At Home On The Ranges /
Travel
At home on
the Ranges
M
elbourne’s Yarra Ranges, just over an hour’s drive from the city, is the perfect weekend getaway. You can tell by the traffic jam on a Friday afternoon as thousands of Melburnians head for the hills. But if you can steal a few days off during the week – and what is retirement if you can’t do that! – you will be rewarded with a quieter, more enjoyable break. It’s not too quiet, places are buzzy, and service is warm and friendly, but it feels like a VIP tour of this popular region. My first stop is for a caffeine hit at the popular Nancy’s of the Valley, a retro-styled cafe with a locals-first produce policy that sees your sustainable Silva coffee teamed with Tyrone’s raw milk– and the coffee grinds will end up distributed to local gardens. Next, I make my way to Four Pillars Gin, the
Yarra Valley’s award-winning distillery whose cellar door is a bun fight on weekends. Today I stroll straight in, and the manager pulls up a seat to show me the recently released barrel-aged gins: the Chardonnay Barrel Gin and the Sherry Cask gin. Mellow sipping gins. Midweek, visitors to Four Pillars definitely get more attention with staff able to spend more time explaining the various tastings, I am then sent away with a Modern Australian Gin and tonic, a collab with Qantas and Rockpool featuring Indigenous ingredients like quandong with an Asian twist of Szechuan peppers adding bite.
APRIL - MAY 2022 ACTIVE RETIREES |
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Yarra Valley Dairy is another heaving weekend spot that is quieter, but far from empty, on my visit. It’s a quick stop as I’m almost late for dinner, but I grab the signature Persian Feta.
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