Swan Valley is located to the north-east of Perth, Australia and takes an approximate 30 minutes drive from Perth according to the guidebook. However we were already smack right in the middle of Swan Valley with our accommodation in the Vines Apartment so no need to worry about the distance. On the other hand, there are over forty wineries, restaurants, cafes, farms etc. from small family-run ones to large scale international export class vineyards and factory. So how do we know which ones to drop by?
No worries. Leave it to Catherine after all she has been staying here for a while and knew which wineries were worth visiting. She passed us a Swan Valley Food and Wine Trail map with “X” marking the spot where we should drop by for a visit. Also to note that wineries are closed on Mondays, however Catherine also didn’t know that some were closed on Tuesdays too and we planned our Swan Valley Food and Wine Trail right smack on Tuesday. We had to skip a few, but fortunately we were staying in this region and could re-visit if needed to.
We covered most of the sights pointed out to us by Catherine and even found our own way to a supermarket located at Stratton Park Shopping Centre at the end of the day to grab some groceries and had our dinner! Our Food and Wine trail starts at the north-east end of the trail map since our accommodation is located at that corner. The scenery was beautiful and we were fortunate to have clear blue skies for the whole day as we made our trail round.
We didn’t quite complete our visit list. Some were closed, some we didn’t quite fancy and some we came back on another day due to setting sun! Yep, it was getting late by the time we reached the strawberry farm.
According to the itinerary list, the places worth visiting were:
- Oggies Ice Creamery
- Duckstein for beer – no luck. it was closed!
- Black Swan Cafe for meals
- Slight detour to visit Caversham Wildlife Park
- Margaret River Chocolate Company
- Sandalford Wines
- Fish Tail
- Strawberry Farm
- Houghton Winery
- Mondo Nougat
- Talijancian
- Olive Farm