Unearthing Douglas Vale's Wine and Oyster Heritage

Name: Unearthing Douglas Vale's Wine and Oyster Heritage
Start: 2025-04-05T10:00:00+11:00
Location: 235 Oxley Highway , Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia, New South Wales 2444

Schedule

Sat, 05 Apr, 2025 at 10:00 am

UTC+11:00

Location

235 Oxley Highway , Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia, New South Wales 2444 | Port Macquarie, NS

Unearth the heritage of the Hastings and learn about the beginnings of the wine and oyster industries in the Port Macquarie district - at Douglas Vale Historic Homestead & Vineyard.
View presentations of the history of both industries, interlaced with stories and demonstrations from one of the descendants of the Dick family - David Tunstead, a fifth-generation oyster farmer of the Hastings.
Enjoy a lunch of oysters, or for the less adventurous, there is quiche and salad available. Why not enjoy a cheese plate to accompany one of the four Douglas Vale wines from vines grown on the property?
Learn about the international award-winning wine grown from the Isabella variety and restored to the property from cuttings taken from the last stand of remaining vines.
Enter by walking through a heritage-listed bamboo grove. Enjoy a tour of the fully restored homestead, the oldest timber building in the Hastings, built in 1862. All the artefacts have been bequeathed by descendants of the original Francis, Wilson and Dick families.
The precinct also includes cottage gardens, vegetable and pineapple patches, reflecting its history as a food bowl for Sydney in the 1920s.
Douglas Vale can be found between the two Westport schools on the Oxley Highway. Although there are ramps and accessible toilets available, the terrain may limit manual wheelchair users. This is a non-smoking venue due to the vulnerable status of its heritage buildings.