Today is our last full day in Griffith as we’ve off tomorrow heading to Euston on our way to Broken Hill later in the week. Thankfully Griffith is missing all the rain that the eastern part of NSW is getting. So a few tourist visits today and if your in Griffith you have to go to the wineries. So after brunch in town, off we headed.

First port of call after having brunch in town was McWilliams Winery and the famous Hanwood Barrel. It’s 37 years since my first and only visit (to now) and my only memory of that visit was the Hanwood Barrel so I was keen to see it again. Unfortunately the winery, now owned by the Calabria Family Wines was closed so we could only look, not touch. It will be interesting to see what Calabria do with the facility as its a very big production plant and Calabria have their own production facility on the other side of town. So what did we do next, of course it was straight to Calabria Family Wines.

Having enjoyed the fruits of their labour (sorry Brown Bros.) I was keen to see the Calabria winery and I was very surprised at the size and the large offerings that Calabria have. Of course we had to have the odd taste or two, which resulted in a number of purchases, no need to worry amount lack of water when free camping, we have shit loads of wine now!

The lovely Calabria sales lady gave us a quick tour and the highlight was the old underground storage tanks which now serves as a fine function area and also cool storage for many wine varieties. Would be great to have a formal dinner here, although a bit cool. It was lovely to go to a winery and taste their wines without being charged a fee or feeling obligated to buy something. It’s obvious the Calabria family are confident their wine speaks for itself and happy to absorb the tasting costs. Unlike De Bortoli, who we visited next. They wanted $5 up front before we could taste. I know its not much but I have problems been charged to taste and then the wine on sale at the cellar door is more expensive than you can buy at a bottle shop. Sorry De Bortoli, you’ve lost me!

So tomorrow we really start the trip with a few days of feee camping before we get to Broken Hill. Griffith was a staging point to get our vans ready for the 15,000 k’s ahead. Thank you to Emily for hosting us the last 5 days, very much appreciated.