We headed on north past Lake MacQuarie and into The Hunter Valley. This is now into wine country and offers many vineyards. It is a beautiful area to relax and sample a wide variety of wines. We tried several and found that the Ports were divine. Last trip it was beer, this one wine, what is happening here?

We made a stop at Berry. This is a little town that words may find tough to describe. We wandered up and down the street and into many little shops. We had lunch at a pub that screamed at us to come in .. see the photo! Inside there were no two tables or chairs alike; there were odds and ends, trophies and signs, figures and who knows what everywhere and the best hamburgers anywhere! Next door was a bottle shop (liquor store) that was entirely covered in hub caps.

Across the street we found Ackroyd Opals The operators are not jewelers but opal miners. We met George and Dallas Ackroyd and their wives and even Billy Ackroyd .. their pooch! This is an attraction that I would highly recommend. The entire shop is like a museum and you can learn so much.

We began our lessons. There are many different types of opals and mining areas produce specific qualities. We learned about crystal opals, triplets, doublets, boulder opals, black and white opals and the effects of water on them. We saw many pieces in the most raw form and much of the equipment used. We wanted to know how to be sure when an opal is what it is said to be and how to know how opals are graded and weighed. Dallas took no hesitation before turning on the various tools and proceeded to task a raw piece of opal and turning it into a masterpiece. George weighed it and graded it and we soon felt like real pros! It was a treat to have so much time devoted to our learning curve but this is the Aussie way. No worries!