Author: Mrs A
Location: Sydney and Cowra, NSW and Chiltern, Victoria
The first week of February saw me admitted into hospital for surgery on my stomach. Four days at North Shore Private Hospital with a fabulous view, and I was released into the care of Mr A and our friends’ home in Forestville, a leafy suburb near the Northern Beaches area.
Forestville’s a lovely quiet location, on the very edge of Garigal National Park. John and Eveliene’s house has gorgeous views across a valley of gumtrees, filled with squawking cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets by day, and the soft calls of the boobook owl at night.
While I slowly healed and learned how to eat food other than clear liquids again, Mr A took himself off on an 8km hiking adventure with additional paddle, taking the pack-raft on his back. He hiked from the house down to Carroll Creek, and from there paddled under the Roseville Bridge. He even found his way home again without too much trouble…
After about a week of good rest and soft food, I felt ready to get back in the caravan, so we farewelled our friends in Forestville and headed off to Matraville to collect Tassie. Our departure was only delayed by dead batteries on the car – the problem with leaving it parked up over Christmas and not charging…ah well, a learning for the future. $650 and two new batteries later, we were finally away, and this time really ready to explore.
We left Matraville and Tassie’s foster parents, Jenny and David, on Saturday morning and headed up to Canowindra to collect the Zone.
Tassie had a great time exploring the barn, but was soon passed out once we reached the van park in Cowra for the night.
We stopped in Cowra two nights, an opportunity to get the car and caravan cleaned up and stocked up with food. The van park is lovely and leafy, though we were pleased we had access to electricity (and hence air conditioning) as the temperatures rose up in to the 30s. We even were treated to a surprise visit from Tassie’s other foster parents, Rosemary and Richard, as they passed through Cowra on their way to lunch with friends.
And so this morning we set off, heading on our way south. Our first destination was to be a pub on the outskirts of Albury, but with temperatures reaching the late 30s today we decided to find a caravan park again, and enjoy the comforts of air conditioning.
We crossed the border into the Victorian High Country, and headed for a little village called Chiltern.
We’re camped up tonight beside a water bird filled Lake Anderson…no relative.
Despite the warm temperatures we went out for a stroll around this very picturesque little village. It was initially a gold mining town, but now is a service centre for the agriculture providers surrounding. It has a couple of pubs, one apparently serving boutique wine (not on a Monday night though) and the other boasting ‘real Thai food cooked by a Thai chef’…we were almost tempted.
The village has an enthusiastic historical society and a large museum (also not open on Mondays), several antique shops and the buildings painted in heritage colours and preserving many of their original features. It’s very pretty and inspires authors and artists according to the local tourist literature. The National Trust has a hand in ensuring the preservation of many of the buildings here.
The Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park is not far from here, though the temperature today hasn’t tempted us to get on the mountain bikes for an explore (and I’m not sure my surgeon would advise that 2 weeks post op!). Maybe we will get there tomorrow – it’s meant to be a bit cooler.
It’s great to have my operation behind me and to be back travelling again. Mr A is doing all of the heavy lifting for this trip as I can’t do any for 6 weeks, but he doesn’t seem to mind the extra exercise. We’re both pleased to be back on the road seeing Australia with our adventurous fur child.
Reason: This was our first stop after having crossed the Nullabor, and our first taste of oysters since leaving Sydney back in May. It was spring when we reached Streaky Bay, and the weather was not quite settled. We had some fabulously warm mornings, but the afternoons often whipped up with quite a blustery wind. Nevertheless it was a great location to introduce us back into semi-civilisation, with a 10km coastal cycleway to explore, and some interesting road trips to natural landmarks. Quite a unique location.
Reason: We visited this location purely so I could go cage diving with Great White Sharks (a bucket list item and well worth the trip – I chose the ethical option with Adventure Bay Cruises). We originally booked in at the caravan park there for two nights, but loved it so much we stopped longer. Port Lincoln as a town has some great little restaurants, fabulous seafood and plenty of services. A short drive away is Lincoln National Park, home sea eagles, osprey and fur seals you can snorkel with, and numerous picturesque beaches. A flat cycleway follows the coast around into town and along to the marina (and possibly beyond), great exploring with plenty of birdlife. We really enjoyed our time here.
Reason: Anyone who knows us well (and our love of fine wine) will probably question why this fits as a surprising visit. Well the fact is we almost left on the first night due to the cold damp weather, but we were pleased we stuck around. The rail trail is a great drawcard here, relatively flat and guiding you to some fabulous tastings. The visitor information centre is award winning, and if you are there on a Friday night they do a wine tasting with $5 glasses of wine and $25 bottles and a cheese and nibbles plate – a brilliant way to meet your fellow campers and taste some local fare.
Reason: Of course the wine was fabulous – we had some great fun cycling around the area which is pretty flat with some off road cycleways, and great tastings. Highlights were Artisans of Barossa, Izway and the Taste of Eden. It was also our first opportunity to taste Vietnamese food in a long while at FermentAsian – a restaurant with a veritable bible of wine on offer – more than 1000 bottles. We settled for one!
Reason: Cowra is just an hour from Orange which we have visited on many occasions, but remained a blip on the map for more than 18 years. This time we picked up some literature about it while visiting Forbes, and thought it sounded lovely. As usual we laughed about what the differences were likely to be from the marketing material (often towns read like quaint French villages but disappoint horribly!). Cowra actually exceeds expectations! Surrounded by rolling hills (making the cycling a bit more of an effort than we’d been used to!), lots of interesting history surrounding the Japanese POW camp and some stunning gardens, Cowra also boasts a wine bar with fabulous selection of local beers and wine, and some great places to eat out. We loved the Indian restaurant – we’d put it up there among the best we’ve been to in Australia! The campsite was delightful too, grassy and shady, hosted by a lovely couple who became friends. Definitely worth a visit.
Thankfully once you are in the Canobolas Caravan Park the aspect brightens up…a little. We decide to only pay for one night and see what we think.
We strolled, admiring the views and marvelling at how comfortable the 33 degree day felt amongst all this green and water.
We decided to enjoy lunch in the café at the gardens (sadly not Japanese food – the only menu nod to the inspiration was a miso soup!).
After all this learning, we thought it should be time to go and try some local wine. We headed to a winery on our way back to Cowra, but sadly the cellar door was only open at the weekend. Such a shame. Hopefully the Orange wineries will be more welcoming over the next few days…yes, I know, another wine region in our future!
…And so to our final evening in Cowra. We again enjoyed the company of Keira and Glenn for a few beverages while our Weber cooked up our butterflied pork. We shared a few stories along the way, Mr A lamenting that I will never let him have a chain saw. Our close friends will know why…and so do Glenn and Kiera now.