The last time we visited, Lou had talked about taking us to the Hunter Valley Gardens, but we never managed to find time to make the trip. But now, we are going to Hunter Valley Gardens today. Margaret, now having driven us several thousand kilometers already, is retracing the first part of the route we took to Tony and Liz’s up the Bylong Valley Way.
We are getting familiar with this route and we love seeing the changing landscape. After the first descent from the mountains, you enter the Bylong Valley, a very beautiful, lush valley of green pasture land. Cattle and sheep are the main agricultural products from this area.
Eventually, we got to the Hunter Valley region, which is one of Australia’s best known wine regions. As we were nearing the Hunter Valley Gardens, we drove past several very large vineyards and wineries. I recognized a couple of the winery names, having consumed some Australian wines in the past.
We arrived at the garden’s village and looked around for a place to have lunch. We sat out on a veranda under cover of an umbrella and had a nice lunch before taking in the gardens. My smashed avocado toast looked like a garden.
Hunter Valley Gardens opened in 2003 and spans fourteen hectares of land, containing ten differently themed gardens, and at Christmas time has the largest display of decorations in the world. It was very strange to be in 85 degree heat, strolling around a lovely garden that had the most Christmas decorations I have every seen. The Christmas display comes down on January 26, so it was in its final days. We did not spend the money for the nighttime garden entry to see the decorative lights because we would have had to stay the night someplace, but it must be one heck of a sensory overload because all the various gardens were totally decked out in decorative fixtures and lights.
Here are a number of photos from the oriental garden, my favorite section.
Here are some photos of some of the Christmas displays.
There was a storybook section for kids showing many themes from various stories. That was fun to wander through.
There was a wonderful rose garden. It smelled heavenly! It had over a hundred varieties of roses, all very nicely labeled showing the name and the country of origin.
We were very fortunate with the weather. It was a fair day, not too hot, with cloud cover eliminating the hot sun most of the afternoon so it was comfortable walking around the gardens. The gardens started shooing visitors out at 4:3pm in preparation for those holding tickets to the nighttime Christmas display. We had walked several kilometers, so we were ready to call it a day at the garden.
Here are a few more photos.
Not too far from the gardens, Margaret pulled into a winery which we had noted earlier.
Christine actually has a bottle of Tyrrell’s wine sitting in her office at home. Someone had given it to her to save for a special celebration related to her business, but we’ve never opened it. This vineyard and winery is in a really beautiful setting.
After that stop, we headed back to Rylstone. Again, it was a beautiful drive in the dusk. The sun was reflecting off some of the sandstone cliffs and everything looked golden.
What a great day we had visiting the Hunter Valley Gardens and driving through the Hunter Valley winery area.
strange seeing Chritsmas in summer