Wednesday 4th January 2023
Our first stop of the day was the Putta Bucca Wetlands, just outside Mudgee. Unfortunately, most of the paths closed were closed when we went, apparently due to flooding, so we could only do a short route. It was still a pleasant walk though.
Our next destination was Drip Gorge, but shortly after leaving Mudgee we passed by Huntington Estate, a winery. According to google reviews they do a very good cheeseboard so we decided to call by for a snack. Alas, the cheeseboard is no more, apparently due to them losing their chef before Christmas (although I’m not quite sure why it requires a chef to cut up a few cheeses….) However, we did taste their wines. When I say we, I did most of the tasting as Pete was driving. The wines were pretty good, but we particularly enjoyed the fortified red (basically an Australian version of port) so we bought a bottle to take away with us.
As we’d told the woman serving us that we really enjoyed port, she suggested we went to Pieter van Gent Winery & Vineyard as they do a good white port. So off we headed. They already had a large group party in, so we had to wait for a little while. This didn’t bother us as it was quite relaxing sitting outside looking out over the vineyards.
We were soon called in to the tasting room, which is lined with huge barrels and looks pretty majestic. Again we shared a tasting, but were actually slightly disappointed by the white port that we’d come here for. It was extremely sweet (more so than the ones we enjoyed in Portugal). The lady added a dash of lime juice to it, which was surprisingly good (refreshing like a gin and tonic), but still not quite the white port we were looking for.
We had wanted to go the the Pipeclay Pumphouse Restaurant for lunch, as it looked lovely and according to Google maps was open. We drove there, only to find it just does lunch at weekends. There didn’t seem to be any other restaurants nearby, so we continued on our way to Drip Gorge.
The Gorge is absolutely stunning, and there’s a very easy walking track that runs alongside it. It took us about 1.5 hours to walk to the Gorge and back, at a leisurely pace and stopping to have a paddle in the water along the way.
We went to the nearby Hands On The Rock – Ulan Aboriginal Rock Art. You go down a very narrow, slightly overgrown walking trail through some woods and then scrabble up rocks for the last 100m or so.
At the end of the track is a huge cliff with some hand paintings. I didn’t find it intrinsically impressive (much preferred the Gorge) but I guess it’s the fact that they’re so old which makes them worth seeing.
By this point we were starting to get quite peckish. Apparently Merriwa Cakes & Pastries do great pies and sausage rolls, so we were looking forward to getting a snack there. Unfortunately when we arrived there was a note pinned on the door saying they’re temporarily closed (this seems to be a common theme around here!). There didn’t appear to be anywhere else we could get lunch or a snack here, so we continued on to Denman, where we’d pinned our hopes on The Royal Hotel (according to google maps it was both open and does decent pub food). Alas, the kitchen was closed and wouldn’t reopen until 6pm.
The next reasonably sized town was Singleton where we were finally able to find some food (by this time, a very early dinner) at the Club house hotel Vietnamese cuisine. It’s basically a pub with a Vietnamese canteen at the back. The food wasn’t as great as we were expecting for its 4.5 star google rating. The mixed appetisers were typical deep fried fare, ok but nothing special. The quail was a bit dry and didn’t have a good meat to bone ratio (although to be fair, I guess that’s the nature of quail… though it was probably slightly overcooked). The fish with ginger and spring onion was, however, excellent and if that was the only dish we’d had my impression of the restaurant would’ve been so much higher.
As we were eating, the weather had turned. We were greeted with a beautiful rainbow when we exited the restaurant.
Driving from Singleton to Pokolbin (where we’re staying tonight), we got our first glimpse of kangaroos in the wild. I was surprised by just how many of them there were, and by how close to the road they came.
When we reached our hotel, the H Boutique Hotel, we were even more delighted to find that kangaroos commonly come into the hotel grounds. The hotel rooms are more like small apartments, each with their own little terrace. It was so lovely to sit out on ours watching the kangaroos (and occasional rabbit) quite close by. A great end to a great day!
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 