Day one’s about getting away from the city, so it’s mainly just driving (thanks Doc, you’ve taught me well). So drive we did – at least when we got away from the traffic jam that held us up for half an hour 5 minutes from home.
At least that was the plan. Forgetting that, as they say, the best laid plans …
First of all we got lost. I forgot to turn off Picton Road onto the highway. But as this trip we’re trying to stay away from main highways as much as possible, it was a good ‘lost’. We ended up in Picton. Have you been to Picton lately? Like a lot of places that the highways have now bypassed, it’s beautiful, with a fabulous main street, and lots of people walking around.
But Picton wasn’t our destination, so we kept driving. Past a huge house on an enormous block with a sign in the front yard advertising Camden Tattoos. Tattooing must be big business in Camden.
Past the Norman Lindsay Gallery (I’ll get there one day), past the Blue Mountains and 3 Sisters lookout (shrouded in fog), past the explorers’ tree (shrouded in plastic), past the Hydro Majestic (shrouded in plastic and cyclone fencing).
Then Helen decided she wanted to go to Little Hartley. Her grandfather was an artist, and used to live in Hartley, and his paintings hung in pubs around the area. So while she didn’t expect his paintings to still be there, she wanted to see the Little Hartley pub.
So we took a sidetrack to Little Hartley. There was no pub, or even a corner shop, so maybe that wasn’t the place. We tried Hartley – no pub there either, but there was a gallery/café that looked like it might have once been a pub, but we didn’t stop. That looked like it had it’s own art. Then we went on to Historical Hartley Village, which had 3 pubs. Shame the last one closed in the 1920s.
But by this stage I had to get out and stretch my legs. So we wandered around Historical Hartley Village, where the Court House was “a place of judgment for crimes such as drunk and disorderly behavioiur, assigned convicts absconding and petty theft.”
To top it all off, as we were about to get back in the car to leave, Helen noticed that we’d parked under a peach tree, and it had ripe peaches. Of course, she had to get a couple. Have you ever seen somebody try to knock peaches off a tree with a stick held in an outstretched arm? You don’t know what you’re missing. Once they were off the tree, she then had to scramble(?) down the hillside and dig through the long grass to find them. But it was worth it. The best peach I have ever eaten!
And then we got the weather. When we left home it was overcast and very grey, at Picton it was sunny, then in the mountains it was foggy (how unusual). At Historical Hartley Village (I have to give it its full name), it was sunny. Driving from Lithgow to Bathurst we had a thunderstorm.
The raindrops were so large, and so thick we couldn’t hear each other in the car. Then there was a flash of lightning that was so close it made me glad I didn’t have an aerial on the car. The thunder was almost instantaneous with the lightning. I’m sure it came down in the field next to us.
By the time we got to Orange the sun was out again. Unfortunately it was now 2.30pm and too late for lunch. Not that that mattered – most of the wineries around Orange don’t open on a Friday anyway.
The first two wineries were a few kilometres off the main road, and closed anyway. The next winery had an “open for lunch” sign out the front, but when we got in there the cellar door had a sign saying “for wine tasting please see restaurant staff”. So off we wandered to the restaurant, but even though the door was open, there was nobody around.
So we went on to the next one. Closed.
This is when we decided it might be a good idea to go to the information office and find out if anything was open in Orange on a Friday. Tourist information offices are wonderful places, I highly recommend them if you’re travelling.
After going through the wine trails information booklet and working out where we were going, we found that there were only 2 open wineries along the route – and one closed in 5 minutes. “That’s ok” said the woman in the office “just give them a call. If they’re working around the cellar somewhere they’ll probably open for you.”
So we hopped in the car and drove off, calling the winery on the way.
“I just have to go and pick my daughter up” said the woman on the other end of the phone “but that’s just next door, I’ll be back in ten minutes. Just wait for me”.
Twenty five minutes later we decided that if we didn’t leave now we’d miss the other winery that was closing in less than half an hour, so we hopped in our car and drove off.
And that’s when the magic happened – we hit the dirt! Yes, the last winery on the list was 8 km down a dirt road. I felt like I was really out in the country.
Printhie Wines. If you’re in Orange go along and see them.
Even though we got there right on 4pm (closing time) and they were in a big meeting, they stopped what they were doing and opened the cellar door for us. We had a lovely time, and the wines were very nice. $450 later (Helen’s buy Doc, not mine, stop panicking) we had 12 bottles of still wine and 6 of sparkling for our trip. That should last us 2 weeks!
From there it was only just over 100km to Dubbo, and you wouldn’t believe what happened next …..
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Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience and these pictures are amazing. I really enjoyed reading this post.