The day started bright and sunny, which made a pleasant change to yesterday's rain and storms. After a shower and a quick breakfast we headed off for a drive around Lake Macquarie, stopping at various points to admire the views and for Stu to capture them on the camera.

We also stopped at Toronto for a sandwich by the lake, and watched as the pelicans and seagulls swooped around us. The pelicans were amazing to watch, and Stu caught some great pictures. They are quite intimidating creatures!

After lunch we headed to the Hunter Valley - well known as the wine region of Australia. We drove through Cessnock and then onto Pokolbin, and stopped at the Lindemans Cellar Door to sample a few wines and purchase a bottle or three for our travels! There are plenty of vineyards in the area and lots have cellar doors for you to stop at and do some free wine tasting. We were happy to drive through the scenic countryside, before heading back to Cessnock to our campsite. We may pop into a few more cellar doors tomorrow.

We did stop briefly at the Hunter Valley Gardens, but the main part of the gardens were $20 each(!) I'm sure they were very nice, but it didn't seem worth it. We were happy to admire the rest of the gardens that we saw for free.

The campsite in Cessnock is nice - plenty of birds chirping away nearby. It's been a hot sunny day today, hard to believe it's the 1st December tomorrow!

The Hunter Valley is a beautiful part of the world. So far, so good...