As I write now, for the first time we have the entire family (ACAD – Alex, Carmel, Ashleigh and Dog) all together for a night in the caravan in Forster. It may be six weeks into the trip before we all made it together, but we got there.
Imagine arguing in court what the speed limit actually is!
Earlier this week Carmel and I were in Wyangala Waters when Ashleigh finally agreed to join us. So we drove back to Sydney, which was good as we managed to get rid of the bits we were not using and add bits we had left behind. Best of all, we all got in the car together and headed north.
Which way to Brisbane?
Forster has the advantage of being north (and a minimum of 10º tonight, rather than -8º in Tumut) and a new direction. From here we will drift up the coast and visit Toowoomba (Carmel’s family), Longreach (old Qantas planes) and then Mt Isa.
We stopped off at Junee on our way north. The key purpose of the stop over was to collect fresh water as we had used both our tanks at Rutherglen – too much washing of clothes and hair. These are now deferred to caravan park stays.
A Landcruiser we could afford
However, Junee has some attractions. There was a soccer gala day happening at the oval – I longed to pull on my boots again! We visited the Chocolate and Licorice factory for – um – educational purposes. Best of all, they do tastings! Even I could detect the chocolate notes in these samples.
I spotted an old Landcruiser that has a tale to tell. We looked at landcruisers when preparing for the trip, but the price was a bit rich. Our Nissan Patrol is doing a great job, so no regrets so far.
After leaving Junee, we reached Young for lunch. We were outside the cherry season, but I think now we have a van, we should return for it. Carmel used to live here and we visited the home her parent’s built.
With Ash in Sydney, we have changed course. The next stop was to Mildura for him to do some fruit-picking, and then into the desert. However, Carmel and I still want him to come with us, so we are staying within a one day car drive of Sydney waiting for him to get tired of trying to leave on his own. We are moving up north and are now thinking of Cooktown and the Daintree, rather than Uluru. Here is our travel pattern so far.
We have left Rutherglen and headed north, aiming at Junee and then Eugowra, where Carmel was born. We did a final stop at the Valhalla Winery. We happen to know the vigneron – we actually took him to the movies as a young boy! Unfortunately, he was away in Sydney this week, so we missed the catch up. We did end up with a six-pack of his fine Ranga red. This is a combination of Shiraz and the Durif. The latter is a Rutherglen speciality – a variant discovered by François Durif back in the 1860s.
Carmel have had a slow couple of days at Rutherglen and headed off today to try some of their famous wines and ports torquays. It being midweek and off season, though, the cellar door people are more into chatting than throughput.
Pfeiffers Pfine Wines pfor Pfine Pfood and Pfabulous Pfolk
Our first stop was Pfeiffer Wines – much better at making wines than slogans. This is an old winery that used to be part of Seppelts. Some of their vines are over 50 years old. I found their vintage port very impressive and we both enjoyed their Shiraz. There also is a Durif – a very rich red that was quite tempting. Alas the caravan is loaded to the benches, so we could only get a couple of bottles. We ended up staying an hour here and even the dog was invited in and made welcome.
Cofield Wines – joyfully with no silent P
Cofield wines was next up the road with some interesting sparking wines. The winery is much newer than Pfeiffer, and perhaps a bit less ostentatious – but I am ignorant of the finer details of wines. We enjoyed the three sparkling wines, but their Quartz Vein Shiraz was very compelling. We ended up with a bottle of each of these.
When then brought our booty back to camp for a nice dinner.
