Views, booze and ‘roos
From Heading North in Hunter Valley, Australia on Nov 26 '06
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We’ve just spent two glorious days in the beautiful Hunter Valley, two hours North of Sydney and Australia’s premier wine growing region. We loved it. The area has become a mecca not just for wine buffs (like us…not) but as a retreat for anyone who wants to escape their day-to-day lives in the city for a night or two of fine dining, fantastic countryside…. and of course bloody ace grog too….oh and a choice of extreme sports, but enough of that later.
We decided to push the boat out (yet again!) and stayed at the renowned Peppers Convent, an old refurbished nunnery set in pretty grounds near Cessnock. This place has something of a reputation both as a wonderfully well appointed and unusual place to stay but also for its award-winning restaurant, Roberts. We’d booked a two night package that included breakfast and dinner but also came with a bottle of Tattinger on arrival as well as pre-dinner drinks and canapés each evening. Needless to say, the word diet was not mentioned during the whole course of our stay! All I’ll say here is that every aspect of the place lived up to its well deserved reputation and the staff were just delightful too – so personable and friendly and without a hint of pretention. Our time was spent touring a small number of local wineries, sightseeing (ie, looking for kangaroos) and generally enjoying the feel of the region – it’s not somewhere that lends itself to dashing about the place. Best to take it easy, we decided.
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On Tuesday morning we were extremely brave and had booked a hot air balloon ride at dawn. This involved setting the alarm for 4am to ring for flight confirmation and then being at Cessnock airport by 4.45am to meet the pilot (Darren, originally from Chelmsford who came to Oz backpacking in 1995 and never left – typical Aussie then) and our six fellow passengers. There was a young Japanese couple on holiday and a family of four from Caves Beach a few miles North – Mum (scared of heights, knew nothing about the surprise and was celebrating her 40th), Dad (ex Policeman) and two young daughters aged c13 and 8 (what they don’t know about surfing isn’t worth knowing). There was to be another couple but they had cancelled the previous night saying that one of them was in therapy and wouldn’t be able to cope …
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Everyone mucked in with various chores to get the thing inflated and then, all of a sudden, it was time to hop athletically in to the basket (not easy!) and ascend in to the blue yonder. Given the fact that it had been cloudy the day before and there were thunder storms predicted for later on, we were very lucky with the slight breeze (tripping along quite happily at anything between 2 and 4 knots), almost cloudless sky and amazing views of the whole wine growing region. Indeed, we were also treated to the site of several mobs (collective noun) of wild kangaroos bouncing around various paddocks (Aussie word for fields – see we’re learning).
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All too soon after an hour or so it was time to return to earth and this we did with amazing delicacy in a paddock belonging to one of the wineries and full of kangaroos, almost on top of two unsuspecting – and it has to be said, really very stupid ones - who sat looking up at our imminent arrival, but hadn’t thought to move. Kangaroos really are very stupid.
Once we had deflated the balloon and put everything away (amazingly hard work actually), we drove back to the airfield and had a champagne breakfast…and it was still only 8am! That meant that we were still early enough to catch the end of the breakfast back at Peppers too. Result!
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After our second breakfast (followed by a little tour of some more wineries) we decided to take the rest of the day easy and lounged by the pool in the grounds. I say lounged. It was more like jumping every time anything made a noise from the neighbouring bushes. You can’t be too careful after all - could be snakes, wombats, veloceraptors, anything.
Anyway, good job we moved back to the room when we did, as about 20 minutes later, the heavens turned black, the wind got up, a smell of burning and thick smoke pervaded the air (from the bush fires over 100kms away would you believe) and we were treated to a brief but fantastic storm that immediately put all the electricity in the road out. It was actually quite a scary experience.
What followed was one of those bizarre Twilight Zone experiences – we went downstairs in the dark and there in reception was the young lad manning the desk talking to an attractive young lady dressed in nothing but white feathers. Whilst I giggled and tripped over things like a 16 year old, Jackie ascertained that she had been in the middle of a photo shoot for an ad campaign in the grounds and had had to run for shelter as the dress was only borrowed and was worth $5,000. Righto. Best bit was that night in the restaurant when she greeted us like old friends – the temptation to say that I didn’t recognise her with the lights on and fully clothed was almost overwhelming…
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We left the Hunter Valley mid morning on Wednesday to continue our trip towards Brisbane and stayed that night at Telegraph Point just North of Port Macquarie, for anyone with an atlas. We weren’t sure what to expect from our accommodation, just somewhere to put our heads down but, as has happened so often on our travels, we were knocked sideways by the quality of what we found. The Telegraph Retreat is actually three timber cottages in the middle of natural bush land (the grounds of the owners’ house) and the couple that own it have made it their duty to equip each with every conceivable luxury and convenience possible. On arrival we were shown the main fridge and told to help ourselves to local wines and beer, which would be charged at cost. In the cottage itself the fridge was equally stocked with everything you could think of, including eggs from their own chickens and a tin of freshly made biscuits and jam made that morning.
In the morning we made our own breakfast – with home-made warm bread delivered by the owners to our door - and went for a stroll round the 8 acre surrounds only to find a mother kangaroo and her baby feeding outside our back door! Speechless…The place was magnificent and to be highly recommended. Take a look at www.telegraphretreat.com.au
If you’re more organised that we were, you can even choose a home-made meal to be delivered to your cottage, or join the owners for dinner in their dining room. Our only regret was that we hadn’t opted to stay here for a couple more nights, but had already booked to move on.
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On Thursday we arrived at Ballina, further up the coast still, where we had booked for three nights but took one look at the hotel – truly dreadful and we’ll do a review on tripadvisor – so changed it to one night, got some sleep (did the washing and Jackie did her nails!) and moved on this morning to Sanctuary Cove, just south of Brisbane, where we have just arrived. So far, so good…
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