So another Anzac Day has been celebrated. As I intimated in my last, this has almost become something of a
travelling yardstick for us (where were we on Anzac Day in any particular
year?) probably because we make a real effort to ensure it will be memorable
for one reason or another.
Cowra had not let us down. The
obligatory ‘recovery’ day (not so needed this year) had come and gone and it
was time we moved on. Mudgee and a
serious party awaited us. Of course, all this (Cowra to Mudgee
and meeting out Sydney friends for a week of social nonsense) is not new. This
was how we began our travels in 2013.
Now I have to warn you all at the
outset that this will be another of those utterly self-indulgent Mobile
Marshies missives. We have travelled this road before and have regaled you at
length with our description of the countryside and of Mudgee itself (it’s all
in the archive). This is to be a purely party piece. For those who do not have
the slightest interest in wading through what is really a personal keepsake,
look away now!
With the wisdom born from experience,
and the knowledge that folk flock to Mudgee for the early May race meeting, we
had booked our site at the Mudgee Riverside Caravan Park almost a year ago. We
had been allocated the same site as we had occupied previously, as had our very
dear friends the Bannincks, who were tucked up next to us. One other couple in our (reduced) party of
twelve was also nearby.....the others were ‘across the square’ or had taken up
cabins.
Like before, it was cosy in our
corner.
Hens B went to the trouble to erect
their full annex, and strangely enough this became ‘party central’ on more than
one occasion,
either for just the four of us such as this shared evening meal
early in the piece
or, at the other end of the day, when
the tribe gathered in dribs and drabs for a late and very self-indulgent
breakfast.
Here again, and for almost the last
time, I must apologise for the colour in this photos. By now we had lost all
patience with our ‘pictorial preservator’...its days were numbered, but we had
not yet visited the local Harvey Normans to seek a replacement.
Outdoor evening ‘happy hours’, with
absolute emphasis on the plural of ‘hour’, are the norm for our Mudgee soirees,
and this year was no exception except we did take up station on the lawn area
rather than occupy one of the park roadways which had been the case in the
past!
Apart from the Sunday race meeting, a
tradition of this week in Mudgee is a group gathering at one of the local pubs
on Saturday night, and of course, traditions must be maintained or they cease
to retain that status. The Oriental Hotel was Mudgee’s
favoured venue for 2016. Like all but a
couple of the local pubs, it was within reasonable walking distance from our
park, a very desirable thing indeed in the circumstances.
And, like the race meeting, we all
make a bit of an effort to tart up a little. Liz didn’t let the fact that
Mudgee is one of NSW’s more celebrated wine regions deter her from ensuring that
all and sundry knew where her loyalties (and mine) lay. (It's a bit hard to spot...she is wearing a 'Chateau Tanunda' vest!)
Needless to say, the
‘happy snapper’ was hard at work throughout the evening. I haven’t the faintest
idea what I had just said to Bev, but it obviously tickled her.
At one stage Liz
decided that it would be a good idea to capture Dick and Wok in a ‘groupie’ and
spent a minute or two being at her persuasive and idiotic best
before I rescued the
two recently retired senior Qantas 747 skippers from her nonsense and restored
a bit of order.
We really did have a
cracker of an evening, and even managed to terrify one of the staff members
into taking a group shot of all of us. I say ‘terrify’ because, apart from
finally being able to get everyone to sit still (it was like herding cats by
this time of the night), the poor lass was being constantly bombarded with
photographic advice, none of which she needed if the end result is anything to
go by.
With drinks at
reasonable prices, a meal about which we had no complaints, and an evening of
sparkling wit and repartee (until things did begin to deteriorated a little
towards the end), this had been a night to remember, just as we had expected.
And for all but us,
the morrow dawned with another demand to ‘tog up’. The local Gooree Park
(winery and horse stud) sponsored race meeting was about to be run and won. There had been a
steady influx of guests arriving at the park from mid Friday afternoon.
All the cabins and most of the caravan sites
were now fully occupied. Sunday morning brought
with it a flurry of activity. Where ever one looked, there were groups making
last minute adjustments to their rigs to the accompaniment of excited chatter
and shared advice as to expected winners.
Our group was no
exception. “Come on you lot.....line up and smile”.
Liz scurried around
in her adopted role as the ‘hostess with the mostess’....”Dick, for goodness
sake stop posing and get in!”....
and finally managed
to fill the waiting mini-bus and close the door on this mob of overgrown and
highly excited school children.
Off they all went,
with Lyn and Warwick (Wok) bringing up the rear in their own converted 200
series Land Cruiser (they tow a fifth wheeler) whilst Liz and I
wandered back through the almost eerily quiet park to our van.
Here I again donned
my chef’s hat and got busy. As a race
day ‘party pooper’, I had offered to have a supper meal of thick minestrone
soup and crusty bread waiting for the undoubtedly well watered (and probably poor) party of punters on their return. I had finally gotten to use the large pot I
had bought in Albany over a year ago (never did get round to cooking the
mussels for which it had been intended). I shall let the co-pilot’s
comments go unreported in detail other than to
provide a description of them....’snide’ I think covers it!
I had actually begun
the soup on Friday.....this is a pottage which needs to brew. With a few final
adjustments to the contents of the pot, and a quick scurry to the local Bakers
Delight to procure an appropriate number of crusty loaves, all was in
readiness.
But we didn’t miss
out on the races altogether. An afternoon walk was very much on the agenda (we
had been trying to stretch our legs for some distance every day as a foil to
the self-indulgence which filled many of our waking hours). Why not the races?
The very good Mudgee track is less than two
kilometres from our camp, so off we went, and by now the newly purchased camera
was in hand. We had spent a very productive hour or so at the local Harvey
Norman store. At last our pictorial woes
would be over.....well that was the plan.
How things have
moved on in the years between camera acquisitions. I was totally befuddled by
the accompanying instruction manual, just as I had been listening to the
conversation between Liz and the charming young salesman who was at station
behind a bewildering array of photographic devices of all shapes and sizes. The
more I read and mucked about, the more I was convinced that I had become
redundant....this damn thing can talk!
‘Keep things simple,
Marshie’ was my advice to self. The race course was to be the proving ground,
and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Something resembling proper colour at last!
I was so busy
fiddling with buttons and dials that my plan to photograph the horses vying for the honours in the Gooree
Park Cup, as they thundered past our vantage point on the outer rail, almost came to nothing. Alerted by a shout
from Liz, I just managed to point and click in time. “Here they come”. Click.........
.....and ‘there they go’. Click again. Here I learnt that
the new camera responds much more quickly to a press of the button than our
last did. Had this not been the case I suspect the nags would have been well
past the winning post before the shutter mechanism had done its job.
So we did go to the
races after all, albeit very briefly and very much on the outer, but it was now time to engage in another
gallop of our own...back to camp and the galley.
I hadn’t made my
somewhat bastardised version of minestrone soup for quite some time.....a few
years in fact, so I was a little nervous about the end product as I made the
final adjustments and got the pot on the boil.
The returning crowd
had divested themselves of their finery (they had already emptied their pockets
earlier!) and were gathering expectantly Chez Bannink for the final hours of
Mudgee Race Day.
I knew that the
collective taste buds of the assembled diners would be somewhat dulled by the
day’s indulgences, but I was nevertheless delighted with the results of my
culinary caper, as was the crowd. “I’ll have another bowl of that thanks Pete”, was music to my ears. It was all I could do to save enough to grace our freezer
with a container or two.
This lot are real
beggars for punishment. Arrangements had been made to travel to the nearby town
of Rylstone for lunch the following day.
But this was to be a lunch with a difference......an extraordinary
section of Chinese dumplings!
Chinese dumplings in
an historic Australian bush town....come on!
As it turns out, the lass who prepares these treats is famous amongst
gatherings of gourmands. She has apparently featured in Gourmet Traveller and
other august gastronomic tomes. I was suitably chastened about my lack of dumpling
diligence and more than prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
The venue was the
first surprise, the building of the old Bridge View Inn, now no longer a town
watering hole but home to the ‘Yum Cha and Tea House’ where we dutifully
congregated in a small separate room at the rear of the main building and began
the onerous (for the uninitiated) task of making a choice from the
incredible menu.
Meals here are
served in combinations of numbers of dumplings...six, eight or ten, with other options
I’ll not bore you with, mainly because it all got too hard for me and I can’t
really remember what they were.
Suffice it to say I opted for the ‘eight’
version, in the hope (accurate as it turned out) that Liz would founder even on
her small ‘six’ serve choice. In addition to the startling and slightly
intimidating array of dumplings on offer, some ten choices of tea could also be
ordered. The claims made about the
efficacy and effect of each of these were extraordinary. Despite the fact that I
don’t drink tea, the promise of ‘younger looking skin’ nearly had me ordering
this particular elixir by the bucketful.
The next surprise
was the waitress who, with not a flustered or exasperated look or a missed
jotting of her pen, recorded the varying requests from our table
and later
demonstrated the accuracy of her notes by delivering precisely what each had
ordered.....and the array of variation almost defies belief.
This was an
experience. Unlike most dining Yum Cha
style, none of the dumplings served here are available fried... all the exotic
fillings of pork, prawn, chicken, or vegetable, in never ending combinations,
are served in steamed pastry pockets of incredible delicacy. Various bottles of
sauces and mixing bowls allow each diner to mix up eclectic condiments.....I
lowered the tone and raised eyebrows in equal measure by asking for plain old
soy! None of this sesame, chilli stuff for this little black duck....I wanted
to actually taste what I was eating!
And the
verdict.....this place does indeed put the ‘yum’ very firmly into Yum Cha.
According to the pundits in our group, who make this an annual pilgrimage from
Mudgee, seasoned trenchermen make tracks to Rylstone from all over the country
to experience these goodies. What a country of never ending surprises Australia is!
And on that somewhat
exotic international note, we shall take our leave of Mudgee for another year.
Despite one day of pouring rain (it was as dry and warm as toast in the pub),
we had more than thoroughly enjoyed catching up with this band of ageing reprobates
as we all again tried to demonstrate that we could stay the course over seven
days of debauchery without missing a beat. At least I could fall back on my
immune system disease as the reason for my afternoon nap....’clouds and silver
linings’!
Our next destination
could not be more different in prospect....two nights free camping at
Mendooran, the oldest town on the Castlereagh River. It has been quite a while
since we have had to rely on our own resources....hopefully all systems are
still operational, particularly the voltage inverter and the diesel heater!
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