Before we started out, John spotted a commotion in the garden, birds were mobbing something, so he grabbed his camera and went to find out what was going on. A very large lizard was being pursued by a magpie and other birds. Once it realised that it was also being stalked by a human, it started to climb a tree. We believe that this is a lace monitor or tree goanna. He was about four feet long, two feet of which was tail. We certainly wouldn't want to trip over him on a dark night.
The magpie wasn't at all pleased to see him.
We set out to look around first and then do the wine tasting afterwards. We did a circuit which took us through woods, agricultural land with grazing cattle and vineyards, many of which were planted with young vines.
Wollombi, an 'historical town' was included on the circuit, so we decided to stop there. It is on the Great North Road built by convicts in the mid nineteenth century. 'Historic' was correct, but 'town' was something of an exaggeration. It certainly was interesting and set in lovely countryside.
We encountered this person sitting on a bench,
there was a wonderful general store,
a wool shop
as well as some lovely period houses.
We walked down to the river
and this is where we had lunch
We drove on round the circuit and the stopped at an old vineyard, Oakvale, which started up in 1893. We sampled a few wines, made our purchases and then made our way back home for a swim before sitting out on our terrace with a bottle.
Today, we completed our drive to Sydney, calling to see John's first cousin Nola and Graham who kindly gave us a lovely lunch.
We are now in an Ibis hotel close to Sydney airport. Tomorrow we will fly to Lord Howe Island, 500 miles off the coast towards New Zealand. It is small island with a maximum of 400 tourists at any time. There is no mobile phone coverage there and we do not expect to have internet access while we are there. We return to mainland Australia on Sunday 30th when the blog will continue and catch up with our stay there.
Pat and John on tour