NSW Wineries With Caravan Camping, Hunter to the Snowies

After we published the Western Australia list, the same question came back from the other side of the country. Which New South Wales wineries can you actually stay at in the van? The answer is more cheerful than it was in the west. We could verify eight venues, they are spread across six regions, and a few of them are set up properly rather than as an afterthought. Here they are, running from the Hunter Valley down to the Snowy Mountains.

The Short Version

• Eight NSW venues where you can genuinely sleep on site, across six parts of the state
• Five of the eight have both showers and toilets, on site or at the cellar door, so full self-containment is not always required
• One of the eight has properly powered sites and another can arrange power on request, which is close to unheard of at cellar doors elsewhere
• Book ahead, because several of these are single sites or handfuls of sites

Why the longer list? Planning rules. In 2022 the NSW government created a planning category called farm stay accommodation, which covers camping, caravanning and glamping on working farms. A landholding of 15 hectares or more, zoned rural and running a primary production business, can host up to six caravans or campervans, and up to twenty guests in total, without lodging a development application at all, provided no guest stays longer than 21 consecutive days. The rule is the agritourism farm stay standard added to the Codes SEPP in 2022, and the six van limit does not count tents. Compare that to Western Australia, where a landowner can have one caravan on the property at a time unless the shire has approved more, and the difference in the two lists starts to make sense.

1) Domaine de Binet (Lovedale), seven sites and power on some of them

Seven sites among the vines at the Chapel Block property at Lovedale in the Hunter. Campfires on four of the seven, water on a couple of them, and families are welcome. Pets are welcome on five of the seven, which rules out most of the venues on our WA list in a single sentence. Two things to sort out before you book. There is no powered hookup here, though the hosts will arrange access to power if you ask when you book. And the only facility they list is a flush toilet at the winery a short walk away, so do not count on a shower. Around a hundred dollars a night, booked through Hipcamp. The cellar door is on the property: the Domaine de Binet winery at Lovedale is open Thursday to Sunday, 10 until 4, and walk-ins are welcome. The Binet family have been doing this a while and the review record shows it.

2) Binet Family Wines Pokolbin Hill Cellar Door (Pokolbin), the newer sibling

The same family, a different property, and a bigger one. Eight sites across fifteen acres looking out over the Brokenback Ranges, with a new toilet and shower and campfires permitted. Worth knowing before you book: guests report that is one toilet and one shower between all eight sites, and the camping listing is unreliable on water, so arrive with your own. Sites are unpowered. The cellar door here is open now: The Barn at Pokolbin Hill on McDonalds Road trades Thursday to Sunday, 10 until 4, and other times by request. Dogs and kids welcome, around a hundred a night. If you want to be within easy reach of Hunter Valley Gardens and a cluster of cellar doors, this is the pick.

3) Mira Wines (Pokolbin), two sites and a limoncello

A small Pokolbin producer on O'Connors Road making boutique small-batch wines, alongside Greek-style olives and hand-made limoncello. Two unpowered sites for fully self-contained vans, meaning your own shower and toilet at the site, though there are toilets and showers at the cellar door a walk away. Read this bit before you book: there is no shade over the sites, so the owners ask that only air-conditioned vans stay between December and February. Campfires are allowed with fire pits provided from April to October, and dogs are welcome on a leash. Confirm your rig length with the winery when you book. The cellar door runs by arrangement rather than to fixed hours, so ring ahead rather than turning up.

4) Lazy Oak Wines (Eurunderee), eighteen sites in the vines

A short drive out of Mudgee on the road to Gulgong, on a vineyard block beside Lazy Oak run by the same people, is a setup called Vans in the Vines: eighteen sites overlooking the vineyard and the hills behind it. Fully self-contained vans only, because there are no toilets, showers or drinking water provided, and a 4WD is recommended for the site itself. Pets on lead. Fires are lit in the communal fire pit rather than at your site, with firewood bought from the cellar door. What makes it worth the drive is the Friday night next door at Lazy Oak itself, which is wine, pizza and live music, plus complimentary wine and olive oil tastings for guests. It is also the biggest site count on this list by a distance.

5) Cargo Road Wines (Lidster), power on request and a big paddock

Sixteen hectares of vines on a hundred acre property outside Orange, at fifty dollars a night for a family or a couple booked direct with the winery, or as one of five named sites on Hipcamp at a slightly higher rate. You get complimentary kitchen access, and flush toilets and showers are available to all five sites. Three of the five are powered. Campfires are allowed, with a pit to hire or bring your own, and firewood sold on site. Two conditions worth knowing: you take all your waste with you when you leave, and you have to check in through the Onside farm management app before you arrive, which is a biosecurity requirement rather than a formality and appears only on the winery's own site, not on the Hipcamp listing. The cellar door is open daily from 11 until 5 with last tastings at 4, and the winery would rather you pre-booked a tasting, separately from your camping.

6) Rosnay Organic Vineyard, Olive Grove, Figs and Farmstay (Canowindra), the one where the campsite is the point

Rosnay is an organic vineyard, olive grove and fig farm on Rivers Road at Canowindra, and its campground is booked exclusively, so you are not sharing with strangers. It sits on the banks of a farm dam in the middle of the olive grove and takes up to ten people, unlimited tents and two or three vans. The kit is genuinely good: a recycled timber camp kitchen with a deck, gas cooker and barbecue, two bar fridges, a hot shower, hot and cold rainwater at the kitchen, a fire pit with firewood you can forage among the olives and the gums, solar power, and even wine glasses and crockery supplied. There is a long drop toilet on site, the cellar door toilet during opening hours, or you can bring your own or add the trailer loo. Bring your own paper. Minimum two nights, and the cellar door is open daily from 11 until 5, with weekday tastings best pre-booked. Ring ahead in April and May, because that is olive harvest.

7) Black Gate Distillery (Mendooran), whisky, rum and hot showers

Three acres outside Mendooran, forty-five minutes from Dubbo and an hour from Warrumbungle National Park, where a husband and wife team distills peated single malt whisky and Australian dark rum. Five sites at forty dollars, unpowered, but with flush toilets, hot showers and a communal camp kitchen with a barbecue. Campfires are permitted and dogs are welcome. Book your tasting before you go, because the distillery opens by appointment rather than to set hours, and the bar runs alongside it. There is a providore and an arts and crafts store in Mendooran itself, a couple of kilometres up the road, though the providore runs weekdays only and the craft shop opens just Monday, Wednesday and Friday. For the money, this is the best value on the list.

8) Crafty Cider (Kunama), one site, and you need everything on board

Ten minutes from Batlow in the Kunama Valley, Crafty Cider presses cider from its own high altitude orchard and shares its property with the SMART animal sanctuary. There is exactly one caravan site, at forty dollars, a five minute walk up a gravel road from the cellar door. Be clear on what that means: no power, no water, no sewage, no amenities of any kind. Your van needs its own toilet and shower or you cannot stay. No cars, rooftop tents, camper trailers or fifth wheels. Campfires are allowed. Well behaved dogs are welcome and must be on a lead around the sanctuary and the cellar door. Check the season before you go, because the cellar door shuts over winter. It was closed through July and August and is open again now, running weekends from 11 until 4, and by appointment otherwise.

If None of These Suit

A few options that are not on the numbered list, either because they are not a winery, brewery or distillery in the sense we use on Jedhi, or because we cannot yet put them on the map in the app, but which caravanners keep asking us about.

Whitton Malt House in the Riverina is the big one. It has twenty-six powered drive-through caravan sites, which is more powered sites than every venue on the list above combined, plus dining, whisky tastings, aqua golf and a splash park, on grounds minutes from the Murrumbidgee Valley National Park. The reason it is not on our list is that it is a malting facility rather than a producer: Voyager Craft Malt makes small-batch malt there for bakers, brewers and distillers, and the whisky poured on site is distilled elsewhere. The Solera single malt with its name on it was made by Corowa Distilling Co from Whitton malt and Barellan barley. It is a genuinely good stop, and if powered sites are what you need in that part of the state, it is the answer. It is just not a distillery.

Windowrie at Canowindra is the other one worth naming. It is a genuine working family winery with over 150 hectares of certified organic vineyards, and it has a single camp site a hundred metres from the winery at ten dollars a night, with firewood provided and pets welcome. It is as basic as that price suggests: no toilet, no drinking water, no power, and you want a 4WD if it has been raining. Caravans, camper trailers, cars and rooftop tents are fine, but motorhomes, campervans and fifth wheels are not. The catch is that there is no cellar door to visit any more. Halliday lists the winery as not open to the public, the Mill building in Cowra that used to house the cellar door is still on the market, and tastings have moved to the Cowra Visitor Information Centre. It is not in the Jedhi app yet either, which is why it sits down here rather than in the list above.

The other honest answer, especially in the Hunter, is that conventional caravan parks sit inside the wine region rather than an hour away from it. From several parks around Pokolbin you can be at a cellar door in under ten minutes, which for a lot of people beats a self-contained bay in a paddock. If your van is not self-contained and you want a hot shower and a laundry, that is the setup that works.

The Cheat Code: How to Plan an NSW Caravan Wine Trip

The regions cluster, and that is the thing to plan around. Three of these eight are within twenty minutes of each other in the Hunter, and three more sit in the Orange to Mudgee to Canowindra triangle in the Central West. You can build a genuine multi-night run out of either cluster without a long drive between stops.

A straightforward approach that works:

• Sort out your self-containment before you leave, because three of the eight ask you to be fully self-contained, and at two of those there is no shower anywhere on the property
• Book ahead, because five of these venues have five sites or fewer and one of them has a single site
• Check the cellar door hours separately from the camping, since several take tastings by appointment or need them pre-booked

A few things to check before you commit:

• Rig length limits vary from site to site, so check yours against the site before booking
• Only Cargo Road has genuinely powered sites, three of its five, while Domaine de Binet will arrange access to power if you ask when you book, so treat power as a bonus rather than a plan
• Campfires are allowed at all eight, though several are communal, seasonal or need a pit hired from the venue, and all of them are subject to NSW total fire bans, so check before you plan a night around one

Download Jedhi free and turn a wishlist of NSW wineries, breweries and distilleries into a route you can actually drive, van and all.

More in this series: Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, Tasmania and the NT.