My Local Travels – Pokolbin Journey, Hunter Valley NSW – 21-27th May 2023
Last year I made a concerted effort to start booking some Australian travel sites via my Club Wyndham Resorts but forgot to follow on with more as most booking must be made almost 13months in advance. This is mainly due to Australians not travelling overseas as much & booking out just about every resort which is very problematic. I have the feeling some Wyndham owners are booking multiple sites and then picking only one for that time period.
Anyway, I’ve managed to travel to Sydney, Airlie Beach/ Whitsundays if you have read my travel blogs of late. Come May 2023, I managed to get a Club Wyndham Associate Resort (not a full-blown Wyndham Standard) that is like a partial leased arrangement called Wyndham Pokolbin. The site location is called Leisure Inn Pokolbin Hill where there are 64 units (32 duplexes) scattered through a typical Australian timberland. Most trees have been kept to give it that bush setting aesthetics. To start things off we must get the village name correct as the locals take real umbrage on any mispronunciation. Here goes … Po .. Cole .. bin. Easy .. Haha.
The journey by my trusted ute from my hometown of Yamba @ 8.30am start is mostly 550klms, 5hrs 45mins of dual lane motorway driving however I wanted to catch up with a slightly older cousin on my father’s side I hadn’t seen much of, let alone his wife. They live near Taree which is a fraction above halfway and some 25mins out of Taree, off the highway called Wingham. It took me 4hrs & 20mins to reach their home. They were happy to see me & before long I had spent 3.5 great hours catching up. He certainly liked the “Yamba Ale” cans I delivered from our cousin’s micro-brewery, Wobbly Chook Brewing Company at Yamba.
Back on the road at 4.30pm & with more fuel needed I reached Pokolbin at 7.10pm, in the dark. This is not a fun place to arrive in the dark. I was using the GPS on my phone but as “luck” had it, a car with insane bright lights came quickly up on me (I was at the correct speed) & I lost the vision indicating my turnoff. Arghh!!! There was no avenue for a ‘U’ turn so I had to travel some 2klms before another turnoff presented me. The GPS indicated it was doing a large circle back to my target so I kept driving along a narrow country road, watchful for kangaroos & the like. I was getting nearer to the resort’s entrance on a divided road when another car with high beam came up behind me & the status quo was achieved again. With no return available I found myself on the same long run-around as before (another lap). Some 15mins later I was back near the entrance again, so I pulled over & expanded the GPS vision. The entrance was on the other side of the divided road & it showed me a roundabout I could do a ‘U’ turn on. Yay!! I finally made it.
No after-hours reception so I had to use the site lock box for my unit key. With that being successful I now had to find my duplex unit down towards the lake. Everything is so dark. I parked my car & walked around along pathways, much like a robber until I found my unit being the furthest way. My strong advice is to get to the resort before dark.
Being a sole traveller in a studio suite it didn’t take me long to settle in, once I fixed the batteries in the remote of the air conditioner. It’s bloody cold tonight (about 4°C) & the setting too far from being comfortable. This trip is of no agenda like my Sydney & Airlie Beach stays. It is a location I hadn’t been around since the 1970’s and in the hinterland (no beach), little townships & in Winter a colder climate which massively promoted a growing winery industry. Some of these wineries are huge, state of the art in layout and seriously tourism focussed. I hadn’t seen wineries like this since I visited the famous Margaret River region South of Perth in Western Australia.
My plan, if it was known as that, was to see the local area, stay overnight at a ‘cousin’s’ home in Parkville some 90mins drive away North of the township of Scone (not pronounced sconn) mid-week & then on Friday hit the wineries. Arriving on a Sunday, there is little happening at wineries so it would be best to wait till the Friday when more places are open. Most wineries gear up for the Friday & weekend rush of venturers from Sydney & Newcastle, etc.
My ‘cousin’ was believed real growing up, but on a technical note, his mum & my mum were schoolfriends for life & we lovingly called her aunty & it all started from there. We did so much together until they relocated to Scone on a Quarter horse stud when we were all still in late Primary School.
The first few days I drove around, heavily using my GPS, for this region really challenges me in a geographical sense. My head compass seems to be failing badly. LOL! Close to my resort along Broke Rd, I found Hunter Valley Gardens which has a wide selection of amenities, boutique shopping village, golf course, restaurants, wedding chapel, playground, picnic areas & so much more. A great review showed Taste of Country as a wonderful café within the shopping circle. It certainly was a real taste of country. Blankets even for those that wanted to sit outside when it gets chilly. The photo shows a wall full of animal clocks from a local artist as just some of the wares on sale mounted in every possible spare space. For the golf course they had a unique driving range using the large lake adjacent to the clubhouse. They must use golf balls that float .. LOL!
After my cafe coffee pickup & viewing the grounds of the expansive Hunter Valley Gardens I ventured into the next major town, Cessnock some 10mins drive away and visited a café (twice now in 2 days) for food management). Arthur’s is a great café & well worth visiting twice. When in a region I always seek a lookout point to get my view of the land, so I used Google Maps & read the local lookouts and chose Lookout Point, SE of Cessnock and another 30klms away from the resort. The comments were positive, and a few stated a good 2wheel drive vehicle could conquer the gravel road and then there would be a short walk up. Well, I found the turnoff straight onto the gravel road and this quickly diminished to a vehicle track of sorts where I had to play it really safe. I was still confident as I have driven on worse tracks before.
Quite some klms into the track it was getting much worse and when I looked over the bonnet on a serious giant natural ‘speed hump,’ I was presented with a full width water puddle and lots of wet clay & serious deep tyre ruts. That’s it, driving terminated!! With previous track knowledge I always took note of turning areas and stable off-road areas when driving these tracks. Reversing is not fun, for the next available area to park/ turn around was about 50m back; but myself & my ute made it after a 4point turn. Being determined and still enough daylight I locked the ute and headed up the track. Reaching another large ‘lagoon’ over the road I took notice I had walked some 30mins from the ute and still there appeared to be a much higher track to take. With great reluctance and a strong will to manage myself effectively I returned back to my ute and rolled out to the bitumen road and headed back to my resort just in time for the darkness to set in. At least I had an adventure & adrenalin of sorts, so all is good. Can’t believe I didn’t take any photos.
Tuesday (2nd day) I headed due East towards New South Wales 2nd largest city, Newcastle on the coast to venture out again on another well scripted lookout called Mount Sugarloaf where several major communication towers are located. This was a far better access lookout and bitumen all the way & a reasonable carpark near the top. This lookout was first noticed by Ltn Cook on his voyage in discovering Australia’s east coast in 1770. His map notation was in naming it in reference to a hat (its shape from the sea) but it is now unknown why & when it was ever renamed Mount Sugarloaf.
Scaling up the steeper roadway (council vehicles only) & steps I noticed 3 young girls sitting out on a large boulder out into the landscape, obviously been there a while & chatting quietly not noticing us walkers behind them. Can you see them in the photo? I could smell the ‘weed’ in the air but obviously, not a concern to them in their world. Hope they were talking on where their lives were heading. Walking up the donated steel staircase constructed by apprentices a few decades ago, a faded plaque mounted on a large boulder stated it was erected to commemorate the first ever recorded snowfall on this lookout on 18th July 1969, so it does get even colder here & so close to the coast. Obviously, it has snowed here many times over the centuries but aboriginals had no record keeping in their dreamtime. On top of the lookout there is a well-made compass table showing nearby towns and compass points which was very handy & again proved my head compass was a very long way out. Adjacent to this small monument was a major survey datum point where all surveying for the greater Newcastle area is taken from.
My view from this lookout was the greater Newcastle area with the massive export terminal for coal, etc & with barge & container tankers entering the world’s largest coal port to the left side of the photo. This port also handles grain, wood chips and many other resources besides coal. A massive terminal. Central to the photo is the Newcastle CBD and to the right side, the suburbs for the general population & looking South in the direction of Sydney. Lucky, I brought my binoculars to bring everything into clarity. I passed these around to other lookers to their appreciation.
Some 10mins drive towards Newcastle I had another cousin living there, so I contacted her in case I could do a surprise visit. Unfortunately, she was fighting a good dose of the flu so a visit was definitely out to further protect her low immunity. Our phone call was a wonderful 42mins though. After this, I found myself back in Cessnock & ordering Chili Eggs from Arthur’s Cafe before heading back to my resort.
Wednesday was now the trip to Parkville, North of Scone to see my ‘cousin’ GW I spoke of earlier. The road trip was some 115klms, so not too far & I had the brief glimpses of 2 very large coal fired power stations I will discuss a bit later. Arriving at his small acreage property GW had hardly changed since we last saw each other, decades ago. It was just like a ‘yesterday.’ His wife, RW, arrived a little later from social tennis. Within seconds the communication opened to all things, almost at once with hardly a breath taken from either of us. LOL! So much catching up to do. I surprised them with some winery chocolates and a jar of yummy Beetroot Relish as they both don’t drink alcohol. The best chocolate winery is Hunter Valley Chocolate Company @ Twenty-3-Twenty Winery. They had everything from fudge, jams, relish, & nibblies that go with wine drinking. A must-see enterprise. Photos are discouraged inside the premises.
GW was keen to show me his land, 2 horses and where his mum lived in a little homestead house just up on the hill behind his house on another property allotment. Parkville is really an area of some 20 or so houses & land, so it’s quite tiny & really a dot on the map. GW spent a considerable time trying to explain me how he bought the land off owners and the local council and sorting out the allotments of his 10acres. His home he constructed actually sits directly onto the previously surveyed council street. Back then, the council was open to people owning street land if the adjoining neighbours agreed & suited the immediate area. At the rear of his property, you can still see where the original street alignment is still in view, albeit in rural grass and fence lines. Weird, hey?
When that education was finished, he drove me around to Middlebrook Rd, past the Colony Stud (now called Willow Park Stud) where the family managed a Quarter horse stud for more than 2 decades. I last saw this property in 1974. This stud had the first 4 quarter horses for breeding from the USA. Mescal was my favourite & he lived a long life (29yrs I believe). The long white ranch house was still impressive in the forefront of a mountain immediately behind it. Driving further along the road we came to Rossgold Lookout, 531m (1744ft). This was a great lookout showing the landscape far beyond.
In the far background looking South you can see the massive coal quarries that are spread over several square kilometres and creating a quarry haze to the skyscape. In this haze I could just make out the large coal fired power stations of Bayswater & Liddell. Due to the Federal Government’s current stupidity of reduced emissions, net zero crap, Liddell closed down some 10days ago & is now being totally demolished. This power icon provided some 23% of our base load electrical supply with nothing now provided for a satisfactory replacement. Pure insanity. The government is relying on the ridiculous & environmental bastardry renewables of wind/ solar to pick up this missing load. These renewables are contributing to just 12% productivity to the load required and is intermittent & not of base power capability, so don’t get me started on our government’s treasonous energy policy. I strongly urge for the sensible & practical nuclear energy if we are not using our abundant world’s best & cheapest coal & infrastructure. Federal & State Government treason. Simple.
In the landscape, GW roughly pointed out various large racehorse studs, some we get to drive past. You could smell the dollars involved. Scone is the horse capital of NSW and some very expensive horses reside here and are breeders. It is also a sheep & dairy capital too. It was a shame to see the landscape so dry & so quick from all the recent rains this year. After the drive, we ventured out to the local clubhouse in Scone for dinner to take the load off RW & the fuss of my visit.
For Thursday, GW & I drove out across the Hunter River through a little village of Aberdeen, past the very famous Godolphin, Newgate & Arrowfield Horse Studs to Glenbawn Dam. It holds water some 23klms upstream from its dam head of what appears to be around 40m or so high concrete wall. I always get nervous when you drive in front of the dam wall, trusting it is still structurally sound & not leaking. I did this to a more stressful experience on a motorbike in the ‘jungle’ of West Vietnam scaling down to cross a creek & muddy terrain, then up the other side. Vietnam do not allow anyone to travel across on any dam wall. Glenbawn Dam provides lots of sailing and motor boat/ skiing, etc activities. This dam created Lake Glenbawn resource is so critical to the whole region & even provides the water for the Bayswater Power Station as well. Liddell was fed by a self-filling natural water source forming a lake adjacent to the power station so that was a massive blessing, particularly in times of drought. Later on, we drove along the New England Hwy to the North through the township of Wingen & turned right soon after to view Burning Mtn.
This Burning Mtn is quite a phenomenon. It was discovered in 1828 & interpreted as a volcano. From the parking area it is a casual track walk through the bush for some 12mins. Research over the years, showed it was a slow burning of a coal seam most likely from a lightning strike some 6,000yrs ago near the Pages River, about 6klms further North. The burning creeps along underground about 1mtre per year heading South. The heat line served the warmth of Eastern Grey kangaroos & local Aborigines over the centuries. Even the good population of Wedged-Tailed Eagles use the thermal air currents for their prey surveillance. We managed to find many thermal openings where you could definitely feel the heat generated. This current area has the burning seam some 30m below. At times when the cold air meets the crack openings it can generate a blast furnace effect creating some temps up to 1700C. This effect can split rock formations through explosions as per one of the photos. Deep turrets are created and the landscape is killed off on trees & vegetation until the burning moves sufficiently along its course. The burning creates a strong Sulphur smell & sinter cooling gases creating a solid white ‘rock’ on the surface. This is quite an amazing attraction. The cold seam at times is quite some kilometres below the surface so it is not economically viable to cut off the burning section and mine the rest of the coal. Too much overburden to add to the expense as well. This park area accommodates, picnics, camping and school excursions & worth the visit & dodging the stupid barrier Parks Management put in place.
With some daylight available, GW took me the back way along Middlebrook Rd, past Cressfield Rd intersection, travelling North to a National Park Area called Washpool Picnic & Camping Area. Adjacent to this is the Towarri National Park.
This Washpool area is quite unique and wonderful to witness. It is a beautiful well-kept area & a very nice picnic & camping area. Walking past the camping grounds along the road to enter the meandering creek of the Washpools, GW was keen to show me another natural phenomenon. Many years ago, the sheep farmers would herd their flock to this area and wash dip the sheep prior to shearing. This creek has a natural stone carving of a channel which forms a long tub, capturing the sheep to swim to the end and be gathered & eventually herded to the shearing sheds further away with much cleaner wool to shear.
The water today is beyond crystal clear. I’ve never seen water so clear. You could see rocks & gravel on the creek bed with no trouble at all. GW stated the water flow was much deeper in previous years, & also after rainfall. At some point in time someone has put in small rock weirs so not sure exactly what for. My photos unfortunately do not show how marvellous this part of water nature is. To walk further up the stream, we would be walking onto private property so we returned back to the vehicle for home. Once home I was able to show GW some of my pics of travelling & a few of my 60 or so travel blogs on my website https://bhlifestyles.travel.blog .. just keep scrolling to find them all.
With daylight fast running out I reluctantly had to say good-bye to G&RW & head back to Pokolbin, arriving well into the night, but I was never negative about that. It was such a great 2 days & night.
Friday, waiting for the 11am start for most wineries to open & before the cold windy rain started, I headed off to Peppers Creek Winery first, for a great coffee at the onsite Enzo Café and an adjacent winery store, Charteris Wines, meeting another retiree behind the counter showing me some great wines I had to buy for some friends. The other shops there were showing some quite expensive wares, including Alpaca millinery, etc. I was advised to venture to Brokenwood Winery for some Tawny port which there is very little of in this Shiraz region. A lot of wineries have specialty shops associated in their locations, so it surely gives a viewer more to see.
Brokenwood Winery was just up the road & when the doors opened, I was very impressed with the appearance of its amenities & fit out. After scouring all the display cases and the like I finally found the Tawny at one of the bottom shelves along with a Cricket Pitch wine (Cav Sav, Semillon, Merlot) for a great price. This is a very impressive winery and some of their wines were insanely expensive collectable items in display cases. Some bottles were up to 1.5litres, hence the added price tag & several OMGs! They have a great corporate function area with private sampling rooms and within their cask warehouse they were setting up for their next wine range launch (Graveyard) the next day, which has to be super impressive as well with my vision of what they are putting together.
After my wine purchase I had to make a run for the car as the rain was getting very heavy. So glad to get back to the resort to dry out & get the heated air-con going. For dinner I headed out to Harrigan’s Tavern just down the Broke Rd around the corner which is a bistro & beer tavern, etc and quite popular but with nothing else happening there (no live music, etc) I returned to the resort & prepared for a quick departure at 5am. I was keen to get back to Grafton to purchase a great gift for my daughter and grandchildren I had arranged earlier. Postage will probably hurt sending it to them. LOL!
Back home safe after nearly 6hrs of driving and thinking of my youngest brother Rod’s passing anniversary date 28th May 2017 as well, along with his memorial swim at his favoured Miami Beach Surf Club in Qld. Miss him so much .. I take him along on all my travels .. forever hearing his quick wit of sarcastic humour .. especially when I do something stupid or wrong. LOL!!! Will have a scotch for him tonight.
I’ll end this blog here for any comments to follow and return to my further travel blogging of my amazing Vietnam backpacking travels with my Vietnamese friend, Chung Phan. Take care, stay healthy and safe. Cheers.
BH Life Travels 