Discussions as we drove out of Rocky the next morning suggested we’d found the right place to stay on the return leg of future southern odysseys, and while I’d go for other arrangements for the second last day (assuming we were heading away from Springfield Lakes, there’s not much room for manoeuvre if you’re heading off from Southport), the prospect of an uncomplicated last day drive had plenty to recommend it.
An hour or so from Rocky to Marlborough, one and a half to Flaggy Rock, a further hour to Mackay and two more to Bowen with a meal break somewhere along the line is hardly conducive to complexity, given the relative lack of alternatives along the way.
That second last day option needs investigating, and I’d be inclined to make the return journey a three day event, with the first day heading out to Toowoomba, Dalby or Kingaroy, but those issues are, of course, a matter for future negotiations.
Negotiating our way out of Rocky that morning would have been a fair bit easier if we’d done the calculations a bit earlier and concluded that we might need to refuel in the city, just to be on the safe side, rather than deferring the issue till Marlborough or points north.
We were past the most obvious left-side options on the divided carriageway by that point, but two U-turns and a pit stop on the southbound side addressed the issue without creating major complications, and the hour-long stretch to Marlborough passed without incident or excitement.
after that, once we’d hit the 110 kph section it seemed like no time at all till we were in sight of the end 100 sign at Clairview, even though there had been a toilet stop along the way, and it wasn’t long after that before we found ourselves discussing the takeaway options for Flaggy Rock home made ice cream while we waited for brunch.
It should come as no surprise to learn that Hughesy opted for the almost obligatory hot dog, though Madam veered off in the direction of a salad sandwich before establishing that the takeaway ice cream came in pre-packaged packs of a single flavour (rather than giving you the choice of a bit of this and a bit of that) and, anyway, they were low on ice so it wasn’t an option anyway.
Possibly, now that we’ve got the iPad as a navigational aid, we’ll be diverting off the main highway before Mackay’s City Gates, but I’m not convinced there’s a better option anyway, and by the time the subject was raised we were past the most obvious alternative route through Homebush.
From the City Gates, the run along the banks of the Pioneer, turning off that road just after Marian and rejoining the Bruce Highway at Kuttabul is so familiar that it’d take a significant development to give anything to comment about, and once we were back on the main track it was only a matter of deciding against a refuelling stop at Bloomsbury before we found ourselves passing through Proserpine with the scheduled two-thirty arrival in Bowen looking like a definite possibility.
Much of that last leg was spent discussing whether the length of time we’d been away, comprising as it did about a quarter of their young lives, would mean that three kittens would have forgotten us, but, as it turned out, between Mother Alison and three juvenile memories it wasn’t long before the familiar calls for sustenance resumed amidst our own efforts to revert to the sedentary lifestyle.
Sedentary is, of course, hardly a synonym for uneventful, and within an hour of pulling into the driveway Hughesy was on the blower to the cabinet makers and The Actor negotiating the arrangements for pulling out the old model and installing the gleaming new arrangement on the other side of the office wall.
But that’s hardly travelogue material, eh?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Day Twenty-four: Springfield Lakes - Central Queensland
Given the fact that the first bit of the day’s route would take us through suburban Brisbane there didn’t seem to be much point in busting a boiler to get on the frog and toad around sparrow fart, and there were other factors that kicked in and ensured that it was well after nine-fifteen when we started transferring what we’d moved from car to house on Saturday afternoon back to the vehicle.
That followed a leisurely breakfast, a spot of keeping The Little Tacker occupied while Mum delivered ex-Wo Wo Boy to school and a bit of a chin wag once she was back, but once everything was back in the car, there isn’t really that much else you can do but head off.
Maps wanted to take us on a circuitous route via the motorways, but we’d had a squiz at the alternatives and figured out a route that would take us through the northern suburbs around the back of Hughesy’s childhood stamping grounds and bring us out on Old Gympie Road around Kedron.
Maps’ preference for the other route meant that I’d been forced to do a two stage bit, first from Springfield Lakes to Stafford Road, and from there to Childers, which was probably a bit too far north, but there you go.
And, in hindsight, it was just as well I’d mapped that out and had the blue line to follow, since the exit from the motorway onto the ring road wasn’t the most prominent of landmarks and could easily have been missed.
But, fortunately, we didn’t miss it.
While the route snaked up hill and down dale through leafy suburbs the traffic flowed smoothly (if rather slower than you’d have preferred with the number of traffic lights en route) and we found ourselves decanted onto Old Gympie Road without major hassles.
That was just as well, because the weather definitely left something to be desired, with drizzle that intermittently cleared and regularly cut back in as soon as you started thinking it looked pretty clear up ahead.
There was also a lengthy delay on the actual motorway with one northbound lane closed due to an issue with an Army vehicle, but once we were past that, things ran fairly smoothly traffic wise, even if the weather definitely could have been better.
Eventually, however, we hit blue sky, though we weren’t far out of Childers when that happened. A stop at the bakery in Childers provided a latish lunch, and a refuelling stop in Gin Gin meant that we were into late afternoon when we got to the area where we’d be meeting a bed for the night.
On the way down we’d stopped in Gladstone, which would have got my vote and ensured an excuse for Swain’s Fish & Chips, but a quick look at what was available via Safari on the iPad while we were in Gin Gin revealed nothing priced under $200, and Madam was quite adamant that she wasn’t paying that.
Gladstone wasn’t the only option, but having decided we weren’t diverting off the highway Madam wasn’t inclined to look at the options south of Rockhampton too closely since she’d picked a preferred option on the banks of the Fitzroy.
That meant we passed Miriam Vale, Koorawatha, Bororen, Benaraby and Calliope, increasingly looking into the late afternoon sun as we went, and Hughesy would definitely have preferred to have been doing something else. Matters improved once we hit Mount Larcom, and while the conditions still weren’t ideal, we hit Rockhampton just after six and arrived at Madam’s preferred option to find that, yes, they did have room at the inn.
We were also advised of a number of nearby dining options. The most convenient of them was the Cambridge Hotel Motel, where we’d have the choice of the Flame Char Grill or The Overflow Bar and Bistro, and if we didn’t favour either of those, there were further options that wouldn’t involve a compass and a cut lunch.
At Flame Char, when we took a look at the menu the prices looked a bit rich, with not much change out of $30 if you’re looking at a steak, but an all you can eat affair at The Overflow looked much more reasonable, and it was two heavily sated diners who waddled out of the premises an hour or so later.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that what’s on offer there is the greatest thing you’ve ever tasted, but it was tasty, there was plenty of it and, more than likely, no need for breakfast the following morning, where the old Flaggy Rock hot dog some time after eleven looked like the way to go as far as brunch was concerned.
That followed a leisurely breakfast, a spot of keeping The Little Tacker occupied while Mum delivered ex-Wo Wo Boy to school and a bit of a chin wag once she was back, but once everything was back in the car, there isn’t really that much else you can do but head off.
Maps wanted to take us on a circuitous route via the motorways, but we’d had a squiz at the alternatives and figured out a route that would take us through the northern suburbs around the back of Hughesy’s childhood stamping grounds and bring us out on Old Gympie Road around Kedron.
Maps’ preference for the other route meant that I’d been forced to do a two stage bit, first from Springfield Lakes to Stafford Road, and from there to Childers, which was probably a bit too far north, but there you go.
And, in hindsight, it was just as well I’d mapped that out and had the blue line to follow, since the exit from the motorway onto the ring road wasn’t the most prominent of landmarks and could easily have been missed.
But, fortunately, we didn’t miss it.
While the route snaked up hill and down dale through leafy suburbs the traffic flowed smoothly (if rather slower than you’d have preferred with the number of traffic lights en route) and we found ourselves decanted onto Old Gympie Road without major hassles.
That was just as well, because the weather definitely left something to be desired, with drizzle that intermittently cleared and regularly cut back in as soon as you started thinking it looked pretty clear up ahead.
There was also a lengthy delay on the actual motorway with one northbound lane closed due to an issue with an Army vehicle, but once we were past that, things ran fairly smoothly traffic wise, even if the weather definitely could have been better.
Eventually, however, we hit blue sky, though we weren’t far out of Childers when that happened. A stop at the bakery in Childers provided a latish lunch, and a refuelling stop in Gin Gin meant that we were into late afternoon when we got to the area where we’d be meeting a bed for the night.
On the way down we’d stopped in Gladstone, which would have got my vote and ensured an excuse for Swain’s Fish & Chips, but a quick look at what was available via Safari on the iPad while we were in Gin Gin revealed nothing priced under $200, and Madam was quite adamant that she wasn’t paying that.
Gladstone wasn’t the only option, but having decided we weren’t diverting off the highway Madam wasn’t inclined to look at the options south of Rockhampton too closely since she’d picked a preferred option on the banks of the Fitzroy.
That meant we passed Miriam Vale, Koorawatha, Bororen, Benaraby and Calliope, increasingly looking into the late afternoon sun as we went, and Hughesy would definitely have preferred to have been doing something else. Matters improved once we hit Mount Larcom, and while the conditions still weren’t ideal, we hit Rockhampton just after six and arrived at Madam’s preferred option to find that, yes, they did have room at the inn.
We were also advised of a number of nearby dining options. The most convenient of them was the Cambridge Hotel Motel, where we’d have the choice of the Flame Char Grill or The Overflow Bar and Bistro, and if we didn’t favour either of those, there were further options that wouldn’t involve a compass and a cut lunch.
At Flame Char, when we took a look at the menu the prices looked a bit rich, with not much change out of $30 if you’re looking at a steak, but an all you can eat affair at The Overflow looked much more reasonable, and it was two heavily sated diners who waddled out of the premises an hour or so later.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that what’s on offer there is the greatest thing you’ve ever tasted, but it was tasty, there was plenty of it and, more than likely, no need for breakfast the following morning, where the old Flaggy Rock hot dog some time after eleven looked like the way to go as far as brunch was concerned.
Day Twenty-three: Springfield Lakes
That visit to the IGA while we waited for the takeaway had unforeseen consequences the following morning. Ex-Neighbour Bloke’s sighting of a fair bargain in the bacon department, and had ended up buying the lot of what was on display.
One suspects that there was more lurking in the deli’s equivalent of the pantry fridge, and shudders at the thought of what may have happened had the tray been replenished earlier in proceedings.
I buy bacon from the deli every so often, usually in the form of bacon pieces rather than rashers, and in specific quantities depending on whether I’m looking at a pasta carbonara (80-100g) or a matriciana (120-150g) or both (200-350g). That gets over the issue of deli workers whose estimation skills or lack thereof produce a glance in the customer’s direction when the quantity on the scales is outside a reasonable margin of error.
The girl behind the counter’s first two attempts were comfortably under the required amount, and with uncertainty about how much of what was left in the tray would be needed to bring it up to the required quantity, we’d walked away with the lot.
Understandable under the circumstances, but it didn’t necessarily mean that the whole lot needed to go on the barbie the next morning. There was a further complication in the form of some rather good sausages sourced from Schulte's Meat Tavern near Marburg, home of the wursts of fond memory from late eighties Ipswich cricket trips.
Separately, the quantity of bacon on offer would have done for breakfast for a couple of reasonably hungry adults, as would the supply of sausages that had joined the bacon. Put together, however, they made a mountain that took a deal of effort to work our way through.
I’m not quite the trencherman I used to be, but I’m happy with the concept of a substantial breakfast, and something along those lines will usually keep me going until dinner time, so I hoed in, figuring that the talk of visiting Little Vietnam in Inala and lunch would involve a snack rather than a substantial meal and would be taking place later rather than sooner.
Both assumptions proved unfounded, since it wasn’t long between the end of breakfast and departure, and a relatively late breakfast, even after a good hour’s perambulations around the shopping centre, was followed by suggestions of an uncomfortably early lunch.
Everyone else (or at least the rest of the adult portion thereof) didn’t have the same problem, having exercised more restraint at the breakfast table, so I can’t report on what was on the menu at the selected venue.
While the others sat down to eat, I found a bench in a shady spot and ended up having an interesting conversation with ex-Wo Wo Boy about large numbers. He’s certainly come a long way since everything that moves apart from Mum and Dad was Wo Wo, but they do that and there’ll be a long way to go, of course.
We were back home around one, which was the time I’d possibly have been thinking of lunch, and probably have been coming up with a maybe not quite yet, and the rest of the afternoon passed without dramas on the travellers’ side of things although Hughesy got ann up close and personal look at parenting issues when you’re dealing with a toddler and a Year One kid, but we might draw a discreet veil over that one.
Dinner was a steak and salad with the regular sides, and went down well. Hardly the largest meal I’ve ever consumed, and I just managed to finish it, which means, of course, that had the maybe not quite yet in the preceding paragraph been followed by a well, why not? we would have had on-going issues at dinner time.
One suspects that there was more lurking in the deli’s equivalent of the pantry fridge, and shudders at the thought of what may have happened had the tray been replenished earlier in proceedings.
I buy bacon from the deli every so often, usually in the form of bacon pieces rather than rashers, and in specific quantities depending on whether I’m looking at a pasta carbonara (80-100g) or a matriciana (120-150g) or both (200-350g). That gets over the issue of deli workers whose estimation skills or lack thereof produce a glance in the customer’s direction when the quantity on the scales is outside a reasonable margin of error.
The girl behind the counter’s first two attempts were comfortably under the required amount, and with uncertainty about how much of what was left in the tray would be needed to bring it up to the required quantity, we’d walked away with the lot.
Understandable under the circumstances, but it didn’t necessarily mean that the whole lot needed to go on the barbie the next morning. There was a further complication in the form of some rather good sausages sourced from Schulte's Meat Tavern near Marburg, home of the wursts of fond memory from late eighties Ipswich cricket trips.
Separately, the quantity of bacon on offer would have done for breakfast for a couple of reasonably hungry adults, as would the supply of sausages that had joined the bacon. Put together, however, they made a mountain that took a deal of effort to work our way through.
I’m not quite the trencherman I used to be, but I’m happy with the concept of a substantial breakfast, and something along those lines will usually keep me going until dinner time, so I hoed in, figuring that the talk of visiting Little Vietnam in Inala and lunch would involve a snack rather than a substantial meal and would be taking place later rather than sooner.
Both assumptions proved unfounded, since it wasn’t long between the end of breakfast and departure, and a relatively late breakfast, even after a good hour’s perambulations around the shopping centre, was followed by suggestions of an uncomfortably early lunch.
Everyone else (or at least the rest of the adult portion thereof) didn’t have the same problem, having exercised more restraint at the breakfast table, so I can’t report on what was on the menu at the selected venue.
While the others sat down to eat, I found a bench in a shady spot and ended up having an interesting conversation with ex-Wo Wo Boy about large numbers. He’s certainly come a long way since everything that moves apart from Mum and Dad was Wo Wo, but they do that and there’ll be a long way to go, of course.
We were back home around one, which was the time I’d possibly have been thinking of lunch, and probably have been coming up with a maybe not quite yet, and the rest of the afternoon passed without dramas on the travellers’ side of things although Hughesy got ann up close and personal look at parenting issues when you’re dealing with a toddler and a Year One kid, but we might draw a discreet veil over that one.
Dinner was a steak and salad with the regular sides, and went down well. Hardly the largest meal I’ve ever consumed, and I just managed to finish it, which means, of course, that had the maybe not quite yet in the preceding paragraph been followed by a well, why not? we would have had on-going issues at dinner time.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Day Twenty-two: Glen Innes - Springfield Lakes
It wasn’t that long after dinner when Hughesy found himself safely tucked away in the sub-doona warmth pushing up Zs, and well after sunrise when I made my way gingerly into the new day.
While the night’s accommodation would have been quite satisfactory in the summer months, and there wasn’t much that was actually wrong with the place, there was a distinct lack of insulation that meant we were heavily dependent on the heater in the cabin’s living room, and we weren’t inclined to wander too far from the warmth as we gathered the goods and chattels and prepared to head into Glen Innes for breakfast.
The day’s game plan involved a wander around downtown Glen Innes after breakfast, followed by the drive through Tenterfield, Stanthorpe, Warwick and Cunningham’s Gap en route to the Ex-Neighbours and Springfield Lakes.
Given rumours of a particularly outstanding Indian eatery in the vicinity, a substantial breakfast followed by minimal action on the lunch front before what threatened to be a substantial evening meal seemed the way to go, and we found Cuisine Cafe the ideal avenue to stock up on sustenance to keep us going through the day.
With the circuit of Grey Street’s historic buildings and streetscape out of the way it was back to the Visitor Centre to retrieve the car and off up the nearby hill where the Australian Standing Stones were set up as a Bicentenary national monument to honour Glen Innes's Celtic heritage. They’re an impressive sight and had attracted their fair share of visitors while Madam snapped away.
From there we hit Tenterfield, Wallangarra, Stanthorpe and Warwick in rapid succession before the not quite eagerly anticipated descent through Cunningham’s Gap. The ascent, a week and a half earlier, had involved a couple of lengthy delays, and while we expected things might run a little more smoothly on a Saturday afternoon we weren’t overly optimistic about the prospects.
There was, as it turned out, a slight delay at the top of the range, but we got a clear, if not exactly rapid run through to Aratula, where there was the chance to refuel and consider whether we were, in fact, in need of lunch.
As it turned out, while we could have indulged in something we were still fairly well sated after a latish breakfast, so it was back onto the road for the run into unknown territory to the southwest of Brisbane.
This, as it turned out, was where the iPad came into its own as an aid to navigation.
The coincidence of inbuilt GPS technology and the Maps app didn’t quite work perfectly as we went through a succession of closely-spaced roundabouts, but there was only one missed turn in an environment where the mistake was quickly corrected.
We arrived around three-forty-five to find WoWo Boy and the Little Tacker were terrorising other areas of the neighbourhood, which gave the opportunity for a casual tour through the new domicile, followed by an uninterrupted chance to catch up on news before Mum returned the two terrors to base and planning for the evening meal kicked in.
All we’d heard to date was a brief descriptor of best Indian ever, but I’d done a bit of preliminary research on the Urbanspoon app, and suspected the place under mention was the Punjab Curry Club, which had amazingly consistent favourable ratings.
Most places I’d checked out on Urbanspoon have attracted a mixture of comments, varying from the wildly enthusiastic to the avoid at all costs, and there aren’t too many I’ve looked at that have attracted nothing on the negative side of extremely favourable, but that was the case when I pointed the iPad towards Punjab Curry Club, and what arrived on the table after we’d collected the takeaway certainly justified the rave reviews.
The meal wasn’t quite ready when we arrived at the eatery, and the need to kill a few minutes produced a wander through the nearby IGA, where I collected a six-pack ofbottled water for the return home leg of the journey and Ex-Neighbour Bloke grabbed a quantity of bacon that caused a few complications the following day.
Given the fact that we had four reasonably hungry adults, two of them with substantial appetites to start with, the order was nothing short of substantial, and while the intervening period has dimmed Hughesy’s recall of the actual dishes involved (apart from the Lamb Saag, which was my contribution to the order, and rather bloody lovely it was) there was no doubting the quality and we fed the four of us to the point where there wasn’t room for any more as far as Hughesy was concerned although there was still something left on the table.
Generous helpings, very high quality and extremely reasonably priced. Given the chance I’ll definitely be back.
While the night’s accommodation would have been quite satisfactory in the summer months, and there wasn’t much that was actually wrong with the place, there was a distinct lack of insulation that meant we were heavily dependent on the heater in the cabin’s living room, and we weren’t inclined to wander too far from the warmth as we gathered the goods and chattels and prepared to head into Glen Innes for breakfast.
The day’s game plan involved a wander around downtown Glen Innes after breakfast, followed by the drive through Tenterfield, Stanthorpe, Warwick and Cunningham’s Gap en route to the Ex-Neighbours and Springfield Lakes.
Given rumours of a particularly outstanding Indian eatery in the vicinity, a substantial breakfast followed by minimal action on the lunch front before what threatened to be a substantial evening meal seemed the way to go, and we found Cuisine Cafe the ideal avenue to stock up on sustenance to keep us going through the day.
With the circuit of Grey Street’s historic buildings and streetscape out of the way it was back to the Visitor Centre to retrieve the car and off up the nearby hill where the Australian Standing Stones were set up as a Bicentenary national monument to honour Glen Innes's Celtic heritage. They’re an impressive sight and had attracted their fair share of visitors while Madam snapped away.
From there we hit Tenterfield, Wallangarra, Stanthorpe and Warwick in rapid succession before the not quite eagerly anticipated descent through Cunningham’s Gap. The ascent, a week and a half earlier, had involved a couple of lengthy delays, and while we expected things might run a little more smoothly on a Saturday afternoon we weren’t overly optimistic about the prospects.
There was, as it turned out, a slight delay at the top of the range, but we got a clear, if not exactly rapid run through to Aratula, where there was the chance to refuel and consider whether we were, in fact, in need of lunch.
As it turned out, while we could have indulged in something we were still fairly well sated after a latish breakfast, so it was back onto the road for the run into unknown territory to the southwest of Brisbane.
This, as it turned out, was where the iPad came into its own as an aid to navigation.
The coincidence of inbuilt GPS technology and the Maps app didn’t quite work perfectly as we went through a succession of closely-spaced roundabouts, but there was only one missed turn in an environment where the mistake was quickly corrected.
We arrived around three-forty-five to find WoWo Boy and the Little Tacker were terrorising other areas of the neighbourhood, which gave the opportunity for a casual tour through the new domicile, followed by an uninterrupted chance to catch up on news before Mum returned the two terrors to base and planning for the evening meal kicked in.
All we’d heard to date was a brief descriptor of best Indian ever, but I’d done a bit of preliminary research on the Urbanspoon app, and suspected the place under mention was the Punjab Curry Club, which had amazingly consistent favourable ratings.
Most places I’d checked out on Urbanspoon have attracted a mixture of comments, varying from the wildly enthusiastic to the avoid at all costs, and there aren’t too many I’ve looked at that have attracted nothing on the negative side of extremely favourable, but that was the case when I pointed the iPad towards Punjab Curry Club, and what arrived on the table after we’d collected the takeaway certainly justified the rave reviews.
The meal wasn’t quite ready when we arrived at the eatery, and the need to kill a few minutes produced a wander through the nearby IGA, where I collected a six-pack ofbottled water for the return home leg of the journey and Ex-Neighbour Bloke grabbed a quantity of bacon that caused a few complications the following day.
Given the fact that we had four reasonably hungry adults, two of them with substantial appetites to start with, the order was nothing short of substantial, and while the intervening period has dimmed Hughesy’s recall of the actual dishes involved (apart from the Lamb Saag, which was my contribution to the order, and rather bloody lovely it was) there was no doubting the quality and we fed the four of us to the point where there wasn’t room for any more as far as Hughesy was concerned although there was still something left on the table.
Generous helpings, very high quality and extremely reasonably priced. Given the chance I’ll definitely be back.
Day Twenty-one: Gunnedah - Glen Innes
While I’m by no means a coffee addict, there’s no doubt that I need my mug of industrial-strength caffeine to kickstart my morning and that fact was underlined by Friday morning’s events.
The outside temperature meant I wasn’t too keen on sticking my nose too far out of the warmth of the doona, but around six-fifteen Madam sprang into action and I was obliged to follow. My role, after the previous evenimng’s excursion, was to tag along and act as navigator while Madam headed out in search of koalas to photograph, hardly surprising given Gunnedah’s self-proclaimed status as the Koala capital of Australia.
In the space of around ten minutes I went from a state of pleaant drowsiness to full on which way do I turn mode without too much time to catch my breath as we headed towards Porcupine Lookout.
Given a few minutes to gather my wits we might well have found ourselves a better option than where we eventually parked, heading off to hoof it along vaguely defined walking tracks in search of animals that steadfastly refused to manifest themselves in the treetops, and after that particularly fruitless excursion we were headed out of town around eight-thirty, with Tamworth, Armiodale and Glen Innes firmly in our sights.
Those who know me might be slightly bemused by Hughesy’s mention of Tamworth, given its status as Australia’s country music capital, but the road was going to take us through the city and Madam remembered a large guitar somewhere on the road into town from our previous visit en route between the Hunter Valley and Glen Innes back in December 2005.
The route into town this time around, however, wasn’t quite the same as the previous one, and the guitar, like Gunnedah’s koalas failed to appear as we looked around for fuel, information and the road to Armidale, which was where Madam wanted to spend a bit more time on the ground.
On that basis, having skimped breakfast with a bit of time to go till lunch, heading more or less straight off seemed a better option than looking around for oversized musical instruments.
That 2005 trip had brought us into Armidale in time for a very late lunch, and that visit had done enough to pique Madam’s photographic interest this time around, and it was getting very close to lunch time when we parked the car behind the local Visitor Information Centre.
Again, the reader might find the frequent references to such locations slightly bemusing, but I’d counter such bemusement by pointing out that such centres almost invariably offer large quantites of parking space and toilet facilities along with useful information, so once we’d parked the car it was a matter of trekking off in search of the place where we’d eaten five and a half years before (or, failing that, a suitable alternative).
That quest wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed, given the fact that in 2005 we hadn’t fallen prey to the siren song of the Visitor Information centre, and had obviously, as it rapidly became clear, parked somewhere else last time around.
Those memory factors also kick in when you’re tapping out the details close to a fortnight after the actual events.
The Visitor Information lady wasn’t exactly a fountain of information when it came to interesting lunch, seemingly inclined to point us towards the nearby bowls and RSL clubs which probably says a bit about the usual clientele passing through the centre, so we headed off towards the mall in search of a cafe, restaurant or similar operation.
The memory and fortnight later factors mean that I don’t recall the exact details of the option we eventually chose, but their version of the standard big breakfast was enough to fill the gaping hole and ensure that we didn’t need a huge feed of tuna pasta when we arrived at the overnight accommodation just south of Glen Innes.
After lunch we had a good hour or two to wander round the Armidale CBD, not quite following the exact historic walk laid out in the leaflet we’d acquired along the way, which gave me the chance to belatedly spot the previous visit’s lunch venue and Madam the chance to capture images of historic buildings and impressive church structures.
Given a few minutes either way en route, we may well have avoided the coincidence of ourselves, a slow-moving vehicle and a speed camera that had us anxiously scanning the incoming mail over the past week or so, but we didn’t, and hindsight is, as they say, invariably 20/20.
Still, despite that minor drama we made it into Craigieburn Cottages on the outskirts of Glen Innes comfortably before nightfall, and there were late afternoon photo opportunities for half the party while Hughesy finished tapping out the details of the three days we’d spent in Canberra.
Tuna pasta and a bottle of red aren’t the greatest food and wine match you’ve ever encountered, but we were out of chilled white and the outside weather wasn’t white amenable anyway.
The outside temperature meant I wasn’t too keen on sticking my nose too far out of the warmth of the doona, but around six-fifteen Madam sprang into action and I was obliged to follow. My role, after the previous evenimng’s excursion, was to tag along and act as navigator while Madam headed out in search of koalas to photograph, hardly surprising given Gunnedah’s self-proclaimed status as the Koala capital of Australia.
In the space of around ten minutes I went from a state of pleaant drowsiness to full on which way do I turn mode without too much time to catch my breath as we headed towards Porcupine Lookout.
Given a few minutes to gather my wits we might well have found ourselves a better option than where we eventually parked, heading off to hoof it along vaguely defined walking tracks in search of animals that steadfastly refused to manifest themselves in the treetops, and after that particularly fruitless excursion we were headed out of town around eight-thirty, with Tamworth, Armiodale and Glen Innes firmly in our sights.
Those who know me might be slightly bemused by Hughesy’s mention of Tamworth, given its status as Australia’s country music capital, but the road was going to take us through the city and Madam remembered a large guitar somewhere on the road into town from our previous visit en route between the Hunter Valley and Glen Innes back in December 2005.
The route into town this time around, however, wasn’t quite the same as the previous one, and the guitar, like Gunnedah’s koalas failed to appear as we looked around for fuel, information and the road to Armidale, which was where Madam wanted to spend a bit more time on the ground.
On that basis, having skimped breakfast with a bit of time to go till lunch, heading more or less straight off seemed a better option than looking around for oversized musical instruments.
That 2005 trip had brought us into Armidale in time for a very late lunch, and that visit had done enough to pique Madam’s photographic interest this time around, and it was getting very close to lunch time when we parked the car behind the local Visitor Information Centre.
Again, the reader might find the frequent references to such locations slightly bemusing, but I’d counter such bemusement by pointing out that such centres almost invariably offer large quantites of parking space and toilet facilities along with useful information, so once we’d parked the car it was a matter of trekking off in search of the place where we’d eaten five and a half years before (or, failing that, a suitable alternative).
That quest wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed, given the fact that in 2005 we hadn’t fallen prey to the siren song of the Visitor Information centre, and had obviously, as it rapidly became clear, parked somewhere else last time around.
Those memory factors also kick in when you’re tapping out the details close to a fortnight after the actual events.
The Visitor Information lady wasn’t exactly a fountain of information when it came to interesting lunch, seemingly inclined to point us towards the nearby bowls and RSL clubs which probably says a bit about the usual clientele passing through the centre, so we headed off towards the mall in search of a cafe, restaurant or similar operation.
The memory and fortnight later factors mean that I don’t recall the exact details of the option we eventually chose, but their version of the standard big breakfast was enough to fill the gaping hole and ensure that we didn’t need a huge feed of tuna pasta when we arrived at the overnight accommodation just south of Glen Innes.
After lunch we had a good hour or two to wander round the Armidale CBD, not quite following the exact historic walk laid out in the leaflet we’d acquired along the way, which gave me the chance to belatedly spot the previous visit’s lunch venue and Madam the chance to capture images of historic buildings and impressive church structures.
Given a few minutes either way en route, we may well have avoided the coincidence of ourselves, a slow-moving vehicle and a speed camera that had us anxiously scanning the incoming mail over the past week or so, but we didn’t, and hindsight is, as they say, invariably 20/20.
Still, despite that minor drama we made it into Craigieburn Cottages on the outskirts of Glen Innes comfortably before nightfall, and there were late afternoon photo opportunities for half the party while Hughesy finished tapping out the details of the three days we’d spent in Canberra.
Tuna pasta and a bottle of red aren’t the greatest food and wine match you’ve ever encountered, but we were out of chilled white and the outside weather wasn’t white amenable anyway.
Day Twenty: Canowindra - Gunnedah
There have been frequent references to the effects of cold weather on brass monkeys over the years, but I've never heard anything about similar circumstances involving those flaps you find on the bottom of doors.
It was cool enough when I eventually deigned to depart from under the doona, even with the reverse cycle kicking in, and I was more than a little bemused, having showered and done the rest of the developing pre-departure ritual, to find the metal strip had detached itself from the door when I started lugging the personal effects back down to the vehicle.
Personally, I would have been quite happy to head straight to the local bakery, grab a pie or something similar and headed off towards Gunnedah, but Madam had other ideas, given the number of interesting old buildings in downtown Canowindra that were literally screaming Photograph me!
That wasn’t a problem as far I was concerned, since the car was parked in a position that caught the morning sun rather well, though that changed when The Photographer returned, announcing she’d found a couple of things I needed to look at.
This might have produced a more positive reaction if leaving the car hadn’t involved moving out of the warming sun, but once we’d looked at the window of the antiques store and made a couple of purchases at a rather alternative fruit shop it was Madam’s turn to be unimpressed once we’d driven down the road to Deli Lama and found what she’d just bought was a couple of dollars cheaper there.
Deli Lama wasn’t exactly packed when we wandered in for breakfast, but it seems to do a reasonably passing trade and was probably a better option than the bakery. I doubt the bakery does bacon and egg muffins.
Back in the car we were in for a substantial drive, since it was Thursday morning and we were looking at getting to the Ex-Neighbours southwest of Brisbane on Saturday afternoon.
Now, you might look at the map and figure three easy stages, but Madam had decided that Glen Innes was the right spot to stop on Friday night, so we’d looked for options for Friday’s drive and figured Armidale was probably worth a walk around, which meant that Friday’s drive needed to be reasonably short, and, in turn, that meant we were probably best off spending Thursday night in Gunnedah.
There were a couple of possible routes to get there, so we decided to take advice in Wellington, which was more or less known territory since we’d passed through the place on the way to Orange and knew the road was reasonable up to there.
Canowindra to Molong was new to us, however, and was a pleasant enough drive, and we pulled over for a visit to an ATM in Molong before establishing that our preferred route through Gulgong and Coolah was driver friendly when we called at the Visitor Information in Wellington.
Wellington to Gulgong had looked potentially difficult on the terrain side of things, but turned out to be a pleasant enough drive and it was just after lunch time when we arrived in Gulgong, deciding the historic gold mining town and home of Henry Lawson was worth a wander with or without lunch.
Given the historic status of many of the towns in the area you could probably spend several days wandering around, camera in hand, but we didn’t have days to spare, so an hour or so on the ground in Gulgong had to do.
I could probably have grabbed something for lunch, but after the dietary xcesses of the preceding week or so I wasn’t over-hungry and was quite happy to wait till the evening for a substantial dinner.
The road through Coolah was another pleasant drive and it was just after four-thirty when we pulled in to the motel in Gunnedah, timing that had Madam heading out the door pretty soon after our arrival with a view to photographing the sunset.
There was a suitable viewing option a block or three away from the motel, so she decided to walk, a decision that didn’t quite take the speed with which night falls into account, and I’d just finished tapping out a bit of travelogue on the iPad when I realised that the shades of night were well and truly with us before Madam had returned.
I spent a relatively anxious few minutes before the return was effected, and once the reunification was effected it was more or less time for dinner. There were a number of options, and with the benefit of hindsight we might have opted for the Indian down the street rather than Wild Orchards across the road.
There wasn’t much wrong with Wild Orchards on the food side of things, but a glance at the wine list revealed a distinct lack of anything interesting to drink if you’re trying to stay away from the usual big corporate suspects and disinclined to shell out big bucks for the upper reaches of the Penfolds portfolio.
Of course, there’s every chance that the story would have been similar regardless of which dining option we’d chosen.There are reasons why what I’d term the usual suspects turn up on restaurant wine lists over and over again, and those reasons are probably more pronounced away from the major centres, and there’s probably an even stronger tendency in areas where the economy’s being propped up by the mining boom and there are a number of people passing through town on mining-related business.
Gunnedah certainly seemed to be pretty well endowed when it came to dining options, given the fact that population-wise it’s around the same size as Bowen, and one can’t help but wonder why that should be.
It was cool enough when I eventually deigned to depart from under the doona, even with the reverse cycle kicking in, and I was more than a little bemused, having showered and done the rest of the developing pre-departure ritual, to find the metal strip had detached itself from the door when I started lugging the personal effects back down to the vehicle.
Personally, I would have been quite happy to head straight to the local bakery, grab a pie or something similar and headed off towards Gunnedah, but Madam had other ideas, given the number of interesting old buildings in downtown Canowindra that were literally screaming Photograph me!
That wasn’t a problem as far I was concerned, since the car was parked in a position that caught the morning sun rather well, though that changed when The Photographer returned, announcing she’d found a couple of things I needed to look at.
This might have produced a more positive reaction if leaving the car hadn’t involved moving out of the warming sun, but once we’d looked at the window of the antiques store and made a couple of purchases at a rather alternative fruit shop it was Madam’s turn to be unimpressed once we’d driven down the road to Deli Lama and found what she’d just bought was a couple of dollars cheaper there.
Deli Lama wasn’t exactly packed when we wandered in for breakfast, but it seems to do a reasonably passing trade and was probably a better option than the bakery. I doubt the bakery does bacon and egg muffins.
Back in the car we were in for a substantial drive, since it was Thursday morning and we were looking at getting to the Ex-Neighbours southwest of Brisbane on Saturday afternoon.
Now, you might look at the map and figure three easy stages, but Madam had decided that Glen Innes was the right spot to stop on Friday night, so we’d looked for options for Friday’s drive and figured Armidale was probably worth a walk around, which meant that Friday’s drive needed to be reasonably short, and, in turn, that meant we were probably best off spending Thursday night in Gunnedah.
There were a couple of possible routes to get there, so we decided to take advice in Wellington, which was more or less known territory since we’d passed through the place on the way to Orange and knew the road was reasonable up to there.
Canowindra to Molong was new to us, however, and was a pleasant enough drive, and we pulled over for a visit to an ATM in Molong before establishing that our preferred route through Gulgong and Coolah was driver friendly when we called at the Visitor Information in Wellington.
Wellington to Gulgong had looked potentially difficult on the terrain side of things, but turned out to be a pleasant enough drive and it was just after lunch time when we arrived in Gulgong, deciding the historic gold mining town and home of Henry Lawson was worth a wander with or without lunch.
Given the historic status of many of the towns in the area you could probably spend several days wandering around, camera in hand, but we didn’t have days to spare, so an hour or so on the ground in Gulgong had to do.
I could probably have grabbed something for lunch, but after the dietary xcesses of the preceding week or so I wasn’t over-hungry and was quite happy to wait till the evening for a substantial dinner.
The road through Coolah was another pleasant drive and it was just after four-thirty when we pulled in to the motel in Gunnedah, timing that had Madam heading out the door pretty soon after our arrival with a view to photographing the sunset.
There was a suitable viewing option a block or three away from the motel, so she decided to walk, a decision that didn’t quite take the speed with which night falls into account, and I’d just finished tapping out a bit of travelogue on the iPad when I realised that the shades of night were well and truly with us before Madam had returned.
I spent a relatively anxious few minutes before the return was effected, and once the reunification was effected it was more or less time for dinner. There were a number of options, and with the benefit of hindsight we might have opted for the Indian down the street rather than Wild Orchards across the road.
There wasn’t much wrong with Wild Orchards on the food side of things, but a glance at the wine list revealed a distinct lack of anything interesting to drink if you’re trying to stay away from the usual big corporate suspects and disinclined to shell out big bucks for the upper reaches of the Penfolds portfolio.
Of course, there’s every chance that the story would have been similar regardless of which dining option we’d chosen.There are reasons why what I’d term the usual suspects turn up on restaurant wine lists over and over again, and those reasons are probably more pronounced away from the major centres, and there’s probably an even stronger tendency in areas where the economy’s being propped up by the mining boom and there are a number of people passing through town on mining-related business.
Gunnedah certainly seemed to be pretty well endowed when it came to dining options, given the fact that population-wise it’s around the same size as Bowen, and one can’t help but wonder why that should be.
Day Eighteen: Canberra
So, with the markets and winery aspects of the visit out of the way, Tuesday morning saw us focussing on the buildings of national significance side of things though, had the weather been more favorable, Madam would have preferred to be focussing on autumn leaves and colorful landscapes as well.
That, however, was not to be, and as we considered the options the first issue was finding somewhere to park. Given the fact that most of what we were interested in was clustered together in the Parliamentary Triangle, it made sense to park and walk, and we already knew that there was free parking underneath the National Gallery, so the evolving game plan involved parking there, hoofing it up to Parliament House, and gradually working back until we'd had enough.
Despite Sunday's visit to the National Gallery, there was still plenty to see there, and I had intentions of a lengthy wander around Old Parliament House and a visit to the National Portrait Gallery as well, so it wasn't as if we were going to run out of things to see.
First, however, Madam was keen to get some panoramic shots of the city, and decided that Red Hill was the best option, given it's proximity to where we were going.
The problem, of course, was how to get there.
That seemed a simple enough matter when you looked at the street map. Turn left out of the hotel, left again into Dalrymple, right onto Hindmarsh Drive and right again into Tamar Street and Mugga Way looked straightforward enough, but a substantial concrete barrier ruled out the last bit, and we found ourselves in a back street in the wilds of O'Malley figuring out an alternative route, which coincidentally delivered the opportunity to fuel up for the next day's trip, saving us from having to do it later.
The weather wasn't the best when we reached the summit of Red Hill, but the views were spectacular, giving Madam the chance to snap away in circumstances that hadn't been possible to date, and the road back down the hill debouched onto Melbourne Avenue, which fed directly onto the State Circle and delivered us to the desired parking location with pleasing rapidity, since time was marching on and we had a lot to see.
The nether regions of the National Gallery had plenty of parking space available when we arrived, and a perambulation past the Portrait Gallery took us through Reconciliation Place, which was, I thought, nowhere near as visually significant as it needs to be, before making our way to the front steps of Old Parliament House, which these days houses the Museum of Australian Democracy.
The Museum wasn't something that was going to interest Madam over much, so a thirty second reconnaissance was enough to establish that I was up for $2 if I was going to have a wander around, and there was no direct route through the building to it's replacement.
We skirted round the western, or Senate, end of the building, making our way up the hill towards Parliament House, a progress that had me reflecting on the wisdom of placing the Federal capital outside Sydney or Melbourne.
It would have been easy, in hindsight, to have done something along the lines of the South African model, with the Parliamentary capital here, the Judicial capital there and the Executive Capital somewhere else, but that would have precluded the opportunity to build the sort of extensive and basically integrated landscape we could see as we ascended.
I'll continue to be critical of the compromises that delivered deep flaws in the actual Australian Constitution, matters that really do need to be addressed in the light of changed circumstances over a hundred and ten years, but as far as the national capital is concerned I think they got it very close to right.
Looking back from the Forecourt of an impressive structure over it's predecessor towards the War Memorial, the view was impressive, expansive, and something that probably wouldn't have been possible had they decided to leave the legislature in downtown Melbourne or Sydney.
Now, from what I can recall, not that I was paying a great deal of attention at the time, when the construction process that resulted in the current structure was kicking off there was a degree of controversy involved, particularly over cost blow outs, which I've seen quoted as quintupling the original $200 million budget, but if you're after something that stands out you need vision, and a willingness to spend if necessary.
There's no doubt that the resulting structure, dominating Capital Hill as it does and drawing the eye from a number of nearby locations, stands out, and if the visitor takes a stroll through Old Parliament House the contrast, at least as far as the public spaces are concerned, is close to immeasurable. It's an imposing structure with substantial public space, and something that would have been done quite differently had the penny-pinchers been allowed to have their way in a post 9/11 setting.
Recently there's been quite a deal of discussion about the decline of the democratic process, the manipulation of the news cycle, and similar issues, and one can't help suspecting that some of today's critics are looking back to the halcyon days of the Old Parliament House rabbit warren, where it was virtually impossible for the Government to maintain a veil of secrecy about internal matters.
Walking down the corridor outside the Prime Minister's office, for example, I couldn't help thinking that if the PM wanted to carpet an errant minister, he would have to do it very quietly (assuming, of course, he didn't want the news to get out). There's a matter of only a couple of metres between the PM's suite and the passageway, and while we may be talking soundproofing and closed doors you wouldn't be able to keep too many secrets from casual passers-by.
Today, of course, in the new structure, the Prime Minister's suite, the ministerial offices, the Cabinet Room and similar locations are discreetly tucked away behind closed doors manned by security personnel, and not much is going to get out unless someone wants it to.
No stories based on inferences and observations in and around the actual corridors of power here, folks.
On the other hand, had the new structure not been completed before the age of global terrorism kicked in, one can't help suspecting that the Government response to something like 9/11 would have been something like sealing off the whole site from public access, initially and supposedly temporarily because of national security concerns, with the temporary measures becoming permanent due to on-going considerations.
A walk around Parliament House provokes those kinds of thoughts, particularly when immediately followed by a stroll around it's predecessor, which is what I did once we'd pointed Madam towards the National Gallery, working on the principle that both of us would have plenty to look at without the presence of impatient significant others.
The original intention had been to demolish the old building once Parliament House was finished, and while it's new incarnation as the Museum of Australian Democracy has offered what may well be a permanent life line, I hope the place stays there, not least because it provides a window into the way things used to be, as well as an avenue for school groups and the like to act out scenarios that wouldn't be permissible in the actual Parliamentary chambers.
That stroll around the building must have actually taken a little longer than anticipated, even though I gave the Museum of Australian Democracy a pretty cursory once over, because I emerged from the building around the same time as the text message from Madam announcing that she'd finished at the Gallery arrived.
Actually, as I learned when I arrived at the Gallery foyer, she hadn't quite finished, since she'd failed to find the Varilaku exhibition of Pacific arts from the SolomonIslands, tucked away in a corner of the gallery she'd failed to notice.
A spell in the foyer while she headed in that direction gave me a chance to make a slight reduction in the tapping backlog, and from there it was off to the National Portrait Gallery, which didn't have a whole lot of interest for Madam, but I found plenty to look at wandering through the gallery while she took a spell.
The Portrait Gallery's remit is, on the surface, rather limited, to explore the identity, history, creativity and culture of the Australian people through portraiture, but what's on display in the gallery delivers a number of reminders about people you may have heard of along the way but forgotten alongside the portraits showing more obvious candidates.
To Madam most of those names would have been meaningless, so it's hardly surprising she found the Gallery interesting but largely incomprehensible. It might, of course, have been different if she'd been with someone who was in a position to take the time and energy to explain who these people were, which would have entailed a lot of back story filling, or had the time and inclination to read the rather detailed biographical notes beside each portrait without having someone at hand who was inclined to take a glance at most of what was there without hanging around to read and reflect.
Which is, I think, the main point. To get the most out of the Gallery you either need a fair degree of background knowledge or the time to stop and read the detail you're unfamiliar with, which may entail repeat visits (which wasn't, of course, an option available to us).
From there we headed off along the lake shore, hoping for an improvement in the light that failed to eventuate, circling the High Court building and heading back to the NGA car park, reclaiming the car and heading back to the Heritage.
There were a few options to consider for dinner, with possibilities in Kingston, Griffith and Manuka, but beckoning in front of us was the prospect of Portuguese cuisine at Vasco's, which was, as far as we could tell, in Kingston though I'd failed to sight it there the night before.
Having decided Vasco's was the go, and that there were other possibilities should we fail to locate it, I was rather nonplussed when we walked right up to a place that was clearly identifiable as our preferred destination without any complications.
What was even more surprising wasn't so much finding the place empty when we arrived (based on the possibility that we'd find the place packed if we got there too late) as the failure of anybody to wander in for dinner while we were there. Maybe those partial to Portuguese are inclined to dine later, but there were plenty of people who paused to glance at the menu on display but failed to wander in.
But in was where we were, and having ordered, what was on offer turned out to be very good indeed. Madam's seafood risotto was pretty good, but my go at the barbecued chicken specialty of the house left me trying to figure out an excuse to get back for another go at it. A bottle of Massena Barbera went rather well with the chicken, and by the time we were finished I was a very satisfied customer who couldn't figure why we seemed to be the only ones interested in eating there.
That, however, was not to be, and as we considered the options the first issue was finding somewhere to park. Given the fact that most of what we were interested in was clustered together in the Parliamentary Triangle, it made sense to park and walk, and we already knew that there was free parking underneath the National Gallery, so the evolving game plan involved parking there, hoofing it up to Parliament House, and gradually working back until we'd had enough.
Despite Sunday's visit to the National Gallery, there was still plenty to see there, and I had intentions of a lengthy wander around Old Parliament House and a visit to the National Portrait Gallery as well, so it wasn't as if we were going to run out of things to see.
First, however, Madam was keen to get some panoramic shots of the city, and decided that Red Hill was the best option, given it's proximity to where we were going.
The problem, of course, was how to get there.
That seemed a simple enough matter when you looked at the street map. Turn left out of the hotel, left again into Dalrymple, right onto Hindmarsh Drive and right again into Tamar Street and Mugga Way looked straightforward enough, but a substantial concrete barrier ruled out the last bit, and we found ourselves in a back street in the wilds of O'Malley figuring out an alternative route, which coincidentally delivered the opportunity to fuel up for the next day's trip, saving us from having to do it later.
The weather wasn't the best when we reached the summit of Red Hill, but the views were spectacular, giving Madam the chance to snap away in circumstances that hadn't been possible to date, and the road back down the hill debouched onto Melbourne Avenue, which fed directly onto the State Circle and delivered us to the desired parking location with pleasing rapidity, since time was marching on and we had a lot to see.
The nether regions of the National Gallery had plenty of parking space available when we arrived, and a perambulation past the Portrait Gallery took us through Reconciliation Place, which was, I thought, nowhere near as visually significant as it needs to be, before making our way to the front steps of Old Parliament House, which these days houses the Museum of Australian Democracy.
The Museum wasn't something that was going to interest Madam over much, so a thirty second reconnaissance was enough to establish that I was up for $2 if I was going to have a wander around, and there was no direct route through the building to it's replacement.
We skirted round the western, or Senate, end of the building, making our way up the hill towards Parliament House, a progress that had me reflecting on the wisdom of placing the Federal capital outside Sydney or Melbourne.
It would have been easy, in hindsight, to have done something along the lines of the South African model, with the Parliamentary capital here, the Judicial capital there and the Executive Capital somewhere else, but that would have precluded the opportunity to build the sort of extensive and basically integrated landscape we could see as we ascended.
I'll continue to be critical of the compromises that delivered deep flaws in the actual Australian Constitution, matters that really do need to be addressed in the light of changed circumstances over a hundred and ten years, but as far as the national capital is concerned I think they got it very close to right.
Looking back from the Forecourt of an impressive structure over it's predecessor towards the War Memorial, the view was impressive, expansive, and something that probably wouldn't have been possible had they decided to leave the legislature in downtown Melbourne or Sydney.
Now, from what I can recall, not that I was paying a great deal of attention at the time, when the construction process that resulted in the current structure was kicking off there was a degree of controversy involved, particularly over cost blow outs, which I've seen quoted as quintupling the original $200 million budget, but if you're after something that stands out you need vision, and a willingness to spend if necessary.
There's no doubt that the resulting structure, dominating Capital Hill as it does and drawing the eye from a number of nearby locations, stands out, and if the visitor takes a stroll through Old Parliament House the contrast, at least as far as the public spaces are concerned, is close to immeasurable. It's an imposing structure with substantial public space, and something that would have been done quite differently had the penny-pinchers been allowed to have their way in a post 9/11 setting.
Recently there's been quite a deal of discussion about the decline of the democratic process, the manipulation of the news cycle, and similar issues, and one can't help suspecting that some of today's critics are looking back to the halcyon days of the Old Parliament House rabbit warren, where it was virtually impossible for the Government to maintain a veil of secrecy about internal matters.
Walking down the corridor outside the Prime Minister's office, for example, I couldn't help thinking that if the PM wanted to carpet an errant minister, he would have to do it very quietly (assuming, of course, he didn't want the news to get out). There's a matter of only a couple of metres between the PM's suite and the passageway, and while we may be talking soundproofing and closed doors you wouldn't be able to keep too many secrets from casual passers-by.
Today, of course, in the new structure, the Prime Minister's suite, the ministerial offices, the Cabinet Room and similar locations are discreetly tucked away behind closed doors manned by security personnel, and not much is going to get out unless someone wants it to.
No stories based on inferences and observations in and around the actual corridors of power here, folks.
On the other hand, had the new structure not been completed before the age of global terrorism kicked in, one can't help suspecting that the Government response to something like 9/11 would have been something like sealing off the whole site from public access, initially and supposedly temporarily because of national security concerns, with the temporary measures becoming permanent due to on-going considerations.
A walk around Parliament House provokes those kinds of thoughts, particularly when immediately followed by a stroll around it's predecessor, which is what I did once we'd pointed Madam towards the National Gallery, working on the principle that both of us would have plenty to look at without the presence of impatient significant others.
The original intention had been to demolish the old building once Parliament House was finished, and while it's new incarnation as the Museum of Australian Democracy has offered what may well be a permanent life line, I hope the place stays there, not least because it provides a window into the way things used to be, as well as an avenue for school groups and the like to act out scenarios that wouldn't be permissible in the actual Parliamentary chambers.
That stroll around the building must have actually taken a little longer than anticipated, even though I gave the Museum of Australian Democracy a pretty cursory once over, because I emerged from the building around the same time as the text message from Madam announcing that she'd finished at the Gallery arrived.
Actually, as I learned when I arrived at the Gallery foyer, she hadn't quite finished, since she'd failed to find the Varilaku exhibition of Pacific arts from the SolomonIslands, tucked away in a corner of the gallery she'd failed to notice.
A spell in the foyer while she headed in that direction gave me a chance to make a slight reduction in the tapping backlog, and from there it was off to the National Portrait Gallery, which didn't have a whole lot of interest for Madam, but I found plenty to look at wandering through the gallery while she took a spell.
The Portrait Gallery's remit is, on the surface, rather limited, to explore the identity, history, creativity and culture of the Australian people through portraiture, but what's on display in the gallery delivers a number of reminders about people you may have heard of along the way but forgotten alongside the portraits showing more obvious candidates.
To Madam most of those names would have been meaningless, so it's hardly surprising she found the Gallery interesting but largely incomprehensible. It might, of course, have been different if she'd been with someone who was in a position to take the time and energy to explain who these people were, which would have entailed a lot of back story filling, or had the time and inclination to read the rather detailed biographical notes beside each portrait without having someone at hand who was inclined to take a glance at most of what was there without hanging around to read and reflect.
Which is, I think, the main point. To get the most out of the Gallery you either need a fair degree of background knowledge or the time to stop and read the detail you're unfamiliar with, which may entail repeat visits (which wasn't, of course, an option available to us).
From there we headed off along the lake shore, hoping for an improvement in the light that failed to eventuate, circling the High Court building and heading back to the NGA car park, reclaiming the car and heading back to the Heritage.
There were a few options to consider for dinner, with possibilities in Kingston, Griffith and Manuka, but beckoning in front of us was the prospect of Portuguese cuisine at Vasco's, which was, as far as we could tell, in Kingston though I'd failed to sight it there the night before.
Having decided Vasco's was the go, and that there were other possibilities should we fail to locate it, I was rather nonplussed when we walked right up to a place that was clearly identifiable as our preferred destination without any complications.
What was even more surprising wasn't so much finding the place empty when we arrived (based on the possibility that we'd find the place packed if we got there too late) as the failure of anybody to wander in for dinner while we were there. Maybe those partial to Portuguese are inclined to dine later, but there were plenty of people who paused to glance at the menu on display but failed to wander in.
But in was where we were, and having ordered, what was on offer turned out to be very good indeed. Madam's seafood risotto was pretty good, but my go at the barbecued chicken specialty of the house left me trying to figure out an excuse to get back for another go at it. A bottle of Massena Barbera went rather well with the chicken, and by the time we were finished I was a very satisfied customer who couldn't figure why we seemed to be the only ones interested in eating there.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Day Nineteen: Canberra - Canowindra
The astute reader will, by now, have noted that there's one prominent building of national significance situated in Canberra that has failed to get anything other than a passing mention, and I refer, of course, to the Australian War Memorial.
The failure to get there up to this point in the narrative was, to some extent, forseeable.
We'd penciled in a window of opportunity for Hughesy to visit the Memorial on either Sunday afternoon or on the way back from the wineries on Monday, basing both on the likelihood of Madam having other fish to fry, leaving Hughesy free for an extended ramble past points of interest without having to worry about others in the vicinity who were waiting to move on to somewhere else.
Which is, in it's own way, fair enough. When it comes to art galleries and such, I don't know much, know what I like, have an eye for things that are interesting and know what's likely to happen if I get intrigued by something, so I'm happy to skim over the surface, fully aware that an interest in something in the art world could become an expensive exercise, even without the purchase of actual artworks.
I'd been able to move through the National Portrait Gallery pretty quickly the day before, since I had a fair idea of who most of the people in there were, but in the case of the War Memorial (or, more accurately, the associated Galleries in the Museum) I had pretty specific areas of interest that would have been enough for the afternoon, preferably without someone in the area champing at the bit in a quest to be elsewhere.
Circumstances prevented the use of either of those two windows of opportunity, so while I'd have preferred to have had the couple of hours for a close perusal of matters related to the post-Gallipoli part of World War One, with Madam in tow I thought we'd end up taking a brisk stroll through as much of what was on display as possible without going into things too closely.
Fair enough, given the fact that there's plenty to investigate on subsequent visits to the national capital and I look forward to getting back there again.
Given the fact that the Memorial doesn't open till ten we had time for breakfast, and Madam's preferred destination was, somewhat unsurprisingly, located in Kingston.
Silo Bakery is somewhere I'd wandered past twice without paying a great deal of attention, but from the time we landed on the doorstep it was obviously that there was no secret about the place among the local cognoscenti. We were lucky to grab a table, and the continual flow of customers suggested somewhere that probably does a brisk trade through the day. Based on this visit, I'll definitely be back for lunch, which may well be washed down with a bottle of something like Helm Classic Riesling.
Not that we were after anything alcoholic for breakfast, of course, though a glass of something would have gone rather well with my gritted omelette had it arrived after the sun had passed the yard arm. Madam's chocolate croissant looked rather tasty as well, and I'm sure it was, but the omelette was definitely one of the best breakfasts I've had in a long time.
Suitably nourished, we made our way to the War Memorial with minimal traffic hassle, parked and found ourselves outside the entrance around five to ten, in time for the arrival of the daily catafalque party.
With the doors open, we headed inside, initially for the First World War gallery, where I would, as previously stated, have Ben happy to have spent the next hour and a half on a close examination of the Western Front before moving on to a more cursory look at as much as I could manage before departure time, but that wasn't to be and we manage to work our way through both World Wars and the Aircraft Hall before heading off on the road north around eleven thirty.
I'd been more than slightly sensitive to the likelihood that what was on display could go over the top in the jingoistic sense, but was impressed by the even-handedness with which sensitive topics were handled throughout the displays we saw. I expected Madam would have issues with some of the content relating to the Japanese campaigns of World War Two, and would have issues with matters relating to Conscription and the Vietnam War myself, but, as stated, we both thought the content, presented in a matter of fact manner without too much in the way of obvious editorial comment, was highly informative and appropriate.
Personally, however, I have to say that I found the newsreel voice overs, with that rounded semi- but not quite British accent, a reminder of an era that I definitely don't want to be going back to. We've come a long way since the fifties, and the prominence given to the battles on the Western Front vis a vis Gallipoli in the World War One gallery was a welcome reminder that there are a number of historical issues that need to be reassessed, though I doubt that is possible in a landscape blighted by the so-called History Wars.
That might seem like a cheap shot at ANZAC, but isn't intended that way.
Although I've yet to read the actual material, Henry Reynolds and others have started to question the place of Anzac Day in Australian culture, and it's quite appropriate for that to happen. Although you don't (or maybe you do, but I didn't) get too much of the manipulation of the Gallipoli story for political purposes in the gallery display, there's been a definite, and to my mind entirely justifiable shift in emphasis when it comes to the military campaigns that Australians were involved in during the War To End All War.
Discussions of such matters, of course, belongs in the People's Republic of the Little House of Concrete or Interesting Times rather than the current travelogue, but given the fact that people of my generation were more or less told that Gallipoli was the big show, with the battles on the Western Front being tacked onto the narrative as a sort of and afterwards they went to thing.
We also got a fairly thorough narrative when it came to World War Two, which explains why, had I been there on my own I would have spent a lot of time looking closely at things that weren't quite so familiar.
But I wasn't, and, consequently, we didn't.
If we hadn't had a substantial travel quotient on the day's itinerary we could have stayed longer, but we'd set an effective deadline of around eleven-thirty, and that was about when we left the Aircraft Hall, so it was a case of back to the car park and ho for the road to the north.
Scheduling the winery segment on Monday I'd left Clonakilla off the list on the basins that it was the only one of the four that was open seven days and could consequently be visited en route to Cowra and Canowindra, but there was no way we were going to be bypassing the place as long as I had anything to do with things.
I didn't get a chance to taste the iconic Shiraz Viognier, but what was on offer at the Cellar Door was enough to ensure I was adding my details to the mailing list, and we escaped with a bottle of VP to counter the forecast chills over the next couple of night's as well as two bottles of olive oil, one of which was intended for the ex-neighbors.
Back in the chariot the next stop was Cowra, where Madam was planning an extensive wander around the Japanese Garden, and we weren't looking at anything much along the way, which was just as well because when we arrived we spent a good hour and a bit wandering around the grounds, which are, after all, described as kaiyushiki, or strolling gardens.
You might look at a $12 admission charge ($10 for Seniors and Students) as a trifle steep, but if you take your time there's plenty to ponder as you move around the constantly changing panoramas, and I found myself musing over various landscape related matters as I went while Madam snapped away. A steady slide in the late afternoon temperature encouraged a departure, otherwise I could happily have just kept on musing.
With Canowindra was a mere thirty-something kilometres away we could possibly have stayed longer, but years spent in the tropical north have probably thinned the blood, and as far as I was concerned a motel room with reverse cycle air conditioning was definitely the way togo, and that was where we found ourselves just after four-thirty.
I would have been quite happy to ensconse myself in the air-con for a spell of quiet tapping, but Madam wanted to take a look around the town and I was enlisted for navigational purposes.
We were back at the motel just after five, though Madam headed straight back out for photographic purposes, though the sunset wasn't quite what it might have been.
There didn't seem to be too many obvious dinner options when we drove around town, and inquiries at Reception confirmed initial impressions, so we headed out just after dark in search of the middle pub, which had, so I was informed, the most extensive menu.
I reckoned I'd sighted the establishment when we were driving around in the afternoon. after all, the building I'd spotted had a sign on the awning announcing the presence of a restaurant, and I know a large old country pub when I see one.
As it turned out, however, I'd been looking at a large former country pub, and we arrived on the doorstep to find that the place wasn't open that day, which I thought I was strange, but suggested we backtrack to The Junction Hotel, which seemed to have lost it's horse and cart in the intervening period, rather than heading further along the street to investigate other options.
Dinner wasn't anything flash, but was substantial and an interesting exercise in old-fashioned country catering, which contrasted nicely with the flash city Tucker we 'd been tucking into over the preceding couple of days. We didn't, however, stick around once dinner had been demolished, since the signs suggested we were in for an extremely chilly evening.
The failure to get there up to this point in the narrative was, to some extent, forseeable.
We'd penciled in a window of opportunity for Hughesy to visit the Memorial on either Sunday afternoon or on the way back from the wineries on Monday, basing both on the likelihood of Madam having other fish to fry, leaving Hughesy free for an extended ramble past points of interest without having to worry about others in the vicinity who were waiting to move on to somewhere else.
Which is, in it's own way, fair enough. When it comes to art galleries and such, I don't know much, know what I like, have an eye for things that are interesting and know what's likely to happen if I get intrigued by something, so I'm happy to skim over the surface, fully aware that an interest in something in the art world could become an expensive exercise, even without the purchase of actual artworks.
I'd been able to move through the National Portrait Gallery pretty quickly the day before, since I had a fair idea of who most of the people in there were, but in the case of the War Memorial (or, more accurately, the associated Galleries in the Museum) I had pretty specific areas of interest that would have been enough for the afternoon, preferably without someone in the area champing at the bit in a quest to be elsewhere.
Circumstances prevented the use of either of those two windows of opportunity, so while I'd have preferred to have had the couple of hours for a close perusal of matters related to the post-Gallipoli part of World War One, with Madam in tow I thought we'd end up taking a brisk stroll through as much of what was on display as possible without going into things too closely.
Fair enough, given the fact that there's plenty to investigate on subsequent visits to the national capital and I look forward to getting back there again.
Given the fact that the Memorial doesn't open till ten we had time for breakfast, and Madam's preferred destination was, somewhat unsurprisingly, located in Kingston.
Silo Bakery is somewhere I'd wandered past twice without paying a great deal of attention, but from the time we landed on the doorstep it was obviously that there was no secret about the place among the local cognoscenti. We were lucky to grab a table, and the continual flow of customers suggested somewhere that probably does a brisk trade through the day. Based on this visit, I'll definitely be back for lunch, which may well be washed down with a bottle of something like Helm Classic Riesling.
Not that we were after anything alcoholic for breakfast, of course, though a glass of something would have gone rather well with my gritted omelette had it arrived after the sun had passed the yard arm. Madam's chocolate croissant looked rather tasty as well, and I'm sure it was, but the omelette was definitely one of the best breakfasts I've had in a long time.
Suitably nourished, we made our way to the War Memorial with minimal traffic hassle, parked and found ourselves outside the entrance around five to ten, in time for the arrival of the daily catafalque party.
With the doors open, we headed inside, initially for the First World War gallery, where I would, as previously stated, have Ben happy to have spent the next hour and a half on a close examination of the Western Front before moving on to a more cursory look at as much as I could manage before departure time, but that wasn't to be and we manage to work our way through both World Wars and the Aircraft Hall before heading off on the road north around eleven thirty.
I'd been more than slightly sensitive to the likelihood that what was on display could go over the top in the jingoistic sense, but was impressed by the even-handedness with which sensitive topics were handled throughout the displays we saw. I expected Madam would have issues with some of the content relating to the Japanese campaigns of World War Two, and would have issues with matters relating to Conscription and the Vietnam War myself, but, as stated, we both thought the content, presented in a matter of fact manner without too much in the way of obvious editorial comment, was highly informative and appropriate.
Personally, however, I have to say that I found the newsreel voice overs, with that rounded semi- but not quite British accent, a reminder of an era that I definitely don't want to be going back to. We've come a long way since the fifties, and the prominence given to the battles on the Western Front vis a vis Gallipoli in the World War One gallery was a welcome reminder that there are a number of historical issues that need to be reassessed, though I doubt that is possible in a landscape blighted by the so-called History Wars.
That might seem like a cheap shot at ANZAC, but isn't intended that way.
Although I've yet to read the actual material, Henry Reynolds and others have started to question the place of Anzac Day in Australian culture, and it's quite appropriate for that to happen. Although you don't (or maybe you do, but I didn't) get too much of the manipulation of the Gallipoli story for political purposes in the gallery display, there's been a definite, and to my mind entirely justifiable shift in emphasis when it comes to the military campaigns that Australians were involved in during the War To End All War.
Discussions of such matters, of course, belongs in the People's Republic of the Little House of Concrete or Interesting Times rather than the current travelogue, but given the fact that people of my generation were more or less told that Gallipoli was the big show, with the battles on the Western Front being tacked onto the narrative as a sort of and afterwards they went to thing.
We also got a fairly thorough narrative when it came to World War Two, which explains why, had I been there on my own I would have spent a lot of time looking closely at things that weren't quite so familiar.
But I wasn't, and, consequently, we didn't.
If we hadn't had a substantial travel quotient on the day's itinerary we could have stayed longer, but we'd set an effective deadline of around eleven-thirty, and that was about when we left the Aircraft Hall, so it was a case of back to the car park and ho for the road to the north.
Scheduling the winery segment on Monday I'd left Clonakilla off the list on the basins that it was the only one of the four that was open seven days and could consequently be visited en route to Cowra and Canowindra, but there was no way we were going to be bypassing the place as long as I had anything to do with things.
I didn't get a chance to taste the iconic Shiraz Viognier, but what was on offer at the Cellar Door was enough to ensure I was adding my details to the mailing list, and we escaped with a bottle of VP to counter the forecast chills over the next couple of night's as well as two bottles of olive oil, one of which was intended for the ex-neighbors.
Back in the chariot the next stop was Cowra, where Madam was planning an extensive wander around the Japanese Garden, and we weren't looking at anything much along the way, which was just as well because when we arrived we spent a good hour and a bit wandering around the grounds, which are, after all, described as kaiyushiki, or strolling gardens.
You might look at a $12 admission charge ($10 for Seniors and Students) as a trifle steep, but if you take your time there's plenty to ponder as you move around the constantly changing panoramas, and I found myself musing over various landscape related matters as I went while Madam snapped away. A steady slide in the late afternoon temperature encouraged a departure, otherwise I could happily have just kept on musing.
With Canowindra was a mere thirty-something kilometres away we could possibly have stayed longer, but years spent in the tropical north have probably thinned the blood, and as far as I was concerned a motel room with reverse cycle air conditioning was definitely the way togo, and that was where we found ourselves just after four-thirty.
I would have been quite happy to ensconse myself in the air-con for a spell of quiet tapping, but Madam wanted to take a look around the town and I was enlisted for navigational purposes.
We were back at the motel just after five, though Madam headed straight back out for photographic purposes, though the sunset wasn't quite what it might have been.
There didn't seem to be too many obvious dinner options when we drove around town, and inquiries at Reception confirmed initial impressions, so we headed out just after dark in search of the middle pub, which had, so I was informed, the most extensive menu.
I reckoned I'd sighted the establishment when we were driving around in the afternoon. after all, the building I'd spotted had a sign on the awning announcing the presence of a restaurant, and I know a large old country pub when I see one.
As it turned out, however, I'd been looking at a large former country pub, and we arrived on the doorstep to find that the place wasn't open that day, which I thought I was strange, but suggested we backtrack to The Junction Hotel, which seemed to have lost it's horse and cart in the intervening period, rather than heading further along the street to investigate other options.
Dinner wasn't anything flash, but was substantial and an interesting exercise in old-fashioned country catering, which contrasted nicely with the flash city Tucker we 'd been tucking into over the preceding couple of days. We didn't, however, stick around once dinner had been demolished, since the signs suggested we were in for an extremely chilly evening.
Day Seventeen: Canberra
Had we not been on the road for several days with an accumulated pile of laundry we might well have got away much earlier and may possibly have managed a bit more sightseeing, but the process of putting what we had through the washer and drier, both of which were free when I looked just after seven-thirty, meant it was close to ten before we headed off towards Murrumbateman for a three stop lap around the wine circuit.
As pointed out elsewhere, I've already got a lengthy list of wineries I buy from, and it's going to be difficult to fit many more into the schedule, but Helm is, by all accounts, the prime Riesling producer in an emerging Riesling district, and as a devoted fan of the variety I wasn't going to be going past, was I?
Getting there, however, wasn't quite as straightforward as it might have been, with a realization that the fuel gauge was hovering uncomfortably close to Empty, a refueling stop in Murrumbateman, and a missed turn just on the northern side of the township, but we eventually reached the converted school house that houses the Helm Cellar door and found, as expected, a very classy Riesling, a Premium version of the same that didn't impress as much as the first, as well as Sauvignon Blanc, a trio of Cabernets and a Cabernet Shiraz that impressed enough to have Hughesy ordering a box, though why they work in boxes of ten rather than a dozen wasn't obvious and I forgot to ask.
That box I ordered will, no doubt, provide the basis for a lengthier piece over on The Wine Pages along with Tasting Notes as the contents are sampled.
Those same considerations will come into play with what turns up from Lerida and Lark Hill as well, but for the moment we're looking at the travel narrative rather than an oenological perspective.
We could, had we left Canberra much earlier, have deviated from Murrumbateman Road into Gundaroo, but given the fact that it was Monday, with no apparent source of lunch to provide an excuse and little apart from the village's status as the home of the long gone Prickle Farm to justify a diversion we kept going towards Lake George, while I gave serious thought to giving Lerida Estate the flick pass and heading straight to Lark Hill.
That would have been a mistake, since once we'd made our way into the Cellar Door without encountering any of the three deadly species of poisonous snakes found in the vicinity, there was a small but very impressive range to sample, a mailing list to be added to and an interesting view out across Lake George from the Lerida Estate Facilities on the western escarpment.
We could probably have taken our time there, but with the time now well after one, and lunch venues in Bungendore presumably shutting down as far as new orders were concerned at two, it was a case of straight back on the road in search of lunch once we'd paid for a Botrytised bottle from Lerida, with plans to make up a mixed dozen order once we were back in the north.
The road to Bungendore took us straight past Lark Hill, which is perched right on the top of that particular portion of the Lake George escarpment, and we were on the ground there in time to claim a vacant table at the Woodworks Cafe, where Madam's bowl of Seafood Chowder and my Chicken and Mushroom Fettucine went down very well, filling the void that had developed since the morning's demolition of most of a loaf of Turkish bread.
Back in the car and back up the escarpment, we reached the biodynamic Lark Hill vineyard looking for Gruner Veltliner, which had been my main motivation for putting the place o the itinerary. Stock levels were such that there was none available to taste, though we escaped with (allegedly) the last available bottle and (hopefully) a spot on the mailing list for the next release.
A sample of the range was enough to ensure that a mixed dozen will be ordered when we're back at home, with, as previously indicated, further detailed discussion in the appropriate sections of the website.
Al those factors, including the final post-lunch ascent and descent of the escarpment were, however, starting to take their toll, and although we were going to back in Canberra with a good ninety minutes to spare before places started to close down for the day, discretion and the thought that rush hour traffic was no place for weary drivers suggested a return to base for a rest rather than venturing into the Parliamentary Triangle, which was pencilled in as the focus for Tuesday's wanderings.
By five-thirty the spell had started to take effect, and thoughts turned to dinner, with particular reference to the eateries over in Kennedy Street, Kingston (rather than the familiar Kennedy Street, Bowen, which remains steadfastly devoid of commercial dining options).
There were a number of options covering the Italian and familiar Asian cuisines, with the odd maverick (Portuguese at Vasco's) thrown in for good measure, so the best idea seemed to be to head over there and conduct a reconnaissance on the ground rather than pondering over the possibilities in the glossy book we found in the hotel room or musing over reviews on the Internet.
Given the fact that the area boasts a substantial restaurant strip, a seemingly popular gym and is surrounded by medium density housing it should come as no surprise to learn that parking in the street itself was at a premium, though we managed to find a spot in a nearby side street. Once we'd managed that it was a case of deciding where to eat, though preliminary research had suggested Il Rustico, which was where we ended up.
There were, we were told, three unreservedly tables for two, with the remainder being claimed rather rapidly between the time we were seated and the arrival of the meals, which suggests that you either need to book ahead or get there early, even on a Monday night, which we'd expected would be reasonably safe.
Having had a late and fairly substantial lunch, neither of us were inclined towards major gastronomic excess, and Madam's entree-sized Zuppa di cozze (spelling?), an attractive display of reasonably plump mussels served in a bowl with a tomato-based sumo worked well for her. My Pizza Calabrese, on the other hand, probably wasn't the best option on that side of the menu, but worked well enough with an accompanying glass of West End Aglicianico, a red variety I hadn't encountered before, but proved to be another savory food-friendly style that is worth looking out for. The Calabria family won't be the last to plant the variety.
On the way back to the chariot, a glance at the other establishment along the strip revealed, for what such observations are worth, that most were marginally less crowded than Il Rustico had been, though that's not necessarily, as the following evening's experience suggested, any reflection on the quality of what's on offer.
We were, in any case, back in the hotel room just after seven, in time to start filling out the detail surrounding the demise of Osama Bin Laden, news that had broken while we were having lunch, delivered via the iPad.
As pointed out elsewhere, I've already got a lengthy list of wineries I buy from, and it's going to be difficult to fit many more into the schedule, but Helm is, by all accounts, the prime Riesling producer in an emerging Riesling district, and as a devoted fan of the variety I wasn't going to be going past, was I?
Getting there, however, wasn't quite as straightforward as it might have been, with a realization that the fuel gauge was hovering uncomfortably close to Empty, a refueling stop in Murrumbateman, and a missed turn just on the northern side of the township, but we eventually reached the converted school house that houses the Helm Cellar door and found, as expected, a very classy Riesling, a Premium version of the same that didn't impress as much as the first, as well as Sauvignon Blanc, a trio of Cabernets and a Cabernet Shiraz that impressed enough to have Hughesy ordering a box, though why they work in boxes of ten rather than a dozen wasn't obvious and I forgot to ask.
That box I ordered will, no doubt, provide the basis for a lengthier piece over on The Wine Pages along with Tasting Notes as the contents are sampled.
Those same considerations will come into play with what turns up from Lerida and Lark Hill as well, but for the moment we're looking at the travel narrative rather than an oenological perspective.
We could, had we left Canberra much earlier, have deviated from Murrumbateman Road into Gundaroo, but given the fact that it was Monday, with no apparent source of lunch to provide an excuse and little apart from the village's status as the home of the long gone Prickle Farm to justify a diversion we kept going towards Lake George, while I gave serious thought to giving Lerida Estate the flick pass and heading straight to Lark Hill.
That would have been a mistake, since once we'd made our way into the Cellar Door without encountering any of the three deadly species of poisonous snakes found in the vicinity, there was a small but very impressive range to sample, a mailing list to be added to and an interesting view out across Lake George from the Lerida Estate Facilities on the western escarpment.
We could probably have taken our time there, but with the time now well after one, and lunch venues in Bungendore presumably shutting down as far as new orders were concerned at two, it was a case of straight back on the road in search of lunch once we'd paid for a Botrytised bottle from Lerida, with plans to make up a mixed dozen order once we were back in the north.
The road to Bungendore took us straight past Lark Hill, which is perched right on the top of that particular portion of the Lake George escarpment, and we were on the ground there in time to claim a vacant table at the Woodworks Cafe, where Madam's bowl of Seafood Chowder and my Chicken and Mushroom Fettucine went down very well, filling the void that had developed since the morning's demolition of most of a loaf of Turkish bread.
Back in the car and back up the escarpment, we reached the biodynamic Lark Hill vineyard looking for Gruner Veltliner, which had been my main motivation for putting the place o the itinerary. Stock levels were such that there was none available to taste, though we escaped with (allegedly) the last available bottle and (hopefully) a spot on the mailing list for the next release.
A sample of the range was enough to ensure that a mixed dozen will be ordered when we're back at home, with, as previously indicated, further detailed discussion in the appropriate sections of the website.
Al those factors, including the final post-lunch ascent and descent of the escarpment were, however, starting to take their toll, and although we were going to back in Canberra with a good ninety minutes to spare before places started to close down for the day, discretion and the thought that rush hour traffic was no place for weary drivers suggested a return to base for a rest rather than venturing into the Parliamentary Triangle, which was pencilled in as the focus for Tuesday's wanderings.
By five-thirty the spell had started to take effect, and thoughts turned to dinner, with particular reference to the eateries over in Kennedy Street, Kingston (rather than the familiar Kennedy Street, Bowen, which remains steadfastly devoid of commercial dining options).
There were a number of options covering the Italian and familiar Asian cuisines, with the odd maverick (Portuguese at Vasco's) thrown in for good measure, so the best idea seemed to be to head over there and conduct a reconnaissance on the ground rather than pondering over the possibilities in the glossy book we found in the hotel room or musing over reviews on the Internet.
Given the fact that the area boasts a substantial restaurant strip, a seemingly popular gym and is surrounded by medium density housing it should come as no surprise to learn that parking in the street itself was at a premium, though we managed to find a spot in a nearby side street. Once we'd managed that it was a case of deciding where to eat, though preliminary research had suggested Il Rustico, which was where we ended up.
There were, we were told, three unreservedly tables for two, with the remainder being claimed rather rapidly between the time we were seated and the arrival of the meals, which suggests that you either need to book ahead or get there early, even on a Monday night, which we'd expected would be reasonably safe.
Having had a late and fairly substantial lunch, neither of us were inclined towards major gastronomic excess, and Madam's entree-sized Zuppa di cozze (spelling?), an attractive display of reasonably plump mussels served in a bowl with a tomato-based sumo worked well for her. My Pizza Calabrese, on the other hand, probably wasn't the best option on that side of the menu, but worked well enough with an accompanying glass of West End Aglicianico, a red variety I hadn't encountered before, but proved to be another savory food-friendly style that is worth looking out for. The Calabria family won't be the last to plant the variety.
On the way back to the chariot, a glance at the other establishment along the strip revealed, for what such observations are worth, that most were marginally less crowded than Il Rustico had been, though that's not necessarily, as the following evening's experience suggested, any reflection on the quality of what's on offer.
We were, in any case, back in the hotel room just after seven, in time to start filling out the detail surrounding the demise of Osama Bin Laden, news that had broken while we were having lunch, delivered via the iPad.
Day Sixteen: Orange - Canberra
We could, as subsequent events suggested, have booked ourselves a continental breakfast the night before and had it delivered to the room without actually delaying our departure, but in the thick of the booking in process the night before those details had gone through to the keeper, so we found ourselves on the road bright and early, dealing with condensation issues as we left the motel car park just before seven forty-five.
A thornier problem was the question of the best route to get us to Canberra.
A quick look at the Maps app revealed that the most direct route seemed to involve a twisting, turning road, probably through mountains, which was quickly ruled a non-starter.
Inquiries at Reception on the way out hadn't exactly been helpful, with suggestions we head all the way to Bathurst and double back, but a closer look at Maps revealed a reasonable looking semi short cut through Millthorpe and Blayney and we figured that we'd be able to get further suggestions when we reached Cowra, where we hoped the Tourist Information would be open when we arrived.
That was, fortunately, the way things panned out, and those inquiries directed us towards the route the locals use when they're heading that way through Boorowa and Yass before joining the Barton Highway to take us to the national capital.
We were on our way out of Cowra when the first of Staggy's text messages arrived, a matter complicated by my inability to send a response from my mobile, and quirks on Madam's model that made tapping out text on a moving platform a little too close to the too hard basket, so an actual call seemed a better option.
Since we were headed for the markets at the Old Bus Depot, that seemed like a reasonable rendezvous, so that was pencilled in before we hit the Barton, and we made our way into the national capital, through the downtown area and across Lake Burley Griffin without incident until a missed turn complicated matters in the midst of the Parliamentary Triangle.
It wasn't hard to fix the problem, but it would have been better it it hadn't happened at all, if you catch my drift.
We found a park at the back of what we presumed were the markets, and set off on foot, with another phone call to establish that we'd arrived. Once inside we found an impressive array of stalls, which could well have consumed a couple of hours if we'd consumed breakfast.
Since we hadn't, something to eat was the first priority, with Madam claiming the last of one line of French pastries before I spotted a Spanish stall in what was, effectively, the Food Court. Abondigas on a bread roll mightn't exactly be authentic Iberian delivery, but the meatballs went down well, the roll provided a bit of filling, and there was room left on both sides of the table for a shared serve of paella.
Fed, the next item on the agenda was a jacket to replace the one Madam had left in Bowen, and Staggy's suggestion that we try looking at a stall called Material Pleasures proved spot on, and provided a straightforward rendezvous once the I'm here, where are you guys? call came through.
After a further ramble through the Markets, a pause for coffee at the Canberra glassworks, we were off to the National Gallery, where Madam wasn't sure about catching the last day of the Ballets Russes exhibition, but ended up going in after helpful advice from someone who'd already been.
Mess Stagg and I took a stroll around the rest of the public bit, pausing for a lengthy chat in front of Blue Poles, which, some forty years after the controversy, looked remarkably innocuous amidst the other pieces. Still, it was a reminder of how far things have moved since the Whitlam Era, and reinforced my own aversion to ever going back to anything resembling the fifties.
After the Gallery, it was off to the accommodation in Narrabundah at the Hotel Heritage, and a break for an hour and a half before Staggy's collected us for dinner, ferrying us across to Timmy's Kitchen in Manuka, which delivers a quality and very tasty line in Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisine, which went down rather well with a Bloodwood Big Men In Tights and a Chardonnay.
A cup of coffee and a further chat back in the hotel room, and we were ready for the cot, with the following day's game plan involving a run around some wineries in the morning and something in the regular tourist itinerary in the afternoon.
A thornier problem was the question of the best route to get us to Canberra.
A quick look at the Maps app revealed that the most direct route seemed to involve a twisting, turning road, probably through mountains, which was quickly ruled a non-starter.
Inquiries at Reception on the way out hadn't exactly been helpful, with suggestions we head all the way to Bathurst and double back, but a closer look at Maps revealed a reasonable looking semi short cut through Millthorpe and Blayney and we figured that we'd be able to get further suggestions when we reached Cowra, where we hoped the Tourist Information would be open when we arrived.
That was, fortunately, the way things panned out, and those inquiries directed us towards the route the locals use when they're heading that way through Boorowa and Yass before joining the Barton Highway to take us to the national capital.
We were on our way out of Cowra when the first of Staggy's text messages arrived, a matter complicated by my inability to send a response from my mobile, and quirks on Madam's model that made tapping out text on a moving platform a little too close to the too hard basket, so an actual call seemed a better option.
Since we were headed for the markets at the Old Bus Depot, that seemed like a reasonable rendezvous, so that was pencilled in before we hit the Barton, and we made our way into the national capital, through the downtown area and across Lake Burley Griffin without incident until a missed turn complicated matters in the midst of the Parliamentary Triangle.
It wasn't hard to fix the problem, but it would have been better it it hadn't happened at all, if you catch my drift.
We found a park at the back of what we presumed were the markets, and set off on foot, with another phone call to establish that we'd arrived. Once inside we found an impressive array of stalls, which could well have consumed a couple of hours if we'd consumed breakfast.
Since we hadn't, something to eat was the first priority, with Madam claiming the last of one line of French pastries before I spotted a Spanish stall in what was, effectively, the Food Court. Abondigas on a bread roll mightn't exactly be authentic Iberian delivery, but the meatballs went down well, the roll provided a bit of filling, and there was room left on both sides of the table for a shared serve of paella.
Fed, the next item on the agenda was a jacket to replace the one Madam had left in Bowen, and Staggy's suggestion that we try looking at a stall called Material Pleasures proved spot on, and provided a straightforward rendezvous once the I'm here, where are you guys? call came through.
After a further ramble through the Markets, a pause for coffee at the Canberra glassworks, we were off to the National Gallery, where Madam wasn't sure about catching the last day of the Ballets Russes exhibition, but ended up going in after helpful advice from someone who'd already been.
Mess Stagg and I took a stroll around the rest of the public bit, pausing for a lengthy chat in front of Blue Poles, which, some forty years after the controversy, looked remarkably innocuous amidst the other pieces. Still, it was a reminder of how far things have moved since the Whitlam Era, and reinforced my own aversion to ever going back to anything resembling the fifties.
After the Gallery, it was off to the accommodation in Narrabundah at the Hotel Heritage, and a break for an hour and a half before Staggy's collected us for dinner, ferrying us across to Timmy's Kitchen in Manuka, which delivers a quality and very tasty line in Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisine, which went down rather well with a Bloodwood Big Men In Tights and a Chardonnay.
A cup of coffee and a further chat back in the hotel room, and we were ready for the cot, with the following day's game plan involving a run around some wineries in the morning and something in the regular tourist itinerary in the afternoon.
Day Fifteen: Coonabarabran - Orange
Saturday morning's game plan had us leaving around seven-thirty, which we didn't quite manage, but we were back out on the highway just after eight, and the route to Dubbo via Gilgandra, heading in a general westerly direction, delivered a side on view of the Warrumbungles before veering increasingly towards the south.
Through Gilgandra just after nine we thought about breakfast, but opted to continue onwards with an extended break in Dubbo when no obvious options presented themselves as we headed through the home of the Coo-ee.
Finding a parking spot behind Dubbo's Woolworths Supermarket wasn't too difficult, and an inspection of the options along the main street brought us into Mr Bean's Coffee Emporium for a substantial breakfast, before hitting the road again via Wellington and Molong en route to Bloodwood Wines, which is about ten kilometres north of Orange.
The iPad showed it's value as a navigational device, delivering us almost exactly to the entrance of the vineyard, rather impressive since the we're on our way, anticipated ETA between twelve and twelve-thirty phone call suggested that the entrance was easily missed.
That phone call had also indicated that they were on (hopefully) their last day of picking, and we passed the pickers, obviously on their lunch break, on the way in, sighting a figure that seemed to be the right vintage to be Mr Doyle disappearing into a hilltop vineyard block.
Changes to the previous travelogue setup and the need to play catch up when you've found yourself about four days behind the pace militate against throwing a detailed description of the next few hours here, and the reader will find discussion of the oenological side of the visit, along with tasting notes, over on The Wine Pages.
Because, for a start, we were looking at something different from our usual modus operandi when visiting a vineyard, which involves turning up, having a taste (and hopefully a bit of a natter to someone) and hopping into the car to move on to the next place.
In this case, however, we'd already sampled most of the range, and there were various catch up factors involved in whatever nattering was going to take place, so I'd neglected to add any other wineries in the area to the schedule.
A couple of points, though.
If you're planning a visit, be aware that the By Appointment in Halliday and other sources of information is exactly that. Arrive for a tasting and you'll be guided through the range, and if there's a session in progress when you arrive, you'll be cooling your heels on the verandah until the current one is finished.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, at least as far as Hughesy's concerned.
For a start the views from the winery are fairly spectacular, and you can take the time to consider the effort that's gone into transforming what Steve Doyle has described as a windswept hillside desert (or words to that effect) into the vineyard vista before you.
Secondly, unlike the regular tasting room experience, you've got the undivided attention of your guide for the whole of the session, rather than having him or her heading backwards or forwards between two, three or four groups of tasters trying to satisfy two, three or four sets of insatiable curiosities.
It also means, of course, that having made an appointment you're likely to be keeping someone else waiting if you're late.
In any case Rhonda was in the middle of a session when we arrived, and interrupted it long enough to greet us and point out that Steve was either in the winery or up in the Riesling block, and had suggested we track him down when we arrived.
That wasn't as difficult as it might have been since the figure we'd sighted on the way in was now involved in putting newly picked fruit through the de-stemmer.
Madam set off with the camera, while I stood around and watched, and with that particular lot of Shiraz de-stemmed it was back up into the Riesling block, where a few Cabernet vines were in the process of being picked by the winemaker himself.
Everything on the property is picked by hand, and, by picking these half dozen or so buckets himself, Steve was saving himself several multiples of $6.40. That's a significant factor when you're looking at the output from a winery that does all the picking by hand, since the buckets aren't exactly huge.
Start with whatever it cost to produce the grapes, add that cost per bucket and then throw in all the little extra costs along the way, and there's no way you're going to be churning out vast quantities of sub-$10 wines if you're dealing with handpicked fruit.
Readers will undoubtedly find further reflections along those lines over in the Rants section of the site and at The People's Republic of The Little House of Concrete.
There was plenty of photographic action for Madam, and plenty of points of interest for Hughesy, including a taste of the berries out in the vineyard and samples of the still very young 2011 wines, and, eventually, we finished with a brief taste, where I went for the Schubert Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir rather than the other wines I'd already tried.
We also took on a bit of advice re. Wines that might go down well in Sunday night's most likely restaurant venue which we expected to be Chinese with Mess Stagg.
Along the way a group of prospective tasters had arrived unannounced, while the scheduled crew had been running late, and I'd wanted to hang around till Rhonda had finished with the customers before heading off, which meant that it was much later than intended when we made our escape.
Having booked into the evening's accommodation, it was a matter of deciding whether to walk or drive downtown for dinner, and, with hindsight, driving might have been the better option.
For a start, eateries are fairly thin on the ground along Orange's main drag (or at least that part of it we wandered along) and anything in a side street wasn't going to be advertising it's presence with tables on the footpath in Orange in autumn with the overnight minimum diving into single figures.
We'd been pointed towards a wood-fired pizza operation, which turned out to be booked out (an example of why driving may have helped) but as it turned out there was a Thai place directly opposite that turned out to be quite satisfactory. from there it was back to the motel and, predictably, to bed prior to an early departure before reunions in Canberra.
Day Fourteen: Coonabarabran and the Warrumbungles
Early to bed and early to rise is all very well, but I wasn't inclined to stick my nose out of the covers around the usual four-thirty or five due to the likely temperature outside. The sky was, however, lightening when I decided to risk it around six, and while the track pants and top helped ward off the chill things weren't as bad as they'd could have been thanks to a remarkably well insulated structure and I had a good hour's tapping out of the way when Madam returned from the early morning photo excursion.
With the iPad on to charge while showers were taken and cups of tea consumed. The premises are light on for tea and coffee, so intending visitors are advised to bring their own. Actually, given the almost invariable presence of Nescafe Blend 43 or International Roast you're probably best off carrying your own if you're after a decent heart starter rather than an initial surge of not too tasty caffeine.
In any case, just after eight we were on the rod, planning a visit to the hat shop in Coonabarabran, something for breakfast and lunch from the bakery and a day exploring the Warrumbungles.
The hat shop, to be frank, was a disappointment, but at least we gave it a go, and Madam's croissant and my meat pie from the Bakery were enough to keep us going in the interim.
I'd been in favor of consuming them in the car in the main street, based largely on the theory that I might have an excuse to head back to the Bakery for a resupply if I was still peckish, but I was overruled and we ate beside the Information Centre, which had decided to open earlier than the advertised nine o'clock, so we were able to get a couple of handy pointers about suitable walks in the Warrumbungles.
And, for visitors to the area, some pointers are pretty close to an essential commodity.
The Warrumbungles National Park leaflet identifies a dozen walks, varying from 7-8 hours to a mere forty minutes, and making a selection straight off the brochure wouldn't be too difficult, based on the reported time required and the designated degree of difficulty, but it's handy to have an idea of what you're likely to be seeing along the way.
Information Centre Lady pointed us to three walks and a fourth site that had pretty good views but didn't involve a great deal of walking.
Easily the best of them, and the one I'd recommend if you're just passing through and only have time for one, is the Whitegum Lookout, a kilometre walk along a sealed path that leads to a vantage point looking across the most noted features of the Warrumbungles, complete with a pictorial representation of what you're looking at that delivers convenient labels and a brief descriptive text.
While White gum might be fine as a single stop, you'd be missing quite a bit if you kept it at that (and, of course, we missed quite a bit by opting for a single day in the area).
Our next stop was the Visitors Centre, where we paid the fees and had a look at the interpretive material before completing the loop of the Gurianawa Track, and easy loop from the Centre back to the car park that offers a variety of views and assorted items of interest along the way. Actually, it's that variety of views, with the different features that are exposed as you look at things from a different perspective, that makes the exercise worthwhile.
Gurianawa takes you along another sealed track, and, for me, the highlight came right towards the end, just after I'd crossed a bridge and paused to read one of the interpretive panels, waiting for Madam to come into view.
Given the fact that photographers invariably take longer to traverse a walking track than the rest of us I tend to wander along at a slow meander, usually with the iPod playing away, pausing where I can find something to gaze at and waiting till I can spot Madam in the distance before meandering on.
Those little information panels are invariably useful places to pause and I was just about to start reading about whatever it was when my arrival sparked a flurry of activity from three nearby kangaroos.
My arrival on the scene might not, of course, have been the actual cause of the movement. It might have been something else, but the movement was towards the curve that took the trail back towards the car park, so I had took the time to watch the three of them grazing, noting how well the grey fur blended with the surrounding vegetation, and pointing towards the group when the photographer hove into view.
Back in the car park we demolished the chicken and salad rolls bought at the Bakery before heading on to the third recommended location, the service trail than ran away from Camp Blackman that gives a panoramic view of the same section of the range visible from Whitegum Lookout, from, of course, a slightly different perspective, before heading over to the Canyon Parking Area for a ramble along the nature walking trail, which was a pleasant enough, if not overly scenic stroll, until a slight complication set in.
Madam later claimed to recall something about heading back along the road, something I seemed to have missed, since after the second crossing of the creek the information panel visible from the stepping stones seemed only scrutinisable from the creek, and would have involved some degree of levitation.
Now, there may well have been a trail that led back along the opposite bank, but if such a beast existed we missed it and, having forgotten references to roads, found ourselves climbing a trail that led to a vaguely defined hilltop end with no clear way forward, so it was a case of back down and along the road back to the car park.
That was about enough bushwalking for one day, so from there we retraced our tracks as far as the turnoff to Siding Springs Observatory, making the ascent to the ANU astronomical outpost and taking a turn through the associated museum that was far short of what you'd need to grasp a firm understanding of what was on display.
There was a choice of the lift or four flights of steps if you wanted a squiz at the actual telescope, so we took the easy way up and the pedestrian descent, which brought us back to the vehicle at the right time to head back to the Poet's Cottage before the afternoon sun became an issue.
The way out that morning definitely seemed faster than the way in the previous evening, and even without the afternoon sun factor the afternoon return seemed quicker again. once back, the first priority was settling the bill, since we were looking at an early start Saturday morning, and with the financial issues settled, there was a good hour and a half for photographic frolics around the property and continued trapping of the travelogue before starting dinner preparations around five thirty.
Dinner involved one of the LHoC favorites, a pasta dish with tuna, olives, capers and garlic, which mightn't have been the optimum match for a Leeuwin Estate Art Series Riesling, but that was all we had in the white wine line, so it had to do.
Polish off the rest of the Pfeiffers VP after that, and we were heading into the attic to push up Zs shortly after eight, ready for a reasonably early start on the morrow.
Day Thirteen: Goondiwindi - Coonabarabran ( well, not quite, but close enough)
Thursday morning didn't quite see is up to catch the sunrise, but we weren't far off after a night that, in Bowen terms would have been classed as chilly, on the verge of winter but in these parts is probably par for the course as far as April and May are concerned,
A quick glance around the other centers on the Weather app revealed 10.1 was about par for the course where we were headed, and a quick check around the same as I sit tapping away at six on Friday morning doesn't reveal as much about Coonabarabran, but suggests 7 in Canberra and 6.3 at Orange Airport. Fortunately we've packed the winter woolies (such as they are).
But, as is so often the case we're getting ahead of the narrative, which at this point involves a skimpy breakfast, at least on Hughesy's part, followed by the ritual packing and stowing of everything we'd lugged inside the previous night, one day, doubtless, we'll get things together as far as this traveling caper is concerned, to the point where we can grab just one bag each, with maybe a box of essentials and the esky, leaving most of the stiff in the car, but that point is still some time in the future.
By eight thirty we were on the road, if only briefly, headed downtown for a walk along the banks of the McIntyre and a look at the Information Centre and the Gunsymd Museum. The Goondiwindi Grey's career ended just prior to Hughesy's spell on the punt, so there weren't too many familiar names in the pholoss along the wall of the Museum, but there we go again, getting ahead of ourselves.
We parked in the grounds of the Information Centre and set off for the riverbank, noting the Customs House Museum along the way. It definitely looked worth an extended look, but it doesn't open till ten, and closes at four, so I don't like our chances, presuming we're ever back this way.
We speculated about flooding issues as we strolled along the levee bank, which, frankly, I thought would have Ben higher, passing the Hospital and the Bowls Club before heading back through the main drag so Madam could take a photo of the Victoria Hotel, sighted on the previous evening's excursion, which had interesting architectural features reminiscent of the iconic winery at Tahbilk.
Back at the Information Centre, we discovered that the recent floods hadn't broken the levees, though they'd cut the town off in all directions, and aいtroll through the Gunsynd Museum revived hazy memories of the pre-punting past.
We took the old highway out of town, crossing the bridge that replaced the original punt and rope crossing back in the late nineteenth century, and headed south through Boggabilla towards Moree, where Madam was intrigued by the idea of an art deco townscape and I was interested in the possibilities for brunch.
The townscape was intreating, though probably not worth going out of your way for, with substantial bowers along both sides of the main street, and brunch was a plate of bangers and mash ($10, but perfectly acceptable at the Wine Bar that serves as the cellar door for Woolaway Wines.
While waiting for the bangers I sampled the Verdelho, which was pleasant enough, with the requisite tropical fruit notes rather than overtones, but didn't stand out enough to warrant buying a bottle, and the Rose, which was in the sweeter style, which I tend to avoid.
From there it was a case of replenishing the garlic supply, which involved a compass and a cut lunch circumnavigation of the building with the Coles sign, and gave me another occasion to muse on the habit of people with a substantial load of shopping to use the twelve items or less checkout.
There was an old bloke unloading his trolley at the adjacent checkout who'd barely finished before I got through next door, having followed a woman with a chatty kid who interacted at some length with the checkout chick, and a woman who needed a packet of lollies, presumably as an aid to driving.
A garlic bulb set me back $1.20, but lack of a dollar coin had me getting a dollar's change, which the checkout chick advised against spending all at once.
We headed back out to the bypass, which brought us back to the other end of the main drag, checking the fuel options (last fuel stop had been Warwick) but with a little over a hundred k to Narrabri with a seventy k round trip to Sawn Rocks thrown in along the way felt we'd have enough to get us safely there, with enough left over to allow a slight further diversion if necessary.
The country, all the way from Goondiwindi to Moree had been flat, featureless, and largely devoted to broad acre farming, with cotton featuring heavily. Grain silos en route suggested possibilities of wheat, barley or sorghum (or quite possibly something else, things have definitely changed in these parts since Hughesy's dimly remembered High School Geography classes) though there didn't seem to be much grain in evidence.
South of Moree we sighted mountains on the horizon, guessing, correctly as it turned out, that was where we were headed if we wanted to see this interesting geological phenomenon.
The Sawn Rocks turnoff is about three kilometers north of Narrabri, and Madam had some reservations about the road, which turned out to be comfortable two lane bitumen rather than the unsealed surface she'd feared.
It's 33km each way, but if you're in these parts and have the time on your hands it's a pleasant drive, and a 750 metro walk along a good track delivers you to the foot of this quite remarkable feature, allegedly the only one of it's kind in the country.
Personally, as interesting as the organ pipes were, I was impressed by the absolute straightness of the edges of the fallen rocks.
Back in the car, we made it into Narrabri with ample fuel to spare, and then it was off in search of the night's accommodation, the Poet's Cottage at Pilliga Pottery.
Most of the drive took us through Pilliga State Forest, and the turnoff, around 25 km north of Coonabarabran, leads onto around ten kilometres of corrugated unsealed road that twists and turns through the forest.
The outside signage described it as a scenic drive, which I thought was stretching things a bit unless you were a seasoned off road four wheel drive enthusiast, but the Pottery, when we eventually arrived, turned out to be an interting, isolated and eco-friendly establishment.
Given the state of the road, one doubts there'd be too many visitors at the Blue Wren Bush Cafe, and one suspects that shipments of outgoing pottery would need to be carefully packed if they were going to make it safely out to the highway.
Still, once we were in the Poet's Cottage, everything was fine, provided you're willing to forego the use of extensive electronic gadgetry, which we were. I don't recall watching anything on TV since, I don' actually know, and we're pretty firmly in the early to bed camp, so it's not like we were going to be burning the midnight oil.
That's a significant consideration since you're probably out of mobile phone coverage, even with Telstra (at least that's true for the SIM card in the iPad) and the property, being in the middle of the Pilliga Forest, is off the power grid as well.
Solar power covers all the essentials, but it's not something that you're going to be able to recharge after dark, is it?
I did, however, get the iPad close to fully charged before we retired for the night, and while the following morning's tapping ran it back down I got most of it back in the morning.
Dinner arrived around six-fifteen in the form of a couple of wood-fired pizzas from the Blue Wren Cafe. At $20 they're probably overpriced, but they were surprisingly filling, so we weren't complaining.
A bottle of Taylor's Promised Land Cabernet Merlot went down rather well, as did a glass or two of Pfeiffer Christopher's VP, which was the better of the two, largely drawn, if my memory serves me well, from the classic Portuguese port varieties. A very pleasant little nightcap.
A quick glance around the other centers on the Weather app revealed 10.1 was about par for the course where we were headed, and a quick check around the same as I sit tapping away at six on Friday morning doesn't reveal as much about Coonabarabran, but suggests 7 in Canberra and 6.3 at Orange Airport. Fortunately we've packed the winter woolies (such as they are).
But, as is so often the case we're getting ahead of the narrative, which at this point involves a skimpy breakfast, at least on Hughesy's part, followed by the ritual packing and stowing of everything we'd lugged inside the previous night, one day, doubtless, we'll get things together as far as this traveling caper is concerned, to the point where we can grab just one bag each, with maybe a box of essentials and the esky, leaving most of the stiff in the car, but that point is still some time in the future.
By eight thirty we were on the road, if only briefly, headed downtown for a walk along the banks of the McIntyre and a look at the Information Centre and the Gunsymd Museum. The Goondiwindi Grey's career ended just prior to Hughesy's spell on the punt, so there weren't too many familiar names in the pholoss along the wall of the Museum, but there we go again, getting ahead of ourselves.
We parked in the grounds of the Information Centre and set off for the riverbank, noting the Customs House Museum along the way. It definitely looked worth an extended look, but it doesn't open till ten, and closes at four, so I don't like our chances, presuming we're ever back this way.
We speculated about flooding issues as we strolled along the levee bank, which, frankly, I thought would have Ben higher, passing the Hospital and the Bowls Club before heading back through the main drag so Madam could take a photo of the Victoria Hotel, sighted on the previous evening's excursion, which had interesting architectural features reminiscent of the iconic winery at Tahbilk.
Back at the Information Centre, we discovered that the recent floods hadn't broken the levees, though they'd cut the town off in all directions, and aいtroll through the Gunsynd Museum revived hazy memories of the pre-punting past.
We took the old highway out of town, crossing the bridge that replaced the original punt and rope crossing back in the late nineteenth century, and headed south through Boggabilla towards Moree, where Madam was intrigued by the idea of an art deco townscape and I was interested in the possibilities for brunch.
The townscape was intreating, though probably not worth going out of your way for, with substantial bowers along both sides of the main street, and brunch was a plate of bangers and mash ($10, but perfectly acceptable at the Wine Bar that serves as the cellar door for Woolaway Wines.
While waiting for the bangers I sampled the Verdelho, which was pleasant enough, with the requisite tropical fruit notes rather than overtones, but didn't stand out enough to warrant buying a bottle, and the Rose, which was in the sweeter style, which I tend to avoid.
From there it was a case of replenishing the garlic supply, which involved a compass and a cut lunch circumnavigation of the building with the Coles sign, and gave me another occasion to muse on the habit of people with a substantial load of shopping to use the twelve items or less checkout.
There was an old bloke unloading his trolley at the adjacent checkout who'd barely finished before I got through next door, having followed a woman with a chatty kid who interacted at some length with the checkout chick, and a woman who needed a packet of lollies, presumably as an aid to driving.
A garlic bulb set me back $1.20, but lack of a dollar coin had me getting a dollar's change, which the checkout chick advised against spending all at once.
We headed back out to the bypass, which brought us back to the other end of the main drag, checking the fuel options (last fuel stop had been Warwick) but with a little over a hundred k to Narrabri with a seventy k round trip to Sawn Rocks thrown in along the way felt we'd have enough to get us safely there, with enough left over to allow a slight further diversion if necessary.
The country, all the way from Goondiwindi to Moree had been flat, featureless, and largely devoted to broad acre farming, with cotton featuring heavily. Grain silos en route suggested possibilities of wheat, barley or sorghum (or quite possibly something else, things have definitely changed in these parts since Hughesy's dimly remembered High School Geography classes) though there didn't seem to be much grain in evidence.
South of Moree we sighted mountains on the horizon, guessing, correctly as it turned out, that was where we were headed if we wanted to see this interesting geological phenomenon.
The Sawn Rocks turnoff is about three kilometers north of Narrabri, and Madam had some reservations about the road, which turned out to be comfortable two lane bitumen rather than the unsealed surface she'd feared.
It's 33km each way, but if you're in these parts and have the time on your hands it's a pleasant drive, and a 750 metro walk along a good track delivers you to the foot of this quite remarkable feature, allegedly the only one of it's kind in the country.
Personally, as interesting as the organ pipes were, I was impressed by the absolute straightness of the edges of the fallen rocks.
Back in the car, we made it into Narrabri with ample fuel to spare, and then it was off in search of the night's accommodation, the Poet's Cottage at Pilliga Pottery.
Most of the drive took us through Pilliga State Forest, and the turnoff, around 25 km north of Coonabarabran, leads onto around ten kilometres of corrugated unsealed road that twists and turns through the forest.
The outside signage described it as a scenic drive, which I thought was stretching things a bit unless you were a seasoned off road four wheel drive enthusiast, but the Pottery, when we eventually arrived, turned out to be an interting, isolated and eco-friendly establishment.
Given the state of the road, one doubts there'd be too many visitors at the Blue Wren Bush Cafe, and one suspects that shipments of outgoing pottery would need to be carefully packed if they were going to make it safely out to the highway.
Still, once we were in the Poet's Cottage, everything was fine, provided you're willing to forego the use of extensive electronic gadgetry, which we were. I don't recall watching anything on TV since, I don' actually know, and we're pretty firmly in the early to bed camp, so it's not like we were going to be burning the midnight oil.
That's a significant consideration since you're probably out of mobile phone coverage, even with Telstra (at least that's true for the SIM card in the iPad) and the property, being in the middle of the Pilliga Forest, is off the power grid as well.
Solar power covers all the essentials, but it's not something that you're going to be able to recharge after dark, is it?
I did, however, get the iPad close to fully charged before we retired for the night, and while the following morning's tapping ran it back down I got most of it back in the morning.
Dinner arrived around six-fifteen in the form of a couple of wood-fired pizzas from the Blue Wren Cafe. At $20 they're probably overpriced, but they were surprisingly filling, so we weren't complaining.
A bottle of Taylor's Promised Land Cabernet Merlot went down rather well, as did a glass or two of Pfeiffer Christopher's VP, which was the better of the two, largely drawn, if my memory serves me well, from the classic Portuguese port varieties. A very pleasant little nightcap.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Day Twelve: Gold Coast - Goondiwindi
Had we been heading west at the crack of dawn the weather on offer when we rose, an almost carbon copy of Tuesday's would have posed a significant downer, but having pencilled in a departure some time after nine, we could live in hope.
There's a definite routine involved the morning we leave The Unit, one that's based around the fact that we won't be back for a while, so the place will need a surface clean.
There are also towels and bed linen that need a turn through the washing machine, and there's also the matter of getting the sheets dry and making the bed ready for whichever member of the family's going to be using the premises next.
We've got The Nephew (the eldest of the Gang of Four) there for the next few years finishing a medical degree, so I guess we could have left these matters to him, but since he'd just finished exams and jetted off back to Melbourne...
Two cycles through the washing machine runs to close to two and a half hours, so a start around a quarter to seven meant we'd be pushing it to get on the road much before nine-thirty, and it was just after ten when I found myself taking the lift back up to the unit to return the buzzy thing to a position where it'd be ready to let the next passing travelers into the secure parking in the nether regions of the unit block.
We'd neglected to fuel up earlier, figuring that the Caltex servo on Smith Street would be the way to go, which, as it turned out, it wasn't. Every servo through to the back blocks of New South Wales was cheaper.
That gave Madam plenty of cause for comment as we slid through the rain, taking the exit onto the Motorway, and immediately selecting the next one off to take us through Nerang towards Canungra. We'd been that way before en route to Stanthorpe, and while it has it's ups and downs it's an easier drive than the alternative route across the top of Mount Tamborine.
We weren't optimistic on the weather front, noting showers that seemed to be delivering precipitation to seas we were going to be passing through, though the roads, once we were through the first lot of ranges, were almost invariably dry.
The run through Beaudesert and Boonah went far more smoothly than the previous one, removing the excuse to pull in to the winery at Kooroomba, which would have been dismissed on the grounds of expense had I suggested a detour, so we kept going towards Cunningham's Gap, where the perennial roadworks produced a lengthy delay just short of the summit.
Still, apart from that, it was a clear run, and we pulled in to the car park behind the Information Centre at Warwick just after one, pausing briefly to check the known lunch options. We ended up opting for Thai, which turned out to be the wrong option as far as Madam was concerned, with a chicken Pad Thai requiring a doggy bag due to quantity and perceived lack of quality. My Padt Chilli was, on the other hand, rather satisfying, and I wolfed down the lot, clearing the sinuses in the process.
Back on the highway having fueled up, the next two hours took us through Inglewood on the way to Goondiwindi, where the iPad's Maps app had the Gundy Star Tourist Park in the wrong place.
Finding thevright location wasn't, as it turned out, all that difficult, and we were ensconced and rested when Madam decided she wanted a squiz at the sunset (for photographic purposes, you understand). That particular little excursion wasn't as successful as it might have been, but it served to put off dinner for a bit, which was fine as far as Hughesy was concerned due to quantities of lunchtime Padt Chilli.
We'd loaded the esky with various odds and ends from the fridge in The Unit, and a vegetable stir fry (nothing flash, a couple of spuds, some broccolini, a few mushrooms, an onion and two cloves of garlic) went down rather well with a bottle of Pikes Damside Chardonnay and a musical accompaniment from the iPad.
You can add having a speaker that contributes reasonable sound in a motel room situation to the iPad's lengthy list of practical uses.
There's a definite routine involved the morning we leave The Unit, one that's based around the fact that we won't be back for a while, so the place will need a surface clean.
There are also towels and bed linen that need a turn through the washing machine, and there's also the matter of getting the sheets dry and making the bed ready for whichever member of the family's going to be using the premises next.
We've got The Nephew (the eldest of the Gang of Four) there for the next few years finishing a medical degree, so I guess we could have left these matters to him, but since he'd just finished exams and jetted off back to Melbourne...
Two cycles through the washing machine runs to close to two and a half hours, so a start around a quarter to seven meant we'd be pushing it to get on the road much before nine-thirty, and it was just after ten when I found myself taking the lift back up to the unit to return the buzzy thing to a position where it'd be ready to let the next passing travelers into the secure parking in the nether regions of the unit block.
We'd neglected to fuel up earlier, figuring that the Caltex servo on Smith Street would be the way to go, which, as it turned out, it wasn't. Every servo through to the back blocks of New South Wales was cheaper.
That gave Madam plenty of cause for comment as we slid through the rain, taking the exit onto the Motorway, and immediately selecting the next one off to take us through Nerang towards Canungra. We'd been that way before en route to Stanthorpe, and while it has it's ups and downs it's an easier drive than the alternative route across the top of Mount Tamborine.
We weren't optimistic on the weather front, noting showers that seemed to be delivering precipitation to seas we were going to be passing through, though the roads, once we were through the first lot of ranges, were almost invariably dry.
The run through Beaudesert and Boonah went far more smoothly than the previous one, removing the excuse to pull in to the winery at Kooroomba, which would have been dismissed on the grounds of expense had I suggested a detour, so we kept going towards Cunningham's Gap, where the perennial roadworks produced a lengthy delay just short of the summit.
Still, apart from that, it was a clear run, and we pulled in to the car park behind the Information Centre at Warwick just after one, pausing briefly to check the known lunch options. We ended up opting for Thai, which turned out to be the wrong option as far as Madam was concerned, with a chicken Pad Thai requiring a doggy bag due to quantity and perceived lack of quality. My Padt Chilli was, on the other hand, rather satisfying, and I wolfed down the lot, clearing the sinuses in the process.
Back on the highway having fueled up, the next two hours took us through Inglewood on the way to Goondiwindi, where the iPad's Maps app had the Gundy Star Tourist Park in the wrong place.
Finding thevright location wasn't, as it turned out, all that difficult, and we were ensconced and rested when Madam decided she wanted a squiz at the sunset (for photographic purposes, you understand). That particular little excursion wasn't as successful as it might have been, but it served to put off dinner for a bit, which was fine as far as Hughesy was concerned due to quantities of lunchtime Padt Chilli.
We'd loaded the esky with various odds and ends from the fridge in The Unit, and a vegetable stir fry (nothing flash, a couple of spuds, some broccolini, a few mushrooms, an onion and two cloves of garlic) went down rather well with a bottle of Pikes Damside Chardonnay and a musical accompaniment from the iPad.
You can add having a speaker that contributes reasonable sound in a motel room situation to the iPad's lengthy list of practical uses.
Day Eleven: Gold Coast
My morning walk the previous day had taken me from The Unit, across Marine Parade and the Gold Coast Highway into the almost completely refurbished Broadwater Parklands. Given the Anzac Day factor, once I was safely across the highway I'd headed south, since last time I was in the vicinity fourteen months ago they'd still been working on the site where the Southport Cenotaph was to be relocated, and I guessed that the march to the dawn service indicated that the work was complete.
The plan, at that time, had been to take a gander at progress on the northern side of things the following morning, but as soon as I peered out into Tuesday's predawn gloom it was obvious that we wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon.
Bleak, blustery, overcast conditions lasted throughout the day, which also ruled out anything much in the way of shopping that didn't involve the nearby Australia Fair.
I'd packed a box of bottles to take with us on the first part of the trip, figuring we'd be getting across to Ferry Road some time in proceedings, but when the weather ruled that eventuality out it was off to Australia Fair to fetch the ingredients for dinner, and stock up with enough bottles to get us to Orange, where I suspect Steve and Rhonda will be doing rather nicely out of us.
Madam, at least, had arranged to meet a blogging acquaintance for lunch, which gave her some focus, but also meant that I was semi-tied to the property until she returned. She'd set out to do some shopping before that, which was fine with me, but around eleven-thirty a phone call indicated she'd found something that might be suitable cat accommodation, and would I like to offer a second opinion?
Which, at least, got me out of the unit for twenty minutes or so, not that the transit between home base and Australia Fair was one of the world's most enjoyable experiences.
Apart from that, with the washing done, it was a case of ironing, preliminary packing, and a continuation of the previous two days, which wasn't hard to take, but a little more activity would have been infinitely preferable.
Discovering a couple of zucchinis rapidly approaching their use by date changed the steak and spuds dinner plan to steak and zucchini, but at least the spuds will come in handy over the next bit, where we're going to be catering for ourselves (at least that's the presumption) in the back blocks on our way towards Canberra and Orange.
The plan, at that time, had been to take a gander at progress on the northern side of things the following morning, but as soon as I peered out into Tuesday's predawn gloom it was obvious that we wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon.
Bleak, blustery, overcast conditions lasted throughout the day, which also ruled out anything much in the way of shopping that didn't involve the nearby Australia Fair.
I'd packed a box of bottles to take with us on the first part of the trip, figuring we'd be getting across to Ferry Road some time in proceedings, but when the weather ruled that eventuality out it was off to Australia Fair to fetch the ingredients for dinner, and stock up with enough bottles to get us to Orange, where I suspect Steve and Rhonda will be doing rather nicely out of us.
Madam, at least, had arranged to meet a blogging acquaintance for lunch, which gave her some focus, but also meant that I was semi-tied to the property until she returned. She'd set out to do some shopping before that, which was fine with me, but around eleven-thirty a phone call indicated she'd found something that might be suitable cat accommodation, and would I like to offer a second opinion?
Which, at least, got me out of the unit for twenty minutes or so, not that the transit between home base and Australia Fair was one of the world's most enjoyable experiences.
Apart from that, with the washing done, it was a case of ironing, preliminary packing, and a continuation of the previous two days, which wasn't hard to take, but a little more activity would have been infinitely preferable.
Discovering a couple of zucchinis rapidly approaching their use by date changed the steak and spuds dinner plan to steak and zucchini, but at least the spuds will come in handy over the next bit, where we're going to be catering for ourselves (at least that's the presumption) in the back blocks on our way towards Canberra and Orange.
Day Ten: Gold Coast
Even with the early to bed, early to rise bit, the muffled drums of the dawn parade would probably have woken me as they moved from the Southport RSL to the newly relocated Cenotaph at the Broadwater Parklands. Until the relocation, one assumes the march would have taken them right past The Unit, but being half awake as the drums murmured, it probably comes as no surprise to learn that I was sitting at the table checking the email well before the actual sunrise.
Had I been at home, I'd probably have headed off to the dawn service myself, but here, with no knowledge of the local practice, total anonymity, and an uncertain interval between the march and the start of the service itself, I decided against a hurried departure.
I could, perhaps, have checked the timing of the later observance, but given the anonymity factor (you wouldn't have been expecting to see anything in the way of old acquaintances, after all), decided against going to that one as well.
Which meant, once the email was safely digested, and a morning post-dawn walk was out of the way, that it was back to tapping away, listening to the contents of the iPod via the handy little docking stereo we'd installed there back when it looked like the place required our attendance every three months, and when the tapping was done it was back to Miles and the London Underground.
Madam, armed with a bundle of Japanese texts she'd borrowed from the local library while I was jetting to Sydney, was more or less in the same mode, a situation that lasted throughout the day until it was time to reheat the risotto and throw a couple of chicken fillets in the oven for dinner.
Had I been at home, I'd probably have headed off to the dawn service myself, but here, with no knowledge of the local practice, total anonymity, and an uncertain interval between the march and the start of the service itself, I decided against a hurried departure.
I could, perhaps, have checked the timing of the later observance, but given the anonymity factor (you wouldn't have been expecting to see anything in the way of old acquaintances, after all), decided against going to that one as well.
Which meant, once the email was safely digested, and a morning post-dawn walk was out of the way, that it was back to tapping away, listening to the contents of the iPod via the handy little docking stereo we'd installed there back when it looked like the place required our attendance every three months, and when the tapping was done it was back to Miles and the London Underground.
Madam, armed with a bundle of Japanese texts she'd borrowed from the local library while I was jetting to Sydney, was more or less in the same mode, a situation that lasted throughout the day until it was time to reheat the risotto and throw a couple of chicken fillets in the oven for dinner.
Day Nine: Gold Coast
A good night's sleep and a casual spot of breakfast the following morning saw us pushing off from Varsity Lakes just after ten, and the twenty minute drive back to Southport passed without incident. Back at base, I wasn't really expecting anything in the way of incoming phone calls, so I wasn't too disappointed when none arrived.
With the best part of three days to ourselves, or largely to ourselves (Madam had arranged to meet a blog acquaintance on the Tuesday, and there was a possibility of a call from Foxy along the way) this was effectively the R&R leg of the trip, so there's not much to actually record. Hughesy tapped away, Madam blogged, and we both caught up on some reading.
Thoughts of the old Interesting Times project had me flicking the iPad over to the Kindle app, where I'd added Barry Miles' London Calling to the library, and I spent a good part of the day reading about the antecedents of the London underground scene that gave us Pink Floyd and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
So, largely, that was Sunday. Pork chops and risotto for dinner, a Madam-endorsed break from eating out, was rather tasty, and there were leftovers to minimize the coking process on the morrow.
With the best part of three days to ourselves, or largely to ourselves (Madam had arranged to meet a blog acquaintance on the Tuesday, and there was a possibility of a call from Foxy along the way) this was effectively the R&R leg of the trip, so there's not much to actually record. Hughesy tapped away, Madam blogged, and we both caught up on some reading.
Thoughts of the old Interesting Times project had me flicking the iPad over to the Kindle app, where I'd added Barry Miles' London Calling to the library, and I spent a good part of the day reading about the antecedents of the London underground scene that gave us Pink Floyd and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
So, largely, that was Sunday. Pork chops and risotto for dinner, a Madam-endorsed break from eating out, was rather tasty, and there were leftovers to minimize the coking process on the morrow.
Day Eight: Gold Coast
With that section of the trip out of the way, the big game plan was to take a break in Southport over the Easter-Anzac Day long weekend and head off on stage two of the road trip once things had quietened down on Wednesday morning.
Taking a break, however, didn't necessarily mean an extended spell of inactivity, at least, not at first.
Given a need to eat and the knowledge that we'd be eating out for most of the next week and a half it was going to be necessary to lay in supplies, and when it came to grocery shopping, while the supermarkets might be handy the holiday scenario meant that we were going to have a limited window of opportunity, and it was better to get the groceries out of the way first and proceed from there.
Lurking in the background was the possibility of an in to Bluesfest at Byron, not that I was holding my breath as far as Saturday was concerned, given the fact that any goodies forthcoming on the Little Feat Front would have to be organized in the midst of flying from Sydney to wherever (Gold Coast or Ballina) and getting ready for a 2:30 gig.
There wouldn't, I suspected, be much of anything coming through, but I kept the mobile handy, just in case, bearing in mind that there was also the possibility of a call from The Accountant, a school friend I hadn't seen for forty-something years, and possibly Foxy, should something have torpedoed his boating plans for the weekend.
With the groceries got, Madam's script called for a visit to Harbour Town to buy Hughesy a new pair of joggers, give her a chance to go looking for a replacement for That Jacket Sitting At Home, and a few other odds and ends.
Given uncertainty about what has happened to old acquaintances over forty years, I'd figured out a scenario involving a bus to the rendezvous on Chevron Island, and another on the return journey, leaving around three so we could prepare for an evening with Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke, which was going to be a fluid affair, so I wasn't in the market for a big afternoon.
Just before lunchtime on Easter Saturday probably isn't the best time to be heading towards Harbour Town, the Gold Coast Highway and Brisbane Road probably isn't the best route to get there.
The apparent fact that a substantial subset of every man and his dog had already made the journey meant that once we'd turned off Brisbane Road and made our way into the car park it was a good twenty minutes before we found a park, and when we did we were looking at a compass and a cut lunch when it came to getting to the actual shopping precinct.
Buying the joggers was a fairly straightforward exercise, but the whole scenario meant that the 1:06 Number Five bus to Chevron Island was a decidedly dodgy proposition, and though we didn't spend all that long investigating other matters (lengthy queues waiting to enter or make purchases at a number of establishments tends to consign matters to the too hard basket) it was well after one when we headed back towards the car, with Madam offering to come and collect me from the rendezvous when I was ready to go.
Personally, I liked the bus scenario, since it gave me an excuse to escape at a given point in time, but since that was now impossible....
Once I'd arrived and Reunion Mode had been entered, the announcement that I was drinking Cascade Light didn't go down all that well with the locals, butt the scoffing was diverted by mentioning that I had a subsequent appointment with a Geelong Supporter, and that it was likely to involve a lengthy sledge match, so I needed to keep my wits about me.
The excuse seemed to satisfy the masses, but walking in on an established circle in what seemed a pretty tight-knit little community can be a tricky exercise, particularly when people take themselves away for smoke breaks, get claimed by various passers-by and get diverted by other matters.
And you get diverted yourself.
When I went to check the time a while later I found it was much later than I'd thought, and that there'd been three unanswered calls from The Boss, a matter that needed urgent attention, since we were due at the next appointment in about half an hour.
The best option out of there, as it turned out was the bus an hour after the one I'd pencilled in, and a hasty departure was followed by a quick trip along Ferry Road back to downtown Southport, a hasty conclusion of preparations and a trip back along Ferry Road towards Varsity Lakes, where Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke turned out to have done very well for themselves in the Home Unit Stakes.
I'm not the greatest follower of the various football codes around the country, but I can claim to be reasonably au fait with the intricacies of the two Rugby codes, and I can follow Soccer when I have to, though the back and forth passing bit tends to lose me. AFL, on the other hand, remains pretty much a closed book as far as Hughesy's concerned, though I can see how it could get you in if you gave it the chance.
Ex-House Sitter, it seems, has definitely given it a chance, and while she mightn't be quite as died in the wool as Footy Bloke she's not far off full blown fanaticism, as evidenced by the reaction when the Gold Coast Suns came home with a wet sail to down Port Adelaide.
Well, it was a pretty classy come from behind win, even Hughesy could see that, but the reaction of two local fans barracking for their second team (Geelong loyalties overruling everything else) made for an interesting spectacle.
Actually, looking at it in the cold light of reality, I can ascribe my reluctance to Pay much attention to the AFL to the aforementioned fact that it seems like something that could very easily get you in, and my oft-quoted statement that Hughesy doesn't need another obsession.
By nine, however, I was starting to fade, and since we were staying the night I toddled off quietly, leaving the others to chinwag to their hearts' content.
Taking a break, however, didn't necessarily mean an extended spell of inactivity, at least, not at first.
Given a need to eat and the knowledge that we'd be eating out for most of the next week and a half it was going to be necessary to lay in supplies, and when it came to grocery shopping, while the supermarkets might be handy the holiday scenario meant that we were going to have a limited window of opportunity, and it was better to get the groceries out of the way first and proceed from there.
Lurking in the background was the possibility of an in to Bluesfest at Byron, not that I was holding my breath as far as Saturday was concerned, given the fact that any goodies forthcoming on the Little Feat Front would have to be organized in the midst of flying from Sydney to wherever (Gold Coast or Ballina) and getting ready for a 2:30 gig.
There wouldn't, I suspected, be much of anything coming through, but I kept the mobile handy, just in case, bearing in mind that there was also the possibility of a call from The Accountant, a school friend I hadn't seen for forty-something years, and possibly Foxy, should something have torpedoed his boating plans for the weekend.
With the groceries got, Madam's script called for a visit to Harbour Town to buy Hughesy a new pair of joggers, give her a chance to go looking for a replacement for That Jacket Sitting At Home, and a few other odds and ends.
Given uncertainty about what has happened to old acquaintances over forty years, I'd figured out a scenario involving a bus to the rendezvous on Chevron Island, and another on the return journey, leaving around three so we could prepare for an evening with Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke, which was going to be a fluid affair, so I wasn't in the market for a big afternoon.
Just before lunchtime on Easter Saturday probably isn't the best time to be heading towards Harbour Town, the Gold Coast Highway and Brisbane Road probably isn't the best route to get there.
The apparent fact that a substantial subset of every man and his dog had already made the journey meant that once we'd turned off Brisbane Road and made our way into the car park it was a good twenty minutes before we found a park, and when we did we were looking at a compass and a cut lunch when it came to getting to the actual shopping precinct.
Buying the joggers was a fairly straightforward exercise, but the whole scenario meant that the 1:06 Number Five bus to Chevron Island was a decidedly dodgy proposition, and though we didn't spend all that long investigating other matters (lengthy queues waiting to enter or make purchases at a number of establishments tends to consign matters to the too hard basket) it was well after one when we headed back towards the car, with Madam offering to come and collect me from the rendezvous when I was ready to go.
Personally, I liked the bus scenario, since it gave me an excuse to escape at a given point in time, but since that was now impossible....
Once I'd arrived and Reunion Mode had been entered, the announcement that I was drinking Cascade Light didn't go down all that well with the locals, butt the scoffing was diverted by mentioning that I had a subsequent appointment with a Geelong Supporter, and that it was likely to involve a lengthy sledge match, so I needed to keep my wits about me.
The excuse seemed to satisfy the masses, but walking in on an established circle in what seemed a pretty tight-knit little community can be a tricky exercise, particularly when people take themselves away for smoke breaks, get claimed by various passers-by and get diverted by other matters.
And you get diverted yourself.
When I went to check the time a while later I found it was much later than I'd thought, and that there'd been three unanswered calls from The Boss, a matter that needed urgent attention, since we were due at the next appointment in about half an hour.
The best option out of there, as it turned out was the bus an hour after the one I'd pencilled in, and a hasty departure was followed by a quick trip along Ferry Road back to downtown Southport, a hasty conclusion of preparations and a trip back along Ferry Road towards Varsity Lakes, where Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke turned out to have done very well for themselves in the Home Unit Stakes.
I'm not the greatest follower of the various football codes around the country, but I can claim to be reasonably au fait with the intricacies of the two Rugby codes, and I can follow Soccer when I have to, though the back and forth passing bit tends to lose me. AFL, on the other hand, remains pretty much a closed book as far as Hughesy's concerned, though I can see how it could get you in if you gave it the chance.
Ex-House Sitter, it seems, has definitely given it a chance, and while she mightn't be quite as died in the wool as Footy Bloke she's not far off full blown fanaticism, as evidenced by the reaction when the Gold Coast Suns came home with a wet sail to down Port Adelaide.
Well, it was a pretty classy come from behind win, even Hughesy could see that, but the reaction of two local fans barracking for their second team (Geelong loyalties overruling everything else) made for an interesting spectacle.
Actually, looking at it in the cold light of reality, I can ascribe my reluctance to Pay much attention to the AFL to the aforementioned fact that it seems like something that could very easily get you in, and my oft-quoted statement that Hughesy doesn't need another obsession.
By nine, however, I was starting to fade, and since we were staying the night I toddled off quietly, leaving the others to chinwag to their hearts' content.
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