A Drive in the Country Alan and I are driving for six days down to Victoria and along the Murray River. The focus for the journey is probably a dégustation dinner at Stefano’s in Mildura. This Italian immigrant chef has built a following from all over Au stralia with his ‘foodie’ television program “Gondola on the Murray”. Also, it’s an opportunity to take my new car for a spin in the countryside. It’s averaged less than 400kms a month since I bought it last year Secondary roads and having only half an idea of what I’m going to see always makes for exciting car trips into the countryside. We head off the main road from Sydney to Melbourne at a little town on the Murrumbidgee River called Jugiong that time’s forgotten. No leaves on the tall poplars and the roses are still waiting for spring to sprout but that also means a huge bowl of hot home made soup and freshly made cakes in front of a fire in a little café. Black cows are constantly chewing in the green pastures across the road. As a boy, Alan used to ask his mother why his toy cows always had their heads down. Now he knows.
Pastoral scene at Jugiong, NSW – no more drought in this part of Australia
1
Our first stop is in the historic town of Beechworth just over the border in north east Victoria. The wide main street is lined with bare branched English Elms with buildings from the19th Century proudly preserved as in a movie set. We stay in the old Bank next to the granite Court House where bushranger Ned Kelly was sentenced to hang. The building next to that is the State Treasury where miners, who had converged on the area seeking their fortunes, deposited more than 14,000 ounces of gold each week. No wonder there were bushrangers to contend with. The old Court House Beechworth NSW
Misty rain and the smell of log fires permeate the air on our day around Milawa and Beechworth. Far from disappointing, it simply adds to a wintry atmosphere. It hasn’t stopped the birds playing noisily in the chopped logs outside our room nor has it deterred us from our round of gourmet stops at the cheese factory, the mustard factory, and wine tasting at Brown Brothers Michael purchasing the Merlot at Brown Brothers Wines winery in Milawa in this celebrated gourmet corner of Victoria. The local fillet of beef is delicious at dinner but I heap the accolades on the delicious hot porridge (with separate dishes of honey, raspberry and brown sugar on the side) at breakfast – leaving hardly enough room for my lamb’s fry and bacon treat. Stomach lined, we head off along more secondary roads to stay in an old Post Office with a remarkable clock tower this time, at Echuca on the Murray. Paddle Alan and the paddle steamer on the Murray at Echuca, Victoria
steamers docked here to 2
collect the wool bales and transport it down river to market in the 19th Century. The old red gum double decked wharf still stands today. The water in the river is so low from the drought that it’s hard to imagine how the wharves were once used. It is the southern bank of the Murray River that forms the border between Victoria and New South Wales. If a fisherman throws in his line on the Victorian side, he requires a fishing licence from New South Wales. Here’s another easy situation for a ‘federalist’ approach to better provision of services to the population! We drive west along the river through landscapes of many colours – grazing, grapes and orange groves. Mildura means ‘red earth’ and we see why as we get closer. Various species of gum trees line the river banks and low clumps of Mallee scrub skirt the highway for much of the way. I can see where our much maligned Broken Hill artist Pro Hart got his inspiration.
Preparing for the vines in the red earth outside Mildura
Our Grand Hotel in Mildura takes up a whole block overlooking the river in this rather sizeable regional town. Music is piped from the telegraph poles as we walk down the street on a Sunday afternoon. Speakers have recently been installed in the Sydney CBD for emergency announcements
Grand Hotel, Mildura
3
in case of a terrorist incident. I wonder how long it will be before they start playing the Beatles or Beethoven to lunchtime shoppers. Dinner at Stefano’s in the basement of the hotel is quite an affair. Our angular faced, greased black haired Mafia style waiter (who is really a Greek from Melbourne) suggests a most unlikely Gewürztraminer as an aperitif and accompaniment for our King Fish Carpaccio, but it was most delicious and appropriate. I enjoyed Kingfish Carpaccio and Citrus Salad at Stefano’s in Mildura, Victoria it, but I think I agree with our friend Tony, the Count de Bortoli of Lugano and Oberon, who is most vociferous in his preference for eating upstairs and choosing what he likes from the black board menu. Lap, lap, lapping along the river sitting in our low slung canvas chairs with our faces to the winter sun (like all the other ‘grey nomads’ aboard our paddle steamer), we hear the small whistling kite darter eagle whistle to us and then see him soar from his nest high in the gum trees. The snake neck darter suns himself on the rocks Paddle Steamer PV ‘Rothbury’ - on the Murray River in Mildura, Vic. at the water’s edge like we’re doing on deck. I wasn’t expecting such beautiful bird life. The scenery is not as stunning here as along the Hawkesbury River closer to home. That’s where I’d like to rent a houseboat with a BBQ over the back and escape one long weekend. So many of the trees here are dead or rotting, and many have their tops blown off. The ravages of drought, electrical storms and bushfires are so evident. 4
Travelling home across the Hay Plain wasn’t as flat and boring as I’d been led to believe. Flat it is, but its strange seeing to treeless horizons with neither telegraph poles nor roadside markers as we speed along, seemingly in the only motor vehicle on the planet I love the old pubs and shops with verandahs above the footpaths in so many of the New South Wales country towns. So many have mature old trees lining the main street. Narrandera and Wagga are no exception. We have to finish this trip with an excursion off the highway onto another secondary road. I have the name of a café and preserves house in the middle of the countryside north of Canberra. A stop in Yass gets me the directions and a map from the local tourist office and off we go – and get lost. How wonderful – lost in the rain with the sheep and the cows for company. Finally, we navigate left and right and over the cattle grid to find the café in Collector closed. My next choice, a bakery in the old convict town of Berrima was open and had the most delicious home made hot steak and kidney pies waiting for us. An hour later, Alan was deposited at the kerbside at Sydney Airport for the flight back to the Gold Coast. A great time enjoyed by all!
Pastoral Scene near Collector NSW
Michael Musgrave
15 th August 2007
5
Gundagai NSW To see my Picasa SLIDESHOW click on http://picasaweb.google.com/michaelmusg/VictoriaMurrayRiverAug2007?authkey=IZcB8sR98Qo (be patient while it opens)
6