Newcastle
Newcastle is situated on the coast 2 hours train ride north of Sydney. Newcastle is New South Wales’s second largest city and has one of the biggest university’s in the country with over 25,000 students living there. It also has the largest coal export harbour in the world. To extend our time in Australia and as a base for the Hunter Valley we stayed with a family with 2 young children for 2 weeks via the workaway.org website. We had agreed to work around 4 hours a day refurbishing their house and other properties let out for students, in exchange for free food and accommodation. Our bedroom was in the attic with an ensuite bathroom so we had the whole top floor to ourselves. Most of the work involved painting the outside of student accommodation, carpentry work (Jack) and helping with odd jobs in their house.
The family generously let us have lots of days off to explore the area and lent us bikes to use for our day trips. One morning we rode into the city centre along the foreshore on Honeysuckle Wharf lined with upmarket restaurants and along the coastal paths out to the lighthouse at Nobby’s beach. To cool down we went for a swim in Bogey Hole south of Newcastle beach. Bogey hole is Australia’s oldest ocean bath and was built by old convicts. Tash was a little scared of the huge waves that came over filling the baths but it was a very refreshing swim before continuing the bike ride.
A couple of times we went out in the evening for cheap cocktails and food on Darby street. This is a long street filled with restaurants and bars either side offering lots of different cuisines. Another day trip was a steep 6km bike ride to the Blackbutt Nature Reserve. The reserve is set within 182 hectares of forestland with trail walks and picnic areas that has free entry to see the wildlife. It’s home to a variety of Australia’s native animals such as kangaroos, emus and wallabies. There were also some inquisitive colourful birds flying around the reserve that would try to sit on your shoulders. At 2pm everyday you can pay $5 to stroke and have photos taken with a Koala. Our Koala was very cute and happily posed for the camera. We wanted to hold her but found out its illegal to hold Koala’s in this part of the country.
One Saturday we made the short trip by train to Gosford to see Jacks Uncle, cousins and family. We had a big BBQ on their terrace and were given a quick tour of the area including the popular Terrigal beach. Unfortunately as the wine and conversation were flowing we forgot to take photos. Next time!
The Hunter Valley
The highlight of our stay was a day’s wine tour in the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley is Australia’s oldest wine growing region and a popular getaway for wealthier Sydney-siders, where accommodation prices shoot up at the weekend. We booked onto a tour with Tex Tours run by a quirky young Aussie guy who has built up good relationships with the staff at the different wineries. Over the course of 6 hours we were taken to 4 vineyards for lots of wine tasting, 2 cheese tasting venues and 1 chocolate tasting shop.
The vineyard we went to were Constable, The Peppertree, Mcguigans and another one we couldn’t remember by the forth round! At each place we were given a sheet with all the wines we were tasting, a glass, water jugs and tipping bowls. We must have sampled around 10-15 different wines at each place starting with sparkling wine, then white, red and ending with desert wine or sometimes port. We were really surprised at how nice the sweet desert wines were and it wasn’t surprising that these bottles were the most popular and sell out every year. Our favourite wines of the day was the Peppertree Red Shiraz and the Sticky Pig desert wine, yes we are wine connoisseurs now.
We were lucky because the two weeks before it had rained almost continuously turning the brown and yellow landscape into a lush green rolling countryside. The fact that there was a drought over the summer months put more stress on the fruits giving it a much richer and flavoursome taste. The vineyard owners were very happy with their vintage this year (technical term) and will mean the next batch of wine production will be far superior and probably more expensive to buy. Overall it was a very indulgent and educational day, we definitely recommend it if you’re ever in New South Wales.
Next up is Orange to see all the rest of the family and live the suburban lifestyle for a week.
Tash and Jack
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Tash and Jack Travels 
All very impressive. You wait for weeks for a Jack and Tash blog then four come along at once. This has been a very interesting insight into Australia. The wine growing areas look very impressive, as well as the lovely beaches.
Glad you did not over do it on the sweet sherry!
I can taste the wine from here! Great scenery and also a chance to chill out and catch up with family. Love the parrot and chicken pics – also the stained glass doorway. xx