Hunter Valley take 2!!

Our second visit to the Hunter and mum's first. With all of us packed into Betsy we headed off on the journey to the Hunter Valley, we went via the tourist route which is just a slightly nicer road through the country rather than the main highway. I'm sure we said it before and I'll say it again, the Hunter Valley roads are quite possibly the worst roads we have driven on so far!! No idea what it is doing to the suspension on poor old Betsy but we were bouncing down those roads for hours!

The place we had booked was on a quiet road and set in the most beautiful location. Each night we walked out along the dirt track to watch the sun set behind the mountains, it was truely beautiful and very peaceful. Also mum got to see her first live wild Kangeroo, there are loads of them that just sit around in the fields as the sun starts to set each evening.

Friday was a full day so we had plenty scheduled in. We started with the Olive factory where you can taste loads of different oils, pickles, marinades and chutneys etc, after we had got our fill and mum had bought some souvenirs we headed off to the Cheese Factory where they give a talk on how they make all the different cheeses. We tried a few and decided on a washed rind soft cheese which was absolutely delicious, they are all made on site and have no preservatives so the shelf life is only a few weeks but needless to say it didn't last that long as it was so nice. Although we had pretty much stuffed ourselves with all the freebies we still managed lunch of cheese and biscuits sat in the van whilst the wind blew around us and the temperature topped a massive 35 degrees!! Thank goodness for the wind otherwise it would have been unbearable. That afternoon we went to Tyralls Winery for a tour, very interesting and afterwards lots of lovely tastings which mum and Mark seemed to enjoy the most and I was somehow volunteered as designated driver.

We left the Hunter on Saturday to head back to Manly. On the way we stopped at the town of Woolombi where we found that the weekends 'entertainment' was a log chopping competition!! We stood and watched while about six men competed to see who could chop wood of varying sizes the quickest! Now that's entertainment right there folks.

Still buzzing from the excitement of the log competition we decided to hit the casino in Star City, Sydney. On the first pokie (fruit machine) I won $110 then another $60 however the money doesn't come out in change it prints out a little slip that you have to go and cash so whilst going to cash in my winnings, my own mother decides to jump on my machine and I come back to find she has won $160!!! Still, I wasn't bitter as I went on to win another
$177, not bad for an initial stake of only $20!!