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Wangarrata
At the Ned Kelly memorial on our first ride. These memorials seem to be common in the district. Thursday 29th April 2010 We awoke to big drops of rain falling on the van roof and that is how most of the morning continued. It was cold, wet and miserable and for a while we started feeling the same. But as we got closer to Wangaratta the weather started to pick up and so did our mood. Judy got a kick out of speaking to Clinton, her youngest son, whose birthday it was.
After driving through the town looking for a parking spot we ended up at a Coles/KMart complex from where we walked back into town. We liked the feel of the place and on returning to the van went to one of the caravan parks where again we were made welcome, the owner even guiding us into our spot and ensuring we were happy there. The decision to stay here for 2 or 3 days was easily made.
At the Information Centre in town we were shown the highlights of the area and after lunch went to Milawa, where there are wineries, cheese factory and an olive farm. The fact that Brown Brothers are in this area and that the Crouchen wine is one of
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Known for its port. Judy's favourites helped choose this route. The first winery we came to was the Sam Miranda King Valley winery. As we were attracted by the unusual building we entered it not having any idea of the brand. A charming and talkative young man served us, explaining the different wines. This winery experiments with different varieties, Rags taken by an almost black, red wine made from Saperavi grapes from Georgia ex the Soviet Bloc. He bought a bottle to take home to share with a mate who appreciates a good red.
It was Judy's turn next, at Browns. Here we did taste a few interesting wines here that were not widely available, some only at the cellar door. Judy was taken with a taste of a wine made from cienna variety grapes and a bottle of Cienna wine was bought. It was a light red, slightly sparkling wine, a little too sweet for Rags.
On then to the Milawa Cheese Factory, where we sampled a few cheeses, but a little put off by the very touristy prices. We felt that $50-60/kg for cheese was a little over the top. Even so, there were quite a few people buying, as
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Parkers Pies in Rutherglen. Map of Australia on it signified it was an emu pie. were those at the Olive Shop just down the road.
Garlic& Chilli olives were our nibble with drinks later in the afternoon, bought at Coles when we did our shopping on the way back to the caravan park.
Friday 30th April 2010 It was a glorious morning, covered with a sky made untidy with vapour trails very slowly dispersing. Still cool though.
This morning we headed for the town of Rutherglen, another wine producing area Rags had read about in one of his 4WD magazines. The Information centre there was most helpful, giving us a plan for the rest of the morning.
Before we continued however, we killed our hunger, and Rags his caffeine pangs, at Parkers Bakery, where we had a coffee and a crocodile pie. Here we delighted at the variety of pies that included emu and kangaroo. Their cakes looked scrumptious too. We find Victoria bakeries have a much wider variety of cakes and pies than those in the west but we have to try to resist for the sake of our waistlines!
From here we continued to All Saints Estate, a winery known for the imposing elm trees lining
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Crocodile meant just that. Very tasty! both sides of their driveway. The chap at the Information centre said it was the best display in the world, the elms in the northern hemisphere all suffering from a blight.
The tastings today were done very carefully, we having to drive a long way today and some of the samples were rather generous. The spittoon was used regularly. On departure we did buy a bottle each of the tokay and the muscat, the specialities of this area, these to be enjoyed back home.
From here we continued to the Morris winery, well known by us for their port. Before reaching it we did stop at one of the few picnic spots by the highway and had something to eat. Morris was good, lots of different wines, but we resisted in purchasing even more to take home as most could be bought in WA anyway.
Rags had done some research on fold-up bikes, we feeling that this was the way to see towns we visited. We therefore crossed the border into NSW when we passed over the Murray River, into the town of Albury. The Bike Superstore there had a 20% off sale on and we walked
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Facade of All Saints winery. out with a Holstar bike at what we considered a good price. Unfortunately they only had 1 in stock, but on contacting their fellow store back in Wangarrata we were advised they had a Dahon there, further reduced as it was 'shop-soiled'.
We headed back and soon this bike became part of our purchases as well. We'll have to make sure we use the bikes as often as we can to justify having them.
We had met our neighbours this morning, 2 couples from Naracoorte, SA, much older than us (Judy at least!) and arranged to join for our 'after 5' drinks . Nice people, the men lawn bowled and they travelled around enjoying themselves.
After an enjoyable 5's made unusual because Des had some port which he'd bought in bulk and bottled himself and he of course insisted on sharing it with Rags. Not much was cooked after that to accompany our 2 delicious steaks!
Saturday 1st May 2010 Today we decided to have a break from driving and Rags unpacked our new bikes and we found the trail into town. After a bit of exercise riding around town and declaring our bikes to
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This is the Chinese dormitory at All Saints wine. In the early days they lived in these cramped conditions when developing the area. be “winner” we ended up back at the van for a baked beans and bacon lunch.
After lunch we drove the short distance to the town of Glenrowan. We could have ridden our bikes but Judy declared her bottom had enough of the hard seat. Glenrowan is famous as the town where Ned Kelly had his last shoot out and there is no danger that you'll forget that in a hurry. The whole town appears to survive on the fact, with museums, souvenir shops, animated theatre shows and a Ned Kelly trail. Apart from these types of shops, there were a few food shops and 2 hairdressers! We enjoyed strolling around reading the tourist information before heading back to Wangaratta where we bought a couple of staples before meeting our new found friends, Faye and Des and Bob and Barb for drinks - this time in our van as we are taking turns. although the days are warmish it gets cold after 5 so we aren't sitting outside!
Our beef rendang was a very welcome dinner as we'd put it on to cook slowly before drinks. It was just as well, Rags fell asleep soon after dinner and
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Forget our bottle or cask of port, this is the way to have it! left Judy to do her uni work in peace!
Sunday 2nd May 2010 As it had been too late for much sightseeing in the Albury-Wodonga area after we'd bought our bikes we decided we'd return today. Our first stop was the Gateway Visitors' Centre where a very helpful volunteer chatted to us and plied us with more information. From here we drove up Monument Hill, apparently one of the best known war memorials in Australia. It was certainly striking as I hope you can see in our photographs. It has a view straight down Dean Street in Albury which we drove along a short time later. Being a Sunday it was very quiet and we were able to admire the beautiful heritage buildings that all looked very freshly painted.
From here we made our way to Lake Hume where a dam wall connects Victoria with NSW. This was a huge expanse of water and when it was built in 1914 was one of the largest dams in the world. Our chap at the Visitors' Centre had told us it was only 15%!f(MISSING)ull and at times had been down to 1%!!(MISSING) This area has a severe water
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This line of elms into All Saints is said to be the oldest surviving stand in the world due to the Elm disease which killed the trees in the Northern hemisphere. shortage.
Our stomachs were growling by this time so we meandered through windy country roads under the instructions of our GPS to the little town of Beechworth. Built upon the splendour of the early gold-rush days, Beechworth is recognised as Australia's finest historic gold mining town. Today, the town was full of vintage cars who were in town for a 2 day “Back to Yesteryear” event. We unfolded our bikes but spent a lot of time walking them as we wandered among the old, restored vehicles. Our stomachs encouraged us to make a beeline for the bakery where Rags bought a couple of Ned Kelly pies and was also tempted by a “beesting', according to him a speciality of the area- any excuse. The pies were scrummy, full of meat with an egg and bacon topping, quite unique.
Beechworth was also full of century old buildings so we padlocked the bikes and strolled through the many touristy shops, once again selling souvenirs, art and this time a gold shop. Judy wasn't tempted by any gold, as one woman was overheard to say you needed to win Tatslotto to be able to afford anything here! The historic precinct here
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Large statue of Ned Kelly outside of the Post Office. is preserved to show how Australia developed and is full of heritage listed buildings built from the local honey coloured granite.
From here we cycled along wide tree lined streets full of a wide variety of housing styles before packing the bikes away for the drive back to Wangaratta.
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Kerry and Steve
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Those pies sounded yummy.