Amazing Australia Trip Day 7: Yarra Wine Valley & Puffing Billy
Here's more on the last second day of the 8 Days Trip to Australia series: Day 7 - A day trip to the Yarra Wine Valley & A ride on the Puffing Billy!
Day 7 - 1 September 2017, Friday
Overall itinerary of our seventh day
0630 - 0710 : Set off to pick-up point at Vibe Savoy Hotel
0800 - 1745 : Day trip to the Yarra Wine Valley & A ride on the Puffing Billy
1745 - 2100 : Dinner at Pho Bo Ga Mekong Vietnam
2100 onwards : Go back to Airbnb venue to rest
Following Day 6's 1 day tour to the Great Ocean Road, we went on another day tour on Day 7 to the Yarra Wine Valley and also the Puffing Billy with Gray Line at AU$210/pax. This is inclusive of morning quick bites, lunch with a glass of wine & a couple of wine tasting.
Our first stop was the Puffing Billy. Before we were given a ride to the train station, we had a short stopover for some morning tea with Australia's Lamington cakes. I really love this sweet dessert & bought a packet of it from Coles back with me!
Once we got to the first station on the Puffing Billy train line, Belgrave, it became a makeshift 'photo booth' for us - photos with the train ticket, the train station, the train, with the train captain & more.
We only took the Puffing Billy for 1 stop, from Belgrave to the Menzies Creek. It took 30 minutes, but I had wished it took quite a little longer. Although you get specks of dusts and tiny unidentified particles flying into your eyes while you have your legs hanging off the sides of the train, it was a really enjoyable experience seeing & hearing the sounds given off by the Puffing Billy. Like, choo choo!
If you would like to visit Puffing Billy by yourself, that is totally doable as well! You can in fact, take the Puffing Billy for a few more stops. For more details, you can visit their website here.
We then switched bus and were sent on our way to lunch at Fergusson's Winery. The views along the way were great too, we got to see more sheeps (my favourite!) and of course, wine yards.
The atmosphere at Fergusson's Winery was nice too, gave us the cosy vibes. We were served a glass of wine at the start, either red wine or white wine. We went for the red. Next came the food. While my friends enjoyed the delicious spit roast lunch (beef), I went for the fish instead since I could not have beef. We enjoyed this meal so much more than the one we had yesterday. It was yum, the food went well with the wine!
We happened to be seated together with 2 elderly women from New Zealand and they were so cute,sharing jokes with us and all, telling us to visit New Zealand someday too (I wish so as well)! After lunch, we went to explore their winery section and tried their new wines too. Fell in love with the taste of the Rose Cabernet Sauvignon (moscato) & ended buying it home for our 2017 Christmas Feast!
That is just the beginning of the food feast. We then visited the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery as the next stop. As suggested by its name, it sells all sorts of chocolates & ice-cream! I bought a couple packets of chocolates & ordered a scoop of salted caramel ice-cream for sharing too.
After ice-cream, we were back to wine-tasting again at Rochford Wines. We were given an explanation of some of the wines which we had for tasting and how to actually perform wine tasting. Another interesting experience, but somehow I still prefer the wines from Fergusson's Winery.
We still given some time to explore the winery so we headed upstairs to the top floor where we had the full view of the vineyard from above. It was breathtakingly beautiful. I don't mind waking up to this everyday.
The final winery we visited was Dominique Portet, a boutique family owned winery now in their tenth generation as winemakers and continuing to respect their French tradition. We had another wine tasting session here, it came together with cheese bites which compliments the wine well.
Finally, we ended off with a photo taken against the vineyards at the back!
After getting back to the city, we had a nice, warm dinner at Pho Bo Ga Mekong Vietnam. It is an affordable meal choice, the pho is delicious & the portions are generous!
We ended the day by shopping around the area again, saw the gigantic long Toblerone & we bought burger as supper from 8Bit. It was not bad, like all burgers~ I like their chunky fries though. :)
