A Weekend Most Wonderful

Tuesday 22 May 2012 - Wow, time really does fly. I didn't realise it had been so long since I updated this page, apologies to those who hold their breath in anticipation of the next fascinating read! Yep, sarcasm works for me.

Last week was fairly busy work-wise, yoga Monday night, catching up on current Game of Thrones episodes on the other nights and football Friday night. A good weekend will often begin with Wests winning the league and Collingwood winning the AFL. This happened last Friday night, with Wests beating the Auckland Warriors and Collingwood beating... GEELONG! Extra good news, especially since Geelong flogged them in the Grand Final last year. Ah, sweet revenge.

On Saturday, I flew with my friends Debbie and Kylie, to Sydney with the fantastic Virgin Australia (sarcasm again - they had cancelled our morning flight to Newcastle, but they changed us to the Sydney flight, meaning we had to drive about 3 hours to Newcastle...) In Sydney we picked up a maroon Nissan Tiida, met up with Kylie's friend Wendy, and made our way to the Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley.

Once we checked into our 3 bedroom apartment, we headed straight to the wineries - Tamburlaine was where I bought a very nice verdehlo, before we then went to Audrey Wilkinson's (Trivia - Audrey was a man with a girl's name). This is where we met Kim from Sydney, another friend of Kylie. Audrey's wines were not "to my liking", but the building and views from there were lovely - here is an example:

Gundog Estate is one of my favourites - lovely people working there, and a really comfy setting for tastings. At New Years, I bought a rose (wine not the flower) from there, and this time I believe I got a "wild semillon" and a "Hunter shiraz". These are being flown to Brissy, along with 4 of Debbie's bottles. Trivia - the "gundog" at this property is named Karl Marx - heh. The winemaker's name is Matt Burton - he was serving our wine and chatting to us, a very friendly fellow - another Trivia Alert - his parents used to own Wandin Estate which was named after Wandin Valley, the town from A Country Practice, of which they were the producers! I find degrees of separation from famous or celebrity people a bit exciting anyway. [Ahem, an example - see previous post on my Nathan Buckley encounter!!] Okay, Gundog Estate winetasting photo:

Blurry pic by Matt the winemaker, not Matt the photographer

Soon after we got back to the Crowne Plaza, the rest of the group arrived from Sydney - Lenore, my friend and ex-team leader from Infinity Holidays, her friend and colleague, Natalie; also Sandra, our ex-Brissy and now Hobart-dwelling friend, and their friend Adam. They had another apartment next door to ours. Nine funsters in total. The clan from next door went to The Brewery (?) a nearby pub, for dinner, while we had yummy Thai chicken curry, thanks to our Cessnock Coles stockup in the afternoon, and also thanks to Kim & Kylie our chefs... no photos of dinner though.

Sunday morning dawned, clear, blue skies and crisp - perfect for a day in the vineyards. Boarding our bus, we got our lovely purple wristband and headed past the Allendale Winery to Tatler Wines. We got there around 10:45am, a teeny bit early for me to start drinking full glasses, so I used my "tasting token" to try some semillon frizzante - a nice beginning - and then a slurp of sauv blanc, while sitting in the sun, overlooking the vines and listening to a band playing easy-like-Sunday-morning musak.

After about 45 minutes at Tatler, we hopped on the bus and went to Gartelmann Hunter Estate, where most of us had an early lunch, using our first "meal token". I had pretty good barramundi and rice and green leafy stuff, and Lenny, Nat & I bought a very nice Gartelmann Rose (imagine the accent over the 'e' there, as I have no idea how to type it in) to drink with lunch. Here we all are:

We then stopped at Emma's Cottage Vineyard, but only stayed about 20 minutes due to our not liking the wines and it also started raining while we were there. It was a very cute cottage on a small property next to a cemetery (added atmosphere?), but it soon became time to move on.

Next was Sandalyn Wilderness Estate. I think this is my favourite Hunter winery - when I went there at New Year, the people were lovely, they had good wines, yummy oils and vinegars, and a gorgeous old golden labrador that shuffles around letting people pat him/her - a really welcoming atmosphere. This day was just fantastic. No sign of the dog, but - they had a band called Phonic, playing under a big tent, and Len, Nat & I consumed quite a few bottles of Sandalyn Verdelho between us. I had my 2nd main (we had 2 meal vouchers, not to be wasted!) which was a lamb shank and yummy mashed potato, and then used my dessert voucher on some kind of whisky-chocolate brownie with cream, which was pretty delicious. Dancing ensued (check the sexy suit on Borat in the background):

After about an hour, 4 of the group moved on to Wandin Estate, but I saw no need to go elsewhere when the going was so good at Sandalyn. Deb, Wendy, Lenore, Nat & I danced up a storm to some really good music (it seemed that way at the time anyway!) Here are the girls teaching English girl Nat how to dance properly to some random AC/DC song:

I had such a fantastic day, and weekend. Meeting great new people, catching up with great friends, all of us having fun and without a care in the world for a day or 2. On Monday it was a slightly less carefree story, feeling a bit sore & sorry, but it was so worth it for the time I had with these wonderful people in a wonderful part of Australia.

Around the grounds:

Monday morning serenity - Hope Estate

Grateful for good times!