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Published: January 7th 2013
It was a new year, and my old travelling buddy, Lucy, was in town, so what better excuse to take to the road? The selected destination was Orange, about 3 ½ hours west of Sydney, in an area famous for wine and food. Sounded perfect to me!
I was quite small when I heard that there was a town called Orange, and as a child I thought that this was extraordinary – a town named after a fruit? Turns out however that Orange was named after a Prince, William of Orange in fact. NSW has no shortage of suitable destinations for a summer road trip, but my childhood fascination with a strange sounding town, and my adult appreciation for wine and food, saw that Orange made the top of the list of potential destinations.
The road trip started on New Year’s Day, and the drive took us through the Blue Mountains. Lucy hadn’t been that way before so we stopped for lunch at the cute little town of Leura and then I persuaded her that we needed a detour to see the Three Sisters, one of Australia’s iconic images. Lucy was strangely reluctant, but finally agreed “as long as
there’s no tour busses there”. Er, I’m not a miracle worker. Once we arrived she understood immediately that it’s not a view you have to yourself, but saw what all the fuss was about.
After a leisurely drive we arrived at our destination proper, Orange, and were instantly charmed with the wide tree lined streets, lending a genteel air to the small rural city. I was also very impressed with our accommodation for the next three nights, the boutique hotel
De Russie suites. We had booked a two-bedroom apartment, which also had a self-contained kitchen. However given Orange has built its reputation as a foodie centre, we were planning to eat out at every opportunity to investigate thoroughly if such a reputation was justified.
First up was
“Sweet Sour Salt” a modern Asian restaurant a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. Given it was New Year’s day, we weren’t sure if anything much was going to be open and obviously neither did the woman at the front desk as she reviewed the list of restaurants and their hours during the holiday season. She finally got to “Sweet Sour Salt” and said with obvious relief, “Oh this one’s actually a very good one,
thank goodness there’s something decent open!” She wasn’t wrong at all, it was absolutely delicious.
Our good fortune did not continue the next morning as it seemed that the cafes we had been recommended were all shut for a two week break. We ended up at the
Byng St Local Store, which is more of a deli with a limited blackboard menu. I ordered zucchini fritters, but they were terribly disappointing – I struggled to find any evidence of zucchini in my fritters at all and wouldn’t be at all surprised if you told me they had used grated cardboard instead. The sliced tomato and the bonconncini on the side was very tasty though, but not exactly a filling breakfast.
The day didn’t get a lot better as we soon discovered that Orange is very much a weekend destination, and despite me thinking it was a holiday period, many of the wineries were closed during the week. So after consulting the guidebooks, the Orange information centre and a quick peek in the art gallery, we headed off to have lunch in the historic town of
Millthorpe. It is a gorgeous little town, very quaint, almost totally preserved from the late 1880s
and only 20 minutes drive from Orange. Filled with sweet little gift shops, cute cafes and highly regarded restaurants, or so they seemed as I peered through the darkened windows. It was also completely shut, with the exception of one pub and a general store.
By this point I was starving, and a little bit grumpy, and I had a mad urge to graffiti the local tourism signs, “Taste Orange” with “on weekends and by appointment only”. We headed back to town, stopping off at the Highland Heritage winery on the way, mainly because it boasted a restaurant. Closed. Buggeration! The winery was open though, so I had a taste of quite a nice red and chatted to the woman there, and asked for a recommendation of an open place for lunch. She suggested
1870, pretty sure it was open. I thought I’d read about it and it was supposed to be quite nice. It was, on both counts!
After lunch, a lovely lamb backstrap with mint pesto, roasted cherry tomatoes and polenta chips, I was feeling much happier and my view of Orange became much rosier again. We also had an excellent waitress who gave us some
great tips for the afternoon, so we were off again, visiting some gorgeous local (open!) wineries:
Orange Mountain;
Dindima; and
Borodell. The last of these was at the top of a very steep and long driveway so not surprisingly had the most stunning views from the top. The region is a cool climate wine region with quite a similar climate to parts of New Zealand. They often get snow during the winter, and while we were there were enjoying an unseasonable heat wave, with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees. Wineries tended to be much smaller than the larger holdings in other parts of the country that I have visited, and the region itself is quite a new grape growing area, only getting underway in the early 1990s. They seem to be doing something right though, as the wine was delicious.
From there it was back to Orange, and dinner was at
Union Bank, a fantastic casual restaurant / bar a few minutes’ walk from our hotel, which I enjoyed enormously.
The next day we decided to head up to Mt Canobolas for some bush walking. There are two peaks, the “Old Man” Canobolas, the largest summit, and “Young Man” Canobolas.
We drove to the top to the viewpoint on Old Man Canobolas – it was really spectacular with 360 degree views as far as the eye could see. Stunning.
We then set off for our bush walk. The ranger was in the car park as we were about to head off, so we started chatting. Of course me and my snake obsession meant I had to ask if there were any snakes about. He said that the snakes were pretty active right at the moment and then proceeded to tell me about the different types I might see –brown snakes, “very aggressive!”, copperhead snakes, “very venomous!”; and a variety of black snakes, “all deadly!”. “Have you got a cellphone with you?” he asked. I assured him I did, but really wanted to know what to do if I saw one. He suggested that if there’s one on the path ahead of us we just turn back. This was very concerning and I spent a lot of time worrying about seeing a snake. What do we if see two - one ahead of us and one behind us? What if they trap us? Although at least we had selected a
loop track so in theory there was always a way out. Despite this, I spent a great deal of time pondering these things as we set off, clutching my cellphone.
Not long into our walk, ten minutes or so, we came across another ranger doing some spraying, but apart from him it was just us on the walk. It was very beautiful, and we also took in a side trip to the top of Young Man Canobolas for another peek at the views. We returned about an hour or so later and the ranger was in the carpark. “So, did you girls see any snakes?” he asked. Nope, just us and the other ranger. “Well that’s a relief,” he said, “just after you went in, my boss came out to get a compression bandage, as he came across a large brown snake.” Our eyes widened – a near miss! “Actually,” he continued, “if you’re going to be doing any other walks in the area it would be worth getting a compression bandage – you put it on the limb that’s been bitten and it slows the spread of the venom.” Um, definitely not. No, we’ll be straight back to
the city thanks very much.
Dinner that night was at
Lolli Redini, an award winning restaurant and highly recommended by everyone we had spoken to. It certainly did not disappoint – the food was sensational. This restaurant is worth the trip alone!
Next day it was farewell to Orange and on to Bathurst. It’s a very sweet little town, most famous for motor racing. This is not one of my interests by any stretch of the imagination, so we skipped the National Motor Racing Museum and after a very brief drive around Bathurst and a coffee stop, we headed straight to the
Jenolan Caves.
I had never heard of the Jenolan Caves before this visit, but the drive there was gorgeous, and once we arrived I realised that these caves are huge! There are 11 cave systems, underground rivers, and a myriad of weird and wonderful limestone and crystal formations. On a very hot day, they are also blissfully cool. The only way to see the caves is by way of a guided tour. We decided to explore the Chifley cave, mainly because we were buying our ticket at 1.12pm and this particular tour departed at 1.15pm. It was
pretty impressive; I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, so all in all, a very happy diversion.
So then it was back to the big smoke, the car laden with wine. We had certainly tasted Orange, and were not disappointed.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Beware the snake trap...
You made me laugh out loud with the imagery of a gang of snakes setting human traps on circular hiking paths... :)