The “Flavours of Mudgee” Run

11 October 2022 / Words and photo Ken Keeling

This 4-four day run to the Flavours of Mudgee food and wine festival over Friday 23rd through to Monday 26th September attracted seventeen Canberra Chapter members (& 3 guests). Due to many reports about bad road conditions en-route, it was decided that the run would be conducted on the basis of individual travel to waypoints rather than our usual convoy format. Because of concerns about bad roads, several couples elected to travel independently and meet up with the group at Mudgee, while a number of others decided to travel by waypoints but not to take their cherished MX5 and, rather, expose the family vehicle to any risk of encounters with the reported numerous potholes on the roads to be travelled.

Despite the forecast for showers, six cars assembled in dry weather at the Yowani Club carpark, with another to be picked-up en-route to our first refreshment waypoint, Taralga, to replenish caffeine levels. Despite some damaged sections of road surface after Goulburn, travelling independently and well separated gave plenty of time for drivers to dodge the potholes. Sadly, road surface conditions after Taralga did not improve.

The next waypoint was Oberon where, after lunch, three of the six cars in the waypoint group separated to make their own way by different routes to Mudgee. The remaining three of us decided to travel as a loose convoy and take the most direct route, by back roads, via Kandos and thence direct to Mudgee. That decision seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved to be rather slow as, although the road surfaces on the by-ways were in reasonable condition, the recent rain had obviously been accompanied by strong winds and we had to wait at three separate places for workmen clearing fallen trees from the road. And the flood debris adjacent to the low-level creek crossings showed that a lot of water had been passing over them only days before.

After arrival and settled in at our motel in Mudgee, some went for walks while others rested up before meeting up at Isabella's Trattoria to finish the first day of our weekend away with a most enjoyable Italian meal. Buon cibo, vino e amici… La vita è bella!!!
Saturday dawned as a nice day to explore some of the local wineries and our people separated and made their own way to various places of their choice. For me, being an old motorcyclist, it was natural that we went to visit the Robert Stein Winery, to not only sample some of their wares but also to visit the impressive collection of (now vintage and/or classic) motorcycles of my youth. Next stop was the Pieter van Gent Winery which makes an excellent white port and also has a most impressive collection of enormous and very old wine casks. By now it was lunchtime and our minds turned to food…

Having grown up on a vineyard at Hanwood, near Griffith, I was most interested in visiting di Lusso Estate which has one of Australia’s largest ranges of Italian varietal grape vines and makes some excellent wines. And it also has a restaurant with an excellent reputation located in a picturesque setting. Unfortunately, the restaurant was fully booked when we arrived, so we settled for a wine tasting and several pizzas. The pizzas were excellent, and we were most fortunate in having the tasting hosted by the Estate owner, Robert Fairall. He not only spoke about the individual wines we were sampling but also explained in depth the origin of the vines and choice of the varieties chosen particularly because of the Mudgee region terroir, as well as the particular characteristics the different grapes give to the wines. The wines were impressive and, naturally, some were purchased for enjoyment at a later date with a nice meal, after which we wouldn’t need to drive anywhere. And Robert was a most convivial host, which made our experience all the more enjoyable, so much so we highly recommended di Lusso Estate as a place to be visited by the others on Sunday.

Lots of people at the street festival
(pic courtesy of John Jasinski)

Saturday afternoon was spent at the Flavours of Mudgee street festival, which was within walking distance of our motel. To our surprise the festival had grown enormously in size since our last visit some years ago, with stalls and people spilling into the side streets as well as the very crowded main street of Mudgee. Whilst the crowds were impressive, we were personally disappointed in that the number of food stalls (and the quality of their offerings) had diminished since our last visit but the number of stalls promoting alcohol, and surrounded by enthusiastic younger drinkers, had grown enormously.It seems we were not the only ones not overly impressed with the idea of our evening meal being by grazing the street festival stalls as, on our return to the motel, we found that the majority of our group were gathered in the barbeque area with an impressive supply of breads, cheeses, salamis and etc. Naturally, we too took a bottle of wine and joined the gathering - a most enjoyable way to end a day amongst the Mudgee vineyards.

Sunday was a free day for our people to find their own entertainment - some visiting the river park and watching a “dragon boat” crew paddling furiously, while others viewed some of Mudgee’s historic buildings. Of course, a number also chose to visit wineries, including the di Lusso Estate, while we and some other couples drove to explore historic Gulgong.

Our final evening in Mudgee was dinner at a local club that could cope with a group of twenty - strangely, the Mudgee Brewery declined our patronage unless we pre-ordered twenty meals. Perhaps they thought we were a younger group from the street crowds?

Monday, the final day of our long weekend outing, was devoted to returning home, hopefully without any damage being incurred by chance encounters with enormous potholes on the main roads. And there were quite a few serious ones of those between Bathurst and Blaney but, happily, all were avoided. A stop at Cowra to see the cherry blossoms blooming in the Japanese Memorial Gardens provided our opportunity to have a pleasant final lunch with our travelling companions and then to break away to each independently complete the final leg of our return home to Canberra.

Post-run feedback indicates that everybody had a very enjoyable time at Mudgee and, importantly, all returned home with undamaged vehicles. Considering that we did not get rained upon, had an enjoyable time, and survived travelling seriously rain-damaged roads, we can put this run down as another successful Canberra Chapter long weekend away.