Why I Didn’t Marry Heath Ledger

We’ve taken a day trip to the wine country of New South Whales and southern Queensland. The drive up was beautiful with rain forest and rolling hills. The roadkill was even very exotic and more interesting than the dead things at home. Lots and lots of rotting wallabies. We were able to visit 3 vineyards on our trip, with 3 very different experiences.

Currajong Downs: Our first stop was at this medium size boutique winery in Tenterfield for some gold medal winning Semillion. That’s the grape, not the Sensamillion, which is something quite different. Currajong has a cellar door (which isn’t really a door in to the basement wine cellar that I thought it would be) and a cafe. At this vineyard, we stood at the counter and told the girl which wine we wanted to taste. We then split a smoked trout salad with fresh cheese and sundried tomatoes. Yummy.

The Doctor’s Nose: Our second stop at The Doctor’s Nose was a much different experience with an elaborate tasting. This was a second, smaller boutique winery in the tiny town of Tenterfield. We were seated and the owner brought out each wine. The wines were presented in a certain order to keep a dry wine from being tasted between two sweeter wines. Each wine was named after a different ancestor and the vineyard was named after the ridgeline near the property. After the tasting, we had one hell of a kangaroo chase with the owner.

Ballandean Estates: Our final stop was in southern Queensland in Ballandean. This area has been under cultivation for many years and dozens of vineyards offer cellar doors. We chose the Ballandean Estates because they offer tours. This was a much larger commercial operation than the two previous vineyards. It had a counter with loads of customers, as well as a cafe. The family had been in the business in Ballandean for 4 generations. The ancestor came from Sicily, Italy, where he was a wine maker. I liked that the family was very open and even let us wander out to their vines to have a look. It was interesting to learn the processes and that there are something like 870 types of yeast that bring out certain flavors in wines. Hmmm. That’s part of the reason you can have 2 vineyards in 2 miles producing Shiraz grapes and get a completely different wine. Also, wine doesn’t have to cross-pollinate, so the vineyards don’t have to rotate stock or plant different types of crops. At Ballandean, we had salmon pasta with capers and cream fresh butter, which was great.

– Carrie

We visited the Aloombra Lavender Farm in southern Queensland on our trip to wine country. The proprietor is actually a WWoof host who I didn’t contact. Thank God. The store was weird anyway, full of smelly stuff and cat crafts. Not really my scene. The woman, who I like to call the Aloombra Lavendar Nazi, may actually be Satan himself. It’s funny how charming people can sound with an accent, until you really listen to what they have to say. This lady was actually the biggest white supremacist since Hitler. I’m sure she would probably get along really well with some people I’ve met in Mississippi. She actually said to us, “You take a white baby and you take a black baby and who can run the country? You give the black baby a house and he’ll destroy it. They’ll even burn the floor boards for firewood.”

It was UNREAL. It’s hard to believe people have those sort of prejudices and it’s REALLY hard to believe she’s so willing to share them with perfect strangers. She also made it clear that she disliked Korean people as well. She had a Korean WWoofer who apparently did EVERYTHING wrong. I’m sure I wouldn’t have done any better, considering the minor infractions that seemed like such a huge deal to her. I would have been thrilled to have someone give me hand massages.

WWoofers, I would avoid the hell out of the Aloombra Lavendar Farm.

– Carrie