Tuesday August 28 - 31 Midland Tourist Park Swan Valley

September 4, 2018 - Reading time: 3 minutes

It rained all night till about 4am and we awoke to very overcast and threatening skies, a wet tent and sodden camp site. We quickly decided the our best option was to pack up the trailer ( even though wet – with a protective tarp over the bedding) and move on as quickly as possible.

Thirty minutes later we were on the road and made quick time to Midland which is located 20 kms east of Perth. It is in many ways Perth’s Hunter Valley, with many wineries, cheese, chocolate factories breweries and distilleries.

The campground can only be described as average ( at best) and our site was down the back corner amongst some permanents but had the advantage of a concrete slab and on a the top of a small hill.

After getting the camp organised we did a loop of the Great Northern Highway and West Swan road, having lunch at the ‘Cheese Barrell’ followed by wine tasting at Olive Farm wines where we were happy to find our favourite red variety Durif on the list – it was really a wet and cold day! We had heavy rain overnight but the rain slowly appeared to ease overnight but unfortunately the cold winds continued all Wednesday

Wednesday saw us on the hunt for further Durif tastings and we made our way to Pirelli wines were we encountered a lovely Verdelo and two superb Durifs, though they are lower in alcoholic content than the Rutherglen style they do they that wonderful bouquet.

Our next stop was the Margaret River chocolate factory, where we encountered wonderful sweets and a caramel hot chocolate to die for. We returned to camp but the winds were so cold we decided to visit Houghton winery to get out of the cold… good move as the cellar door manager was so bored due to The lack of customers took us to the top line reds and we spent an hour in a warm room tasting nice really high quality reds.

I had read somewhere the Cale Hookers(Essendon footballer) parents had a small wine yard in the area. A few emails later, we had established that yes they have wines, but no cellar door but invited us around to sit on their verandah, have a glass or two with some cheese and buy some wine if we liked it! It was a sensational afternoon! Lynne Hooker welcomed us, took us on a tour of their accommodation, which is superb and we would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone. The wines were really good ( and reasonably priced) and perhaps most unusually were well aged and we ended up purchasing six bottles of the 2008 Shiraz.

We finished our time in the Swan Valley with a delightful lunch at the Feral brewery and a drive to Bell rapids, Noble Falls and Avon National Park.