About Stanthorpe
Stanthorpe is an attractive rural service centre set in the middle of a rich, mixed farming area where rural activities range from vineyards, wineries and orchards to sheep and cattle grazing. Stanthorpe is unusually cool for Queensland. In winter the night time temperatures in the town often fall below zero – the average minimum temperature for July is 0.3°C. Today the district is known for its cold climate apples, grapes and stone fruit as well as sheep and cattle grazing. (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
Getting there
It was another pretty straight drive from one place to another, just had a lot of hills and mountains chewing up our precious fuel. It’s about 107kms from our last location at Spring Creek (route map).
Accommodation
Sommerville Valley Tourist Park is located on the banks of Storm King Dam, approximately 12kms from the town of Stanthorpe (maplink). This is a beautiful location with plenty of room for each (drive through) site.
The views over the lake at sunset were exceptional – pity I didn’t take any decent shots (will have to come back to do that LOL)
Winery Tour
Our Tagalong organisers had arranged a winery tour within the region and our bus picked us up at 9:00am and off we went to start tasting, while the toothpaste was still present on our teeth 🤣.
Symphony Hill Wines
Symphony Hill Wines is a small winery with a lot of awards for their wines (maplink). They also have the credit for supplying 3 of their wines to QANTAS airlines, which are used in their 1st class cabins. The lady who hosted the tasting was wonderful, full of knowledge and very bubbly.
Ballandean Estate Wines
Ballandean Estate Wines is a family owned winery and has been in the district for over 90 years (maplink).
Lunch at St Jude’s Cellar Door and Bistro
What a wonderful lunch was put on for our group by the enthusiastic and eager team at St Jude’s Cellar Door and Bistro on the New England Highway in Ballandean (maplink).
Everyone totally enjoyed their meals and the wine provided with the meals was so good we purchased 3 bottles of their Sparkling Shiraz to take home.
The Ballandean Pyramid
Our bus driver stopped at a local legendary landmark known as the Ballandean Pyramid. It’s a man made pyramid, approximately 15 metres in height and built from blocks of the local granite. It is on private property belonging to a local vineyard and is approximately 25 metres from the nearest road. Quite an amazing feat for a local farmer to create (maplink). Read more about why & how it was built in Wikipedia
Granite Belt Brewery
Having voted that the group had seen enough wineries it was a unanimous vote to drop into the Granite Belt Brewery for a bit of sampling of their wares. Their core brewed range are Pale Ale, Lager, IPA, Session Ale, Applethorpe Cider & Irish Red Ale.
We had a couple of “paddles” of their beer on the back deck and while we were there our mate Chris got swooped multiple times by the same magpie – no one else but Chris (LOL).
Girraween National Park
A planned day trip out to a couple of the National Parks in the area was cut short by rain but we did manage to take a walk to the “Pyramid Rock” in Girraween NP. The granite here is truly spectacular.
We walked for about 5kms before I began an attempt to tackle the summit of the pyramid, but due to the fact I was actually concerned for my heart and the fact I could easily have slipped or fell on the extremely steep climb, I called it quits. (those who know me would understand the bit about falling over!)
Then the rain really set in so that was that!
The Tagalong Farewell Lunch at Varias Restaurant
To wind up our fantastic Bailey Tagalong22 trip our organising committee booked us into the Varias Restaurant & Queensland College of Wine Tourism. What a brilliant thing to do!
The visit started with a discussion on how the centre operates in partnership with University of Southern Queensland, Stanthorpe State High School and 47 other Gateway Schools, the College provides training from secondary to tertiary levels in viticulture, oenology, tourism, hospitality and business. The presentation concluded with a wine tasting of local wines.
Then it was off to lunch, created by the students of the college and the food was Michelin star quality. It consisted of 3 courses, but presented on the one plate (like a tasting) along with 3 different local wines which matched the food types. WOW – it was magnifico!

The luncheon then concluded with presentations to the people who had contributed to the success of yet another great Bailey Tagalong. The winner of the Bailey Bear photo competition was announced and it was yours truly – BB was spotted bungy jumping at Cania Gorge…

You can view all of the Bailey Bear photos taken by the Tagalongers via this link.
Summing up…
- Accommodation – Sommerville Valley Tourist Park (07) 4681 4200
- Cost per night – $33.00 (@ 19-Sep-2022)
- Stayed for – 4 nights
- Facilities – Very good and well maintained
- CP Location – 63 Sommerville Lane Stanthorpe
- Our rating/score – 8/10
- Was it a nice town to visit? – Yes
- Activities & places of interest – Plenty to do – missed out due to weather
- Tourist info centre? – Stanthorpe Visitor Information Centre (07) 4681 2057
- Would we return? – Yes
- We rate the town – 8/10
- Overall thoughts – It was a real shame that wet weather cut our planned activities short but we loved our stay and would like to return one day to finish off what we missed out on.
…and this brings us to the end of Tagalong22, It’s now time for all to turn homeward with great memories of another successful Bailey Caravan Tagalong together with new friends made!