Road Trip to Sydney--Windella to Sydney.

Thursday 19 March.

Our friends Margaret and Peter took us to The Hunter Gardens. It was seniors week so we got an extra concession and a buggy to take us around. It is an amazing place. There are all different kinds of gardens from all over the world. Too many to put on this post. It has only been established for 5 years. The gardens are a privately owned by the Roche family, which owns a huge vineyard, accommodation, restaurants and many other properties in NSW. These plants are from Cairns in the tropical north of Aust. They also brought tonnes of soil from Cairns for them. One section of the garden is for children and it depicts many nursery rhyme and story characters. This is Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Hatters tea party.

This is part of the Chinese garden. There was a Grandma's Rose Garden made for grandma Roche by her husband for a surprise. There is a statue of her and her 9 grandchildren. There were also hundreds of different kinds of roses. It was lovely even in Autumn. Spring must be absolutely beautiful. As it was seniors week we got free tea and scones followed by a cooking demonstration in the gardens too. He was an Irish chef showing us how to cook an Asian dish.....

Prawns on couscous with orange sauce. We all had a little taste.

After the gardens tour, Margaret and Peter took us to Wandin Valley Winery where there was a superb restaurant with fabulous food. Then we all rolled back to their house at Wandella for a nap. 

In the evening our friends took us to quaint little village of Morpeth with many old historic buildings, boutiques, craft shops and coffee shops overlooking the Hunter River. We all slept well that night.

Friday 20 March.

In the morning we helped with the chores. Bill had fun driving the ride on mower, he is bringing in the garbage bin from the top of the very long driveway. Then we filled buckets of water, put them in the trailer and helped water 100 trees that Margaret and Peter had just planted around their big property. It was fun for us city slickers.

Pete and Marg have a lovely place and back yard (with 100 new trees). We said our goodbyes and continued our drive to Sydney.

We crossed the pretty Hawkesbury River at speed, no stopping allowed on the Newcastle to Sydney Freeway.After 2 hours we arrive in bustling Sydney the largest city in Australia.

We went through the tunnel under the Sydney Harbour instead of over the famous coathanger bridge as it is quicker to get to our daughter's suburb of Bondi Beach.