Tag Archives: Victoria

Take the turn off – Mundulla & Dimboola

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With travel still restricted, we are all being encouraged to travel locally. Australia is vast and highways mean so many of the little towns are a detour off the highway.

In this post I pick two that are definitely worth taking the turn off for. We have!

Mundulla is a delightful Australian country town going through a serious rejuvenation. It’s a few kilometres off the Dukes Highway on the Adelaide side of Bordertown. A detour of just a few minutes.

The town has been a multiple winner of the best small town and sustainability awards, all very much due to the efforts of an active local community.

The town’s centrepiece is the Old Mundulla Hotel. It is everything a country pub should be: a friendly publican, a few locals, and some travellers like ourselves. The hotel has accommodation that includes a B&B, a newly built self-accommodation home, and three small modern cabins. At the time of our visit, the B&B was under renovation and the home in the final stages of completion. We booked one of the small cabins. Check-in is at the pub. Our cabin was modern, small and adequate – just the spot for an overnight stop-over.

My suggestion is to drop your bags and head to the pub. If it’s a warm day the beer garden out the back with its big grassed area with a verandah is just the place for a beer or glass of wine or two. If the weather is less inviting stay inside and perhaps settle in by the fire with a glass of red from the nearby Coonawarra.

We visited in late summer and sat outside before heading inside for dinner. We had a table in the window that looked across the main street. The bar behind us had a few people settling in for dinner. The food is simple and excellent – the atmosphere delightful.

It’s definitely worth going for a walk around the town. The old council chambers weren’t open on our visit but the building has been restored – the chambers were only used for a couple of years. It was quiet and the dusk light made the walk a delight. There is a nature walk through the scrub on the town’s perimeter.

Council Chambers

The pub is not open every night although the accommodation is.

The general store does a great breakfast from around 6.30 am every morning. Good coffee and a pretty traditional Aussie breakfast menu. They also sell Frances Strawberries Strawberry Jam!

My second detour is a short stop in Dimboola just a few kilometres off the Western Highway near the South Australian – Victrorian border.

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A short trip to Victoria

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Tahbilk Wetlands Cafe

In the couple of weeks before we head to Europe I needed to conduct some further research interviews. It provided an opportunity to head to Melbourne and then to a couple of wine regions in Victoria.

We decided to fly and hire a car this time. This meant forgoing a stop in Nhill to see the talking horse and a stop for dinner at The Bridge Hotel in Bendigo, but did allow us to see family in Melbourne before driving onto country Victoria.

These days we stay near the Southern Cross Railway Station, making transport into the city easy on SkyBus. That end of town is a little less fashionable but has plenty of accommodation, some nice bars and restaurants. For us Higher Ground for breakfast and drinks at Kirks Wine Bar have both become favourites. Continue reading →

Nhill, Victoria – a place to stop for petrol or a destination?

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The talking draft horse – Nhill, Victoria

Nhill is about 350 kms from Adelaide, just over the border into Victoria. It is a place we’d driven through many times, heading to Melbourne or other parts. If we’d stopped it had only been for a comfort stop and petrol.

Not this time. My favourite person and I had driven across to NE Victoria so I could collect data for my research.

This would be an out and back trip. The 800km plus trip each way meant we were looking for the quickest route so it would be straight through and when I say straight I mean it. The GPS barely comes to life on these types of trip. Often its silent for a couple of hours before piping in with taking the second exit of a roundabout in 270 kms – that means slow down but keep going straight.

As we drove we mused over driving holidays of days gone by as children with our parents, in our early years of marriage, just the two of us and then with children. Oh the country towns and dodgy motels! These trips had made us appreciate just how big Australia is, something lost when you are 30000 feet up flying between capital cities. Country Australia and the capital cities are different worlds these days, more is the pity.

The drive through the Adelaide Hills and then on through the south east of South Australia saw the countryside quickly change from the greenish brown tinge of late summer to the straw brown of the flat quintessential South Australian countryside.

On the way over we’d stopped at Bendigo, a historic gold rush town. Stopping in Bendigo meant we’d only have a half day drive to meet my interviewees the next day. Bendigo is synonymous with the 1850s gold rush and has buildings that are reminiscent of a bygone and wealthy past. Today its home to about 100,000 people and is typical of a large country centre with all the mod cons. It’s also home to a lovely local hotel, the Bridge, which we were lucky enough to strike on T-bone Tuesday! A large steak, fresh vegetables, salad and a glass of wine for under $20. A perfect way to break our journey on the way over.

The next morning it was a 3 hour drive onto the winery I was visiting. My interviewees were a delight providing me with much rich data, for my research. Our time there enabled us to take a tour of the winery and conduct my interviews enjoy a lovely ddinner with on e of the family member and then set off on the return journey.

On the way home, we decided that we’d break the journey in half and settled on Nhill, Victoria. Continue reading →