valley Wineries written on them.

 

Pottery kiln

After the tour we walked across the street from the campground. There is a hotel bar there called the Potters. It was built on an old pottery site and there were still the old kilns left standing. These things were over 30 feet in diameter! Barb needs one of these things in her back yard!

We had a late lunch back at the campsite and visited with the kids on the site next door, Holly and Laughlin. Their family has been living in the campground for the last 4 months, after falling on some hard times. They were a very nice family and we visited and talked till nearly 9:00pm. It was raining quit steady by that point and we all packed it in for the evening. Diane gave the kids some envelopes with our address so the kids could write us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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