On the Road again.
 Hunter Valley / Port Stephens / Newcastle. Geraldine packed more clothes onto Winnie for 4 days than Kev and I have for a year for our trip to Hunter Valley. (not true!...GC). We booked an all day wine tasting tour which also included cheese, chocolate and beer tasting. We were the only people on the tour, so we got a very personalised trip. We had a wonderful driver, Dennis, who was full of information and local gossip. He even took us to see the horses he breeds and refused a tip. We did think that if he can afford to breed racehorses he was probably better off than us. We had our first drink at 10am and tasted about 24 different wines through out the day from small boutique vineyards. We can confirm that Australia do keep the best wines for themselves, especially the Semillon and Shiraz. Geraldine survived sleeping in Winnie, and with us, and we moved on to Nelson Bay in Port Stephens which is a gorgeous harbour with lots of little bays and beaches and is famous for their friendly dolphins. The weather was good so we stayed for 4 nights. We went snorkelling and saw loads of fish including a catfish, a wobbegong shark and a dolphin! On Kev's birthday we went kayaking and saw a fairy penguin. We did an evening dinner cruise which had an excellent smorgasbord, including fresh local oysters, good entertainment and we saw dolphins swimming alongside the ship! Gel even managed to persuade the Captain to let her take over the helm. We also went to the pictures to see the 'best exotic marigold hotel' and think India could be the next place we visit after oz. On the way back to Sydney we stopped off in Newcastle to meet up with our cousin Kieran and his wife Karen, who we have never met before. So obviously we needed to catch up over food and a bottle of a Semillon Sauvignon Blanc. It was lovely to finally meet them. Now back to Sydney for Gel's last week before departing to Perth.
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