About Cessnock
If the world was ruled by common sense and imagination, Cessnock would be the emotional and economic heart of the great Hunter Valley wine area. It would be a classy city full of chic cafes and restaurants; boutique accommodation and specialist providores catering for the clientele of the 150 vineyards in the district. Instead it is a coal mining town struggling to find a new identity. It is a place of cheap cafes, op shops, bargain basement stores which make it a deeply working class residential area with shops and buildings which recall a time when “coal was king”. The town started as a service centre for travellers and the district’s farmers. Its real development as a city occurred when the area became a major mining centre at the end of the 19th century. (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
We arrived in Cessnock NSW and checked into Ingenia Holidays Hunter Valley Caravan Park along with 19 other Bailey Caravans and it looked truly amazing with Bailey’s of all types just about filling the place up.
First item on the agenda was to set-up our site ASAP then onto the 1st meet and greet happy hour. It was so exciting to catch up with old Bailey mates and then also meet new comers. There’s something very special about the Bailey Family; everyone is always so happy to meet up and have a chat.
1st Happy Hour
Hunter Valley Wine Tour
The first day saw the group pile onto a couple of buses to do a “wine tour” around the Cessnock area of the Hunter Valley. We visited 3 different wineries.
#1 Tamburlaine Organic Winery
Tamburlaine Organic Winery was a great start to the tour (maplink). They claim that it is Australia’s largest independent organic wine producer. With over 300 hectares of organically farmed vineyards in the Hunter Valley and Orange wine region.
We were ushered into a special “tasting room” where our wine guide, Jan, took us through the history of the winery and explained the varieties of wines we were tasting in such an easily understood way, I actually learnt a fair bit. I think the whole group totally enjoyed the session; an indication being the number of bottles purchased at the end.
1st winery
#2 Drayton’s Family Winery
We were dropped off at the Draytons Family winery to discover that we were actually at the wrong Dayton’s, which after a few laughs we piled back onto the bus and headed toward the correct one (maplink) – it was quite comical as we had passed the “right one” on the way to the “wrong one”.
This was our lunch stop, which was then followed by a tasting ran by an interesting and very funny man by the name of Daniel. He had us all in stitches with some of his commentary; especially the story about the “blue wine” as he told us it’s made from special Bulgarian grapes which grow underground. He later told us the truth – they actually put blue food dye in the wine to give it the blue colour LOL.
#3 Sobels Winery
Our last stop was at Sobels Winery (maplink) and there were so many of us they spread around the place; some inside and some outside. This approach made me feel a lot less personal and I think this was also indicated by the small amount of bottles purchased by the group.
All-in- all it was a truly fantastic day and many thanks must go to Jennefer who organised the whole thing.
Crash and down goes Alex!
The group booked into the Thai Restaurant, next door to the caravan park, for a group dinner on our 3rd night. After a superb dinner we wandered back to our caravans with the idea of regrouping at the “fire pit” for a few quiet ports. So over I trot and “over” I went, tripping on the small curb in the dark and face planting the concrete. The result being a really sore left wrist, multiple abrasions to the face and a black eye.
A trip to the Cessnock Hospital & x-rays revealed the wrist had a broken bone and torn ligaments. This resulted in a plaster “back slab” being fitted and advice to visit the Armidale hospital in two weeks time for a re-assessment. This was definitely not the way I wanted to start our trip! Merrisa was also now faced with the task of towing our caravan, doing the toilet cassette “run” and our Bailey mates assisting in the set-up and pack-up of our caravan.
