Tuesday, August 4, 2009

From the Murrumbidgee to the Murray

We left Sydney early on Monday and travelled down to Griffith in the centre of the MIA. First thing we did was visit De Bortoli for a tasting. We were amazed at the number of wines that we recognised that we had not realized were produced by De Bortoli.

We had an interesting drive around the ridge overlooking Griffith including the area where a hermit had lived in a cave from the 1920s to 1952. We also saw the memorial to Donald McKay and drove past his original furniture shop which is still called McKay's.

Yesterday we drove on to Rutherglen and are staying in a cottage right on the banks of the Murray. Previously we had stayed on a houseboat on a billabong on the property but now the billabong is dry. Our cottage is very comfortable and there are frequent sightings of many Australian animals and birds in the area ranging from platypus to the black swans that swam by this morning.

So far today we have visited Stanton and Killeen Winery and Campbell's Winery. The car was full when we arrived in Rutherglen. Now we have a few more dozen bottles to add to the load. We will need to drink any that we can't fit in tonight!

Each winery had its own cat. Stanton and Killeen had Trouble (its brother is Strife) and Campbell's had Muscat (their previous cat was Tokay).

2 comments:

Miss Di said...

LOVE the cat names. And you know you can always post your suitcases home if you need more room for wine. Or do to your passengers what you used to do to your children and put the boxes of wine under their feet...

Amanda said...

I agree - fabulous cat names.
Reminds me of Amanda and Simon's boat-cat names. They currently have Sloop, and have had quite a few boaty related names to date (Cutter is one I recall).