On Monday we started our little adventure around a small, very small part of Australia. We piled into Dan’s brother’s car, they had swapped cars for the week as Lachlan’s is bigger than Maddie & Dan’s, and drove out of Melbourne to join the Hume Highway driving north towards New South Wales.
We arrived in the wine area at Rutherglen in time for lunch and after checking into The Wine Valley Motel walked into the town centre for a Parker Pie. These pies are famous in Oz and baked on the premises, very tasty and filling.
At 1.30 we were picked up by Peter of Grapevine Getaways. He seemed to be the local ‘Del Boy’ and we were joined by Jim & Maureen who were also staying in the motel, and set off to visit some of the local wineries. Starting off at All Saints where we were disappointed in the wines, plus the server was not very interested in serving anyone! We also went to have a look at the cheese tasting, but it was $20 (£10) to try just three of them so we did not participate.
The next winery was Cofield, what a difference; the guy serving was really friendly and wanted us to enjoy our visit. The first thing we saw when we walked in was an enormous cat called Plonk. He was stretched out in front of the gas fire, lying on his back with his back paws stretched out towards the fire. The wine here had a much better flavour but they do not export to the UK, so we could not look forward to some of it when we arrive home.
After half an hour we left to go on to Buller winery, another fantastic wine, very friendly staff and we purchased a bottle to say thank you to Maddie & Dan for our great evening on the Tram restaurant. But they don’t export!
On to Pfieffer winery, again great wine, friendly staff and once again a shame they do not export. Next we visited Killeen & Stanton, more great wine, but beginning to feel a bit the worse for wear, so asked Peter to stop so we could pick up some snacks to have a soak up! We must remember to spit out and sup water between tests! Finally we went to the Campbell winery, and they do export to the UK– hooray – fabulous wines once more and friendly staff. Available in Waitrose!
Tuesday, after a great breakfast delivered to our rooms, we drove on to Canberra – a long 3 hours away. The first thing we saw was a sign warning us of road works for the next 125K – they meant it too! The Hume highway is being upgraded to be dual carriageway from Rutherglen to Canberra, and there must be hundreds of men and women working on the project. There were on site facilities to make concrete, huge pieces of earth moving equipment, and they really tried to keep disruption down to a minimum.
We arrived at Canberra and booked into our hotel before going in search of lunch, then we separated, Maddie & Dan went to view the Parliament House and we went in search of a kite flying spot. No luck, but we did discover that Canberra is not pedestrian friendly, so we went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We had been invited to dinner with friends of Dan & his dad. Carole & Brett made us very welcome and fed and watered us royally, yet another good meal with lots of wine and laughter.
The next day we went first to Regatta Point where there is a museum chronicling the history of Canberra, how it came about and why it is situated in the middle of New South Wales. It was very informative with excellent displays and visual aids for children & adults. The best bit was a map with specific streets highlighted, by pressing on the highlights, children read out the name of the street, the person it is named after and what that person’s role was in the development of Canberra.
We then moved on to the Australian War Memorial which is also a museum. There are rooms for each theatre of war Australia has been involved in, from the Boer War to the present day. We spent a long time in the First World War rooms, before meeting Maddie & Dan for lunch. They had been to see the more modern displays.
After lunch we split up again and we went to see the Boer War exhibit and then some of the exhibits about wars since 1945, the entire museum is very moving. We also visited the research centre and were shown how to access the information available on the Internet in respect of Gallipoli.
In the evening with the help of the staff in the hotel and ‘Madnav’ we found the Turkish restaurant that Carole & Brett had recommended – more great food! A strange place that manages to make a living in what appears to be another office building and if you arrive on foot from direction we took, it is only the front of the building that has a sign.
The next morning Maddie & Dan went for a tour of the Parliament House and we went to fly the kite. We found a spot near the water front just by the Old Parliament House, and it flew just long enough to record the event!
We left Canberra about 1pm to go back to Melbourne via the coast. We tried to find some lunch to go but the stores in Canberra are outside the city centre and we could only find industrial areas. So we continued on down the road.
Well we drove through the Great Dividing Range – what fantastic scenery – way too majestic to record on film. Then we continued down to Lakes Entrance and 90 mile beach, which we had flown over the week before! We had a walk along the waterfront and a browse around and a coffee and cake. Maddie won the prize as for $4 she had the most enormous apple twist we have ever seen!
We continued down to Eden where we found a motel overlooking the Tasman Sea and a fantastic pub, for more good food, beer and wine! Early in the morning we got up to watch the sunrise – overwhelmingly beautiful, then after another hearty breakfast we set off on the final lap to Melbourne.
In 5 days we covered over 900 miles, saw masses of fantastic scenery, 2 wallabies and a Lyre bird and when we look on the map we have seen just a minute part of the continent of Australia.
Thank you Maddie & Dan for organising this for us and for all the planning & driving that you did, we had a ball!
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