Dunes & Vines

With most airlines grounded, ADVENTURE is sought on four wheels, amid the ancient dunes of STOCKTON BIGHT and the spindly grapevines of the HUNTER, writes PAIGE RICHARDSON.

FOR A SECOND, it’s like we’re floating over the incline, veering past an SUV spitting sand faster than Wile E. Coyote. As the Jeep’s nose comes down to level, we realise we have burst through to an endless bright blue sky and shimmering sandy expanse. The effort of getting up the twisty dune that takes you to Newcastle’s famous Stockton Bight Sand Dunes is immediately justified. Trucks are zooming up and down sandscapes that stretch as far as the eye can see – 32 kilometres, in fact, to Anna Bay’s Birubi Beach.

This is our first attempt at sand-driving and, to make matters interesting, we’re driving a loaned car. Not just any car; a Jeep Gladiator Overland. The Jeep Gladiator is Jeep’s newest mid-size pickup and the model it’s claiming will make your weekends better. With great weekends in rather short supply of late, we’re here to put that theory to the test. So far, so good.

A measured drop of the tyre pressure and a quick shift into four-high (parttime) and we’re on the dunes. The Jeep Gladiator does most of the hard work, navigating effortlessly into tracks made by explorers before us and slipping lithely past bogged carwrecks that ventured a little too close to shore.

Its reputation as a desert playground is befitting, but I’m more intrigued by Stockton’s history. Made up of three layers, these dunes – located in the

Worimi Conservation Lands – date back 2.5 million years to the

Pleistocene period and hold the thousandyear-old secrets of the Worimi people. Their occupation is evidenced by the white shoals of pipis and whelk shells uncovered periodically in the sandy swales, revealing Aboriginal middens dating back 1200 years. Further along is Tin City, a ramshackle collection of corrugated dwellings built during the Great Depression to shelter shipwrecked sailors.

Next on the agenda is the Hunter Valley. While most would baulk at the idea of driving to the Hunter (ahem, vino), I beg to differ. Driving allows enough time to take the scenic route to some of the Hunter’s quieter regions.

It’s the only way we managed to find 1813 – a boutique cellar door set among the vines of Tinonee Estate and in the shadow of the Yellow Rock escarpment. Unlike most of the cellar doors in Pokolbin, 1813 offers free tastings and welcomes you to stay a while. Sharing a cheese plate and a chilled glass of the signature verdelho with the label’s owner, weekend wrapped, I can safely say that the past few days have been better than most this year, with one little surprising ending. On the highway home, the driver of a passing Jeep throws his hand out and gives me a wave. Must be a Jeep thing.