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.
