Tuesday, March 22, 2011

High Country Trip

16th September 2009 – Kim, Marilyn, Donna, Liz , Anne, Joanne, Wendy, Lyndal, Cathie and our guest from the Western Division, Dianne.

We travelled first to Adelong's historic Beaufort House for morning tea via Marrar, Junee, Wantabadgery, Mundarlo, Mt Horeb and Grahams Town.

In Batlow we stopped at the Weemala Lookout for a photo op of the Northern end of the Snowy Mountains.



Our group visited Agrivest International which is a large scale apple and stone fruit packing operation. We witnessed the production line grading the apples and sampled some of the crop.

We enjoyed a light lunch at the Glenroy Heritage Reserve which is home to the Pioneer Women's Hut. This site is dedicated to the preservation of household items from a bygone era.
Onto Glenburnie Winery where our hosts, Rob and Robyn Parkes treated us to tastings of Cool Climate Wines and welcomed us as we wandered around their quaint three bedroom B & B boasting original décor.

Leaving Tumbarumba we enjoyed the late afternoon sun over Paddy's River Falls. Just a short drive to McPherson's Plains Alpine Retreat where we were met with wood fires, clean crisp linen, a three course roast dinner and the opportunity to relax!


During dinner our guest from the Western Division, Dianne enthralled us all with tales of her life owning two properties of 35,000 acres each (56kms apart via dry weather roads) in the Hillston area. Dianne, her husband Geoff and two sons, Mark and Andrew run the properties in partnership. "Ballatherie" and "Yendembah" are the home to over twelve thousand merino sheep incorporating "Ballatherie Poll Merino Stud". "Ballatherie" also boasts pivot irrigation, flood irrigation and grazing. Both places have five stand woolsheds.

Dianne's participation in our trip was sponsored by GJ Hulm (Isaac) and Rodwells & Co (Glenn). The support of these two people is greatly appreciated, Dianne drove 400 kilometres on Tuesday night to join us and thoroughly enjoyed herself!

Our planning meeting for 2010 was held after dinner but could not compete with the relaxed atmosphere of the fire, food and wine!

Thursday morning we enjoyed a cooked breakfast and then headed north off-road to Talbingo via Buddong Falls. Many wild brumbies were sighted and the 4WD trek was enjoyed by all. This "road" is dry weather only and is not for the faint-hearted! Many times along the trek we appreciated the Snowy Hydro and their chainsaws keeping the fire tail open. Our decent into Talbingo was only marred by the fact that the road was closed at Tumut 3 Power Station! Until the kind employees of Snowy Hydro removed a crane from the roadway, it looked as though we would have to back-track!


A quick morning tea was had at the Talbingo Supermarket and then on to Tumut where we met with the Aboriginal Discovery Ranger and a NPWS Park Ranger. The ADR spoke to us about the traditional people of Tumut and the significance of different works that the ranger covers in the area. The Tumut Visitors Centre is the home to an extensive interactive display of artefacts.

Next stop was Gundagai Visitor‟s Centre home to Rusconis Marble Masterpiece which consists of over 20,000 pieces of NSW marble and took over 28 years to complete.

Our final stop for the trip was Nargoon Cellar at Gundagai Wines. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the converted woolshed – "Sheep to Chardonnay" and the owner operator spoke to us about temperate climate wines.

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