Cakelaw's Travel Tales

Another lovely spot that I visited on my travels through New South Wales was the Hunter Valley, famed for its wineries.  I chose to do an overnight tour of the Hunter Valley with AEA Luxury Tours.  This gave me an opportunity to explore some of the Hunter Valley beyond the cellar doors. The driver on day 1 was brilliant.  I think his name was John, but I can't remember for sure.  John is a Sydney-sider born and bred, and gave us a running commentary about various places in Sydney and beyond that we passed through on route to our first destination, Mount View Estate Winery . The view at the top of this post is over the vineyards surrounding Mount View Estate.  At Mount View, we enjoyed our first wine tasting of the day.  I was so impressed with Mount View's wines that I bought three bottles - a liqueur Shiraz, a Cerise (sparkling red) and a Fuschia (rose). Our next stop was for a wine and cheese tasting, lunch and a winery tour at Leogate Estate .   I confess to

The next stop on my travels through New South Wales late last year was the South Coast and the Southern Highlands.  These areas are best explored by car, so I booked on a private tour conducted by Korhan of Daily Sydney Tours . Korhan allows you to tailor your tour so that if there is anything outside the standard itinerary that you really want to see and it can feasibly be done in one day, Korhan will take you there.  I was keen to spend some time in a couple of the towns in the Southern  Highlands, so Korhan very obligingly added this in.  In turn, I skipped the Buddhist temple and the wine tasting, which I was not particularly interested in.  The first stop on our tour was Wattamolla Beach in the Royal National Park: It is a very pretty spot, where we met a number of water dragons sunning themselves on the rocks. They were not so keen to make our acquaintance and quickly scarpered when we approached. Here are some more views of the cliffs and ocean from the Royal Nati