Think the Hunter Valley is nothing but a haven for stuffy wine buffs and dewy-eyed lovers? Kris Ashton and 11 companions set out to prove how much fun a weekend wine tour can be
It’s all-too common for Sydneysiders heading north: leaving Ryde Road and plunging into the traffic crush on the Pacific Highway. It’s a Friday afternoon and my fiancé Kellie and I have both left work early in a bid to avoid the peak-hour chaos. Despite our precautions we inch toward the F3, and I marvel that some people endure this frustration – and much worse – five days a week.
When we get onto the F3, however, our spirits lift. There have been no incidents today and our BA Falcon effortlessly eats up the long stretches of road. We’re on our way to the Hunter Valley for what has been dubbed a Boys and Girls’ Weekend (as distinct from single-gender weekends away in past years). There will be 12 of us in all, made up of couples and friends. We’re staying at Pokolbin Cabins, one of the few places that can accommodate such a large group.
It’s dark by the time we wind our way into Cessnock and take the turnoff for the cabins. The road has no street lights or reflector posts, so it’s high beam all the way. But even so, we still miss the sign indicating the access road to the cabins, which is almost invisible on approach.
We double back and roll onto the property. There’s a second sign insisting all vehicles stop in at the office, but since most of our friends have already arrived, I figure there’s no need. My confidence wanes, however, as the dirt road splits into a chook’s foot.
I take the left toe and reach a cabin with no familiar cars. I turn around and stop again at the junction, figuring I have a 50/50 chance now. I take the right toe, arriving at another cabin with no recognisable vehicles. I look to my left and see a familiar red Mazda in the distance.
With my patience frayed (and that office sign now mocking my intelligence), I take the Ford cross-country and pull up outside the correct cabin. The headlights illuminate a third sign, which asks us to keep our vehicles off the grass. Whoops.
Kellie and I drop our bags in our room and join everyone at a large dining table. Most of the girls are drinking wine, but the gents have opted for beer. As the night goes on and gets a little rowdier, we gravitate, ironically, towards our respective sexes again. It’s just as well there’s a lot of acreage between cabins – the ladies are inside wailing along to a karaoke game and we men drift outside where we listen to loud music and try to hit a telegraph pole with empty beer bottles. It seems like a terrific game at the time.
Males and females reconvene around midnight to stare up at the glittering stars, only a fraction of which can be seen in urban Sydney skies. The night begins to wind down with the knowledge we have to be up and presentable by ten o’clock, which is when our Aussie Wine Tours bus will arrive.
As so often happens, I am first out of bed. It’s a chilly morning and my breath smokes from my mouth as I step onto the verandah. In the paddock behind the Pokolbin Cabins’ property, half a dozen kangaroos crop at the dry grass. Their serene breakfast stands in stark contrast to the bottles littered around the power pole, which a few fellow ‘competitors’ and myself used as target practice. We later waste a good 20 minutes picking the missiles up.
Somehow we all meet our ten o’clock deadline and we’re assembled outside when our mini-bus pulls up. Our driver is Gail, an easygoing, laconic woman who typifies the locals around this region. We tumble into the bus and set off.
Our first stop is Ivanhoe Winery, and it proves the best of the day. Our host cracks jokes and chuckles along with our silly comments while providing samples of some sumptuous wines. (Drinking wine the previous night does not appear to have affected the girls’ thirsts.) Kellie and I buy a $50 three-pack special, which contains our favourites – chambourcin and shiraz for me, gewurztraminer for her.
As we get back in the mini-bus, it’s clear why chauffeured tours do such a roaring trade in wine country: unless you’re a spitter, you wouldn’t want to get behind the wheel after even one round of tasting.
Our next port of call is Tulloch’s, which has a more corporate feel than the boutique wineries that make up much of the day’s itinerary. The guy who takes us through the range of red, white and sparkling wines is dressed in business-like attire and only looks a few years above legal drinking age. The bottles he brings out are wrapped in brown paper bags and he challenges us to identify each wine by colour, taste and smell alone. To our surprise, we’re often close to the mark.
We stop at another couple of boutique cellars (including the superb Cooper Wines, where Kellie and I are so impressed we buy two more bottles) and then it’s time for lunch at Adina Vineyard. As we wait for our food, a smiling man named John discusses the local produce, pours us a selection of wines and answers our sometimes off-topic questions. Perhaps it’s a peculiarity of my nose, but one white wine has a vomit bouquet. Emboldened by the alcohol in my veins, I mention this to John. If he’s rattled he doesn’t show it, instead just grinning at my impudence. I ‘bravely’ sip the wine and find it tastes quite good. Nothing like it smells, anyway.
After a delicious lunch we take to the road again. The previous night’s festivity has begun to catch up with us, though. Full stomachs and warm afternoon sunshine turn our eyelids leaden. We haul ourselves out of the bus at the next destination and soldier forth.
Sandalyn Estate is a charming winery, with its church-like architecture, vaguely Mexican décor and a friendly golden retriever (who is happy to be fawned over by the many dog lovers in our troupe). The owners are also polite and confident in the wines they provide, but I come up against something I’ve never experienced before: palate fatigue. I can still detect the fruits in the lighter whites and the oak in the chardonnay, but the tastes are starting to run together and I turn down an offer of reds. I’m all wined out, it seems.
Perhaps palate fatigue is common, as two of our final three stops are not for wine at all. We go to the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company, where you can watch the chocolate being prepared. It’s not entirely different to what you see in TV ads. While there, we help perpetuate some stereotypes: the men wander around briefly before returning to wait by the bus; the women buy up half the shop in a sugar-crazed frenzy.
Our final destination is the well-known cluster of stores in the heart of Pokolbin, which includes the Smelly Cheese Shop. An overly truthful name has not harmed the shop’s patronage; it seems every tourist in the Valley has converged here. Kellie and I forgo the cheese but we do take the opportunity to get some delicious gelato – Ferrero Rocher and Italian choc chip for her, horny caramel (yes, really) for me.
At about four o’clock, Gail returns her weary tourists to their cabin. We bid her farewell and shamble inside. Sleep is foremost in many minds, but there is, as they say, no rest for the wicked. It is Jo’s birthday and we’ve arranged a Hawaiian-themed night in her honour. Inflatable palm trees, loud shirts and hula skirts make an interesting contrast to the rustic log walls and cast iron fireplace. They help us recapture our party spirit, and when the Domino’s Pizza man arrives with dinner, Darren pays him while wearing a lei on his head and a coconut bra across his chest. But the driver is a good sport – he even agrees to pose for a ‘funny’ photo.
When Sunday morning dawns, it seems unreal, impossible. The weekend has gone by in a high-speed blur. Once again I’m up first. I sip at a plastic cup of Diet Coke and go out the back in search of wildlife, but the animals are smarter than me – it’s a grey day and they’re all sleeping in.
The cabin’s other inhabitants rise slowly, reluctantly, not wanting to face the reality that our sojourn is almost at an end. We cook up a feast of fried, syrupy foods and sit around the table, just as we did on the Friday night. It’s a delicious if somewhat more subdued occasion.
At around eleven o’clock most set off for the F3, but Kellie and I, along with another couple, Andrew and Marisa, decide to take the scenic route back to Sydney. And scenic it most definitely is, with well-fed cows adding black, white and roan splotches to the undulating green and yellow hills. Quirky farm buildings pop up here and there, like hermits, as does the occasional historic site and lookout. (The road, however, leaves much to be desired – in some sections it appears to consist of nothing but patched potholes.) Sadly, we don’t have time to indulge our curiosity. Kellie and I do have a nostalgic moment, though, when we pass Cedar Creek Lodge – the gorgeous little homestead where a decade earlier we spent one of our first holidays together.
We make one last stop: Wollombi Tavern, home of Dr Jurd’s famous Jungle Juice. Andrew’s father raved about this particular concoction of port and brandy, so Andrew has decided to buy him some. The last time Kellie and I were here it was mid-week and the pub was almost deserted. Today, however, a group of motorcycle enthusiasts has descended on Wollombi and the street looks like a showroom. We duck into the hotel, try a small sample of Jungle Juice (which tastes far better than I remember), and emerge with two bottles for Andrew’s dad.
We’re not back on the road long before I get stuck behind some pelican doing 70km/h in a 100km/h zone. By the time I can overtake there are more vehicles fore and aft, the roar of the F3 and northern Sydney imminent.
But issuing from the boot is the tinkle of wine bottles… and tinkling in our minds are the memories of a carefree weekend away in some of the most wonderful countryside NSW has to offer.
Open Road e-zine August 2008
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