We spent Satuday evening ejoying a tour of the micro-brewery and sampling the various brews made on site (I'm not a beer fam, but did enjoy the ginger and cherry ones, Brian loved the Christmas brew that tasted a lot like pudding!). Afterwards we celebrated Australia Day with a bit of a session and some kareoke. Even my 'criminal' singing talents were shared with the crowd when the girls insisted we all belt out Westlife's Flying Without Wings (there is no video evidence of this historic occasion, thank God!). We partied into the early hours, so everyone was a little worse for wear the next morning...
As the Hunter is a well known wine region, we booked ourselves on to a tour of the local vineyards for the Sunday afternoon (giving us a few hours to recover from our antics the night before). Unfortunately for us, the weather was utterly horrible, with the tail end of a storm battering us with rain and high winds for almost the entire weekend. At one point we left our resort room for breakfast and saw a family of ducks sheltering under a near-by verandah!
Needless to say, after a few wine samples we were barely even noticing the rain, and headed off from vineyard to vineyard dead set on tasting every available wine and cheese type that was on offer! We visited Ballabourneen winery, Constables Estate vineyard, and the Hunter Valley Cheese Company at McGuigan's estate where the girls eagerly bought up half the shops supply of brie and breadsticks. Our next stop was Harrigans Irish Pub for some food and a few drinks before we headed back to the Brewery to relax and watch the Australian Open finals.
The next day we trekked back to Sydney in the torrential rain, a drive that usually takes 2.5-3hrs took an epic 5hrs, torture for the extremely hungover passengers! Despite the weather and the over-consumption of wine and cheese, we all had a great time, we even picked up a few bottles of Chambourcin and Shiraz as souvenirs!
