Newcastle & Hunter Valley

Next stop was Newcastle. We had a couple more days before we needed to be back in Sydney and I wanted to stop in Hunter Valley to do some wine tastings. Newcastle was the closest large town to Hunter Valley. We arrived in Newcastle in the evening amongst reports of heavy rains and possible flooding in some areas of NSW. The sea was really rough as once we were already in Newcastle and driving along the beach road, the waves were crashing onto the street. We had dinner at a small Indian takeout restaurant and found a place to sleep in a residential street on a hill in case of any flooding. The next morning we had a very hard time finding a public toilet. Everything was closed and we couldn’t find a McDonald’s and after driving around for 30 minutes we found a shopping mall that was just opening up and we were able to use the toilets there.

We did some shopping for food at Woolies and had breakfast at a park overlooking the water. Newcastle is actually a pretty nice town. It reminds you a little bit of Hamilton as a lot of large cargo ships come in there, but the layout of the town, which is spread over a few hills, combined with some historical architecture give it a very pleasant look and feel. After breakfast we left Newcastle and made our way out to Hunter Valley. Unfortunately we had missed the 11am winery tour of Whyndam Estates so we went to McGuigan Winery, a wine I was introduced to at one of the many dinners we had been to with my aunt and uncle. At McGuigan we found out that wine tastings are free! You can sample up to 6 wines for free! Andrew and I had a great time tasting the wines and we found a wine which we loved. Unfortunately it is only available at the winery itself and you cannot buy it anywhere else nor can you import it. The other unfortunate part is that I can’t remember what it’s called. We ended up buying two bottles but after we drank them once back in Sydney, we didn’t think to write down the name! From McGuigan we went to the Lindemans winery but we found them to be a little snobby. It turns out Lindemans doesn’t actually grow their grapes in Hunter Valley, but in Southern Australia, and the winery we visited is only there for them to have a presence in NSW.

While at McGuigan we found out we had missed their wine tour as we were too late but they had told us Tyrrell’s Winery was having a tour at 1pm we could attend. So we did just that. We found Tyrrell to give the largest samples of wines with full glasses. I was pretty drunk and actually started refusing wine by the time it was tour time. The tour lasted around an hour and it was very interesting to find out how the wine was made and bottled. After touring the winery we decided it was time to head south. We would reach Sydney that night.