MELBOURNE TO WAGGA WAGGA

Welcome to our holiday featuring the fabulous Hunter Valley Christmas Lights!  With chauffeured pickup from home, we are transferred to meet our O’Shannessy’s Quality Tours coach and crew. We’ll travel over the Great Divide for a lunch stop at Wangaratta. We continue past Albury and then make our way up to Wagga Wagga for our first night.

OVERNIGHT:  Mercure Wagga Wagga, WAGGA WAGGA

WAGGA WAGGA TO MAITLAND

Following a cooked breakfast, we re-join the Hume Highway and continue north, stopping for lunch in Camden. We’ll be returning to Sydney later in our tour, so this afternoon, we travel around the outskirts of the city passing the Central Coast on our way to Maitland. On arrival, we check into our accommodation – we’re here for three nights, so unpack and settle in.

OVERNIGHT:  Old Maitland Inn, MAITLAND

THE HUNTER VALLEY

After breakfast, we head for Kurri Kurri, known as the town of murals. The town now claims the largest outdoor display of its kind in all of mainland Australia. Lovers of art are in for a visual feast with over 50 magnificent murals that tell the story of the people, the events and the places that shaped the area's unique character, culture and heritage. The range of images from various artists depicts everything from the war to steam trains, mine workers to farm life, Santa in the Aussie bush, the town businesses, and the local pipe band. Many of the murals are in the main street, Lang Street, so we’ll take a walk to explore this open-air art gallery. A plaque on each mural describes the story behind each image and a kookaburra, the emblem of Kurri Kurri, is contained in each of the murals. See if you can spot them all! From here, we drive to Pokolbin to visit the Hunter Valley Gardens where we spend the rest of the day. The gardens are nestled at the foothills of the Brokenback Ranges, in the heart of the Hunter vineyards. Returning to Maitland we have time to freshen up, an early dinner, before making our way back to the gardens for the magical Christmas Lights Spectacular. With over 1.5 million Christmas lights on show there are enough lights to cover a football oval and 19kms of string lighting.

OVERNIGHT: Old Maitland Inn, MAITLAND

NELSON BAY—DOLPHIN SPOTTING

This morning we head to Nelson Bay where we board our cruise boat for a Dolphin Watching cruise on Port Stephens. Hear the stories of the past and present as the cruise takes us across these beautiful blue waters. Keep your fingers crossed as, with luck, we may also meet some of the long-time locals - the friendly dolphins. As the cruise concludes we stay onboard for a light lunch, before meandering our way back to Maitland.

OVERNIGHT:  Old Maitland Inn, MAITLAND

MAITLAND TO SYDNEY

We farewell our hosts this morning but before leaving, we have a guided tour of Maitland, a heritage centre of NSW, dating back nearly 200 years and the third largest provincial city in NSW. We drive to the charming township of Morpeth, where pretty tree-lined streets and cobbled paths are a delight to wander and explore. It’s hard to imagine the sort of bustle that made Morpeth a bigger, busier port than Sydney more than 150 years ago! Morpeth has become renowned as the art and craft centre of the Hunter region so we have some time to browse the antiques stores and quaint art & craft galleries. Sydney is our destination today and on arrival we check into our hotel with time to freshen up for our evening out. Tonight, we join the Sydney Value Dinner Cruise - the views are stunning as we dine and dance whilst cruising Sydney’s beautiful harbour.

Lunch at own expense and arrangement

OVERNIGHT:  Parkroyal Darling Harbour, SYDNEY

SYDNEY TO BATEMANS BAY

Today we travel south to join the Coastal Road towards Wollongong and the most popular coastal tourist drive is along the 665 metres 'Sea Cliff' Bridge. The bridge itself has become a major attraction because it has been built at the exact point at which the Illawarra Escarpment plunges into the South Pacific Ocean, delivering an amazing driving experience. We continue through Wollongong to Kiama where we take our lunch break. We’ll visit the famous Blowhole – some of us may like to walk off our lunch and others can watch the water spout. Our next stop isn’t far – the charming village of Berry, where we’ll have some time to wander down the main street which has some interesting shops and galleries. The last leg of today’s journey sees us arriving in Batemans Bay later this afternoon.

Lunch at own expense and arrangement

OVERNIGHT: Sunseeker Motor Inn, BATEMANS BAY

BATEMANS BAY TO LAKES ENTRANCE

After breakfast this morning we continue our trip around the coast. We leave the Highway at Genoa and travel into one of the regions devastated by bushfires in January 2020. Mallacoota was entirely evacuated at the height of the bushfires and “Operation Genesis” stands as the largest maritime evacuation of Australian citizens in a natural disaster. We have our lunch at the Mallacoota Hotel this afternoon, before visiting Operation Bunker, a World War II RAAF operations bunker restored by the Mallacoota RSL. The bunker was an important link in the chain of defence installations along the southeast of Australia. From here we head to Lakes Entrance for our last night on tour.

OVERNIGHT: Belleview on the Lakes, LAKES ENTRANCE

HOMEWARD BOUND

Unfortunately, our tour is coming to an end as we make our way home. We stop for our morning break and of course, a hot lunch before arriving back in Melbourne. As usual,  our chauffeurs will be on hand to take us straight to our door – all part of the O’Shannessy’s Quality Tours superior service.