The Hunter

We took a short 3-hour drive to beautiful Hunter Valley wine region, or "The Hunter" as some affectionately call it, this past weekend. It was a lot larger than I thought it would be and A LOT hotter. We got there around noon on Saturday, headed straight to lunch at Oishii, a Thai/Japanese place, and then went next door to a winery in the same building (easiest thing since we brought our pram for Avery to sleep in as we tasted). In Oz, it's pretty common to bring your baby with you wine tasting, out to a nice dinner, or wherever you want. There were 3 other small babies just in our B&B alone.

So it didn't start out that hot when we got there. It was comfortably hot, but by the time we left the first winery, it was sweltering (98 at the hottest according to the iPhone). Avery was sweating and not happy but dealing with it as we all were. The mozzies (mosquitos) were brutal too. From there we checked into the cutest B&B, Willow Tree Estate, relaxed for a bit, and then headed out to Tintilla Winery and finally a very early dinner at Restaurant Botanica. While we loved the restaurant, it took a bad turn when Avery would not go to sleep. We blame the heat, but needless to say, we didn't stay for dessert and Avery was a few hours late to bed. This late sleep plus heat caused many wakings throughout the night and a cranky baby for our only whole day in wine country (another hot day). But we did manage to enjoy our trip, and just rearranged some things like dinner for the next night and today, our last day, was much more pleasant. Nice and cool and not crowded at the wineries. Dolly Parton happened to be in town performing so we got lucky that the crowds didn't affect us at all. I have to admit I was disappointed that we didn't see any cool animals in the bush or on the drive. There were lots of wombat and kangaroo signs but all we saw was a dead kangaroo by the side of the road:-( Here are a few photos.