G'Day!

Thursday November 27, 2003 A beautiful clear Australian summer day. We check out of our room at the Best Western Blue Diamond Motel which is just one block from a house that once belonged to my grandparents and then my Uncle Leo. Now it’s part of the business district of Dubbo. Our first stop on the way to wine country is Wellington. Originally a penal settlement in 1823, it was soon occupied by pioneer farmers. Neither are in view when we stop to have lunch at the Cactus Café. Housed in a 1930’s building which has been a church and a school house, this café was opened by Mexico’s Ambassador to Australia. Two sets of concertina doors, which used to separate the single space into class rooms, now partially divide the room into the café and two areas filled with local crafts for sale. On the way to Mudgee, which is higher in altitude than Dubbo, the countryside changes from low undulating hills of red earth (Dubbo means “red earth” in aboriginal) and wheat farms to the rolling forested hills that surround Mudgee (“a nest in the hills”). As this trip is essentially unplanned we call at the Mudgee Visitor Center to see what accommodations are available, only to learn that we have arrived just before the annual weekend of music concerts. We are saved by “Barb” who is visiting the staff of the Visitor Center and runs several B and B’s. Soon we have the keys to “Bellmore”, a renovated house built in the 1920-1930’s in a style reminiscent of Arts and Crafts houses of California. Miranda and I get the front bedroom with a bed that occupies 80% of the room and is about 4 feet off the floor – fortunately each side of the bed has a set of steps. As we only have a few hours of the day left we decide to drive to the Blue Wren Vineyard to make reservations at their restaurant as Chris has been told the food is “excellent”. Of course we taste their wines – all of them! I come away hoping that the food will be better. We have time for one more vineyard so we do down the road to Pieter van Gent’s where we also taste all the wines. This is no small achievement as the wines range from dry red and whites to fortified wines and several specialty wines, one of which flavored with vermouth. A number of the wines are very good and we purchase some dry sherry and port for the trip to Perth and some others for relatives in Dubbo. However we don’t find anything suitable for the evening meal and scour a Mudgee wine shop, buying an additional 6 bottles. Upon returning to Bellmore we find that Barb has stocked the little house with everything needed for a hearty Australian breakfast, as well as a bottle of Andrew Harris Verdelho. This is immediately consumed with cheese, crackers and olives. Dinner at the Blue Wren is very good and even though Karlyn won’t approve when she reads this my meal consists of Thumper (Rillettes of wild rabbit with pickled onions and cucumbers served with crusty bread) and Bambi (Melrose Park (Mudgee) Venison, with a warm bean, hazelnut and radicchio salad). However each dish is accompanied by a vegetarian side dish, Tempus Two Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2003 with the rabbit and Henschke Keyneton Estate Shiraz/Cabernet/Merlot 2000 with the venison. Deciding to make use of the shuttle to take us to and from the restaurant turns out to be a wise choice. Friday November 28, 2003 Breakfast consists of pretty much anything you want. Miranda makes scrambled eggs in bacon fat with lemon myrtle in an attempt to reproduce some of the excellent eggs we had in Sydney. She succeeds! The day is filled with wine tasting, although its unlikely we will visit all 29 cellar doors. The first vineyard is Botobolar and their organic wines. Pleasant wines that are not my style but we spend an enjoyable hour talking with the owner who is a transplant from Chicago. Subsequently we taste at Huntington, known for their shiraz but we find the best sweet white of the visit. Abercorn has award wining wines which are quite good – their top Shiraz Cabernet is the only wine which you must pay to taste but the only available bottle has been open for 10 days, so we get a free taste and its still a quality wine. Miranda is more impressed that the only other visitors have a black standard poodle but it is so harassed by the vineyard dogs that they leave. Maybe they were visiting because they too had noticed that the vineyard advertising has a white poodle in it. Unfortunately its away with the owners. Peterson’s vineyard has one of the few zinfandels in the region and a taste tells us why. Lunch is out in the open at Poet’s Corner (formerly Craigmoor Vineyards). This is followed by a visit to Red Clay Vineyards which is the smallest vineyard in the Mudgee area. The wines here are made using a basket press as the grape yields are too small for more modern techniques. The new wine maker for Andrew Harris vineyards who has just come from several years with Kendall-Jackson in Napa is at Red Clay tasting their wines. Like most Mudgee wines they are well made but without real distinction. The next stop is a diversion from wines as we visit Figtree Retreat Olives to taste their produce and get a small tour of the farm and discuss their biodynamic (sustainable) agriculture. Its certainly rustic as upon arrival we find the owner using natures’ toilet off his verandah! Miranda buys the Fig and Olive Tapenade and the rock salt cured (tsassos) olives. The last vineyard is Andrew Harris where we again taste all the range and again the reds all taste very similar to me. Some of the whites like the verdelho are much more distinctive and well structured. Dinner that night is in Mudgee in the courtyard of The Wineglass Café. More Bambi is consumed, this time in the form of sausages. Saturday November 29, 2003 After an early breakfast we head back to Dubbo the see Ni and Chris’s son Zac play schoolboy cricket where his team wins a little too convincingly - 168 to 5!! The rest of the day is spent walking around downtown Dubbo. Sunday November 30, 2003 Today we visit the Western Plains Zoo where we take a self guided walking tour to burn off the excesses of the previous few days. Like sensible Australians the kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and dingos are all resting in the shade. Everyone else seems to be active, except for the Maned Wolf. Later we visit the Red Earth Winery, one of the 4 local wineries. They might sell more wine here if they actually gave you a reasonable amount to taste. As it is the few milliliters we get leaves a negative impression except for the wines we are shown from another winery bottled under the “Naked Lady” label. Miranda remains unconvinced that it’s the wine I appreciate! In the afternoon we visit my mother’s grave site where I see her grave stone for the first time. We leave fresh flowers at her graveside and at her brother Don’s graveside. That evening we BBQ beef, pork and chicken sausages and the last of my mother’s chutney at Ni and Chris’s farm outside Dubbo. Bottles of Shiraz from Botobolar and Abercorn are compared and leave me hoping that the wines of Western Australia will satisfy the palate more. Monday December 1, 2003 Today Miranda and I take my aunt Lorna to visit her sister Leone in a nursing home in nearby Narromine. Dementia is slowly taking her memory and she takes a few minutes to recognize me, however she knows Miranda even though they have only met once before. Underneath her disease she still retains her sense of humor We return to Dubbo for lunch at the Olive Garden Café and Nursery. This is followed by shopping at Grace Bros where the lady helping Miranda tells her how much she loves her accent. Miranda buys a “sophisticated” black and white chiffon dress over a black and white polka dot slip. That evening we dine at Jules Café where the waitress is unsure whether we can share a meal of crepes. Its not the sort of service we are used to receiving and when we discover that the table we have near the front door is actually holding the door open we are ready to leave. However we tough it out and finally receive a single plate of two crepes and two empty plates that allows us to share what is a meal that neither of us could have eaten alone. The serving sizes of meals in Australia appear to following the trend in the US, where the increasing obesity is being blamed, in part, on the increasing size of meals. Tuesday December 2, 2003 Another day of traveling. This time we take Lorna to Bathurst (about 200 kms southwest of Dubbo) to see some the homes lived in by my mother’s family. Bathurst is Australia’s oldest inland city and boasts many fine buildings. Lorna shows us my great grandfather’s house which is apparently heritage listed it appears close to collapse. We also visit with my Aunt Joyce who is enjoying life in a very pleasant retirement home. Lunch is at the Crowded House Café where the sausages are burnt to perfection. As usual Miranda is disgusted! After we returned to Dubbo we visit the Returned Soldiers League (RSL) where gambling has long been legal in many Australian cities. This brief visit is followed by a very good dinner at the Thai Restaurant. Asian food in Australia is very good and restaurants very common.