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Why Mudgee you might ask. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere. I was drawn to Mudgee because it enjoys a Mediterranean climate. It is 3.5 hours north-west of Sydney and prides itself on hospitality and friendliness. It has olive groves, vineyards, lavender fields, spectacular scenery and a luminosity that impressionists would love. The population of Mudgee is 7,000 and it has a rich colonial past evidenced by some well preserved nineteenth century buildings (circa 1840-1880).
We stayed in an on-site caravan (cabin) in the local caravan park a short walk from the centre of town and the roosting site for hundreds of galahs every evening (listen to the video). Fortunately these noisy birds are silent once the sun sets. Of course the kookaburras start at six a.m. What’s a kookaburra?
If you want to know more about Mudgee and the surrounding area visit the tourism site at: http://www.visitmudgeeregion.com.au/
We filled our three days with visits to wineries, Robert Stein where the hostess gave us a bottle of wine and Farmer’s Daughter where we sampled and bought a bottle of the sparkling muscat grape based wine Moscato. We also visited the Olive Nest and the Lavender Station where we were feed home made scones with lavender based jam. To exercise we went biking through the vineyards and hiking in the Goulburn Valley and Hands on Rock parks. As the name suggests Hands on Rock is the site of aboriginal hand painting. We also went gold fossicking at Windeyer which proved a bit of a disaster as Marielle fell and hurt her knee, it rained, the creek was almost dried up, and we had no clue what to do. The scenery however was superb and the rainbows on the way back were spectacular. Invariably we would spot kangaroos during our day trips and once a couple of emus.
If you want to see old gold mining towns visit Sofala or Hill End about an hour’s drive south of Mudgee, a very picturesque drive.
We stayed in an on-site caravan (cabin) in the local caravan park a short walk from the centre of town and the roosting site for hundreds of galahs every evening (listen to the video). Fortunately these noisy birds are silent once the sun sets. Of course the kookaburras start at six a.m. What’s a kookaburra?
If you want to know more about Mudgee and the surrounding area visit the tourism site at: http://www.visitmudgeeregion.com.au/
We filled our three days with visits to wineries, Robert Stein where the hostess gave us a bottle of wine and Farmer’s Daughter where we sampled and bought a bottle of the sparkling muscat grape based wine Moscato. We also visited the Olive Nest and the Lavender Station where we were feed home made scones with lavender based jam. To exercise we went biking through the vineyards and hiking in the Goulburn Valley and Hands on Rock parks. As the name suggests Hands on Rock is the site of aboriginal hand painting. We also went gold fossicking at Windeyer which proved a bit of a disaster as Marielle fell and hurt her knee, it rained, the creek was almost dried up, and we had no clue what to do. The scenery however was superb and the rainbows on the way back were spectacular. Invariably we would spot kangaroos during our day trips and once a couple of emus.
If you want to see old gold mining towns visit Sofala or Hill End about an hour’s drive south of Mudgee, a very picturesque drive.
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