Swan Valley is a perfect weekend getaway place since it's only 25 minutes away from the Perth CBD. I've listed 7 things that you can do when you plan to visit Swan Valley.

1. Start with Breakfast

Start your day with delicious breakfast at Guildford, the gateway of Swan Valley. This time we chose to go to Little Guildford. It was a cute cafe decorated with a lot of green foliages. Inside, the cafe was spacious enough to host a group of 12 people as what we saw that morning. A cup of morning coffee was just perfect before the start of the day.

2. Heritage Trail Walk

Go to the Swan Valley Visitor Centre to collect all brochures and documents that will help you to plan your own itinerary. We picked the heritage walk to do after our breakfast and Cider Ale trail to do in the afternoon.

The Heritage Walk was really fascinating and depending on the time that you have, you can take a short or longer course of walking. For example, the River Ramble which was 1500 m long takes about 30-50 minutes. Through the Heritage Walk, you can see a lot of different old buildings such as the Moulton's Cottage, Padbury's Store and Rose & Crown Hotel. 

3. Cider & Ale Trail

The Cider and Ale Trail was really fun to do and if you have a lot of time, you can really cover a lot of breweries in a day. The map was really informative so you can decide early on which brewery that you really want to visit first. One of the highlights of our trail was trying out the Sex Machine cider at Funk Cider. It was a barrel aged pink lady cider in French Oak Vanilla barrel. 

Funk Cider is located right next to the Ironbark Brewery, so go visit one after the other and check out their food offering too ;-). 

4. Cheese Tasting

Yes, Cheese Barrel at Swan Valley stocked up on a lot of local and imported cheeses. Cheese tasting is available at the premise as well. That way you can try out some before deciding on which one to buy. The big balcony is a perfect spot to enjoy a cheese board or two with some friends.  We bought some cheeses after the tasting, it will be so delicious to be eaten with crackers or cold meats!

5. Stock Up on Raw Honey

House of Honey is very famous for its fresh honey as well as the different type of honey that they produce. One of my favourite products is the apple cider vinegar and raw honey that I drink twice a day. They have a lot of honey for tasting and always buzzing with tourists.

They also sell some wines with honey in it and delicious honeycomb ice cream. Whenever I visit the House of Honey, I gotta order a scoop of their honeycomb ice cream. 

Check out what we purchased on the day: 

6. Visit Some Wineries

As what I mentioned before, one of the best things about Swan Valley is its proximity to the CBD area. There are a lot of boutique wineries around the area such as Pandemonium which had Spanish influence, Talijancich Wines, and Harris Organic Wines. 

If you're not sure which winery to visit, Swan Valley Visitor Centre can also arrange a tour on your behalf. There are more than 20 tours that operate in the area.

7. Indulge in Handmade Chocolates

Whistler's pretzels wrapped in milk chocolate is one of my favourite snacks especially when I get so busy at work. Whistler's is the oldest chocolate company in Western Australia and it's really good to see how they still operate until now.

A cafe that sells hot food and drinks are available outside of the showroom. They have a lot of seating indoor and outdoor. 

Whistler's also has a big garden for kids to run around and also a very relaxing lounge where you can enjoy your ice cream, some chocolates or just rest your feet for a while before visiting other places. 

If you're looking for a quick getaway or looking for a place to visit while you're in Perth, definitely put Swan Valley on your radar. It's a quick drive to check out some of the wineries, breweries and even enjoy some cheese tasting in the afternoon.