It was my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary yesterday. They had decided to come to Sydney to celebrate with Andrew and I, so we decided to surprise them with a weekend away at Mudgee. It is a wine growing area, and after the rain from the last couple of weeks the area was a lovely green colour. But it was rather chilly up there!
We left home at around 8:15 am on Saturday morning, and had made it to Mudgee in time for lunch. We ate at the High Valley Cheese and Wine Company after having a cheese tasting to see what cheese we wanted on the cheese platter. We chose the parma gouda, pesto feta and a brie. I also had the soup of the day to warm myself up (it was broccoli, cauliflower and pine nut soup), and the accompanying bread was very tasty!
Afterwards we pottered around for a while, visited a winery and also a honey place, and then looked around town to decide where we would have the anniversary dinner. After that we checked into the lovely B&B we’d booked into. It had a beautiful fire going in the guest lounge room (there were 3 rooms with their own ensuite each, and a dining room and lounge room for the guests to use that was separate to the living area of the family who ran the B&B). We had enough time to relax and warm up by the fire before heading back to town for dinner.
We all really enjoyed our meals at a restaurant called Elton. Mum and Andrew had steak, Dad had a chicken cordon bleu, and I had eggplant stuffed with cous cous, pear, sultanas, walnuts and other goodies with moroccan flavours and had a cucumber type spiced yoghurt dressing over the top. Then mum and dad shared a dessert, and Andrew and I shared one.
Back at the B&B we found the other guests (a couple) and the hosts rugged up and eating pizza from the wood fired pizza oven. Andrew thinks the oven was too hot for cooking, but it was wonderful to stand infront of! But being outside was too cold for the way we were dressed, and so we headed back inside to the warm lounge room.
Sunday morning we had a lovely big breakfast (didn’t I say in the last blog that I had put on weight?? Well, we all know why now, don’t we….) and then went for a walk down to the river at the bottom of the property. When we left the B&B we drove to Hill End, an old gold mining town that isn’t much more than a historical town with a pub and an information centre, but it was very nice all the same. We had lunch at the pub (I had a crumbed chicken breast in turkish bread and some chips and salad) and visited the lookout at Bald Hill before heading back to Sydney via Bathurst (where we did a lap of Mount Panorama).
It was a really lovely weekend. I just wish we had had more time to explore. Maybe next time we will be able to stay a few days. 🙂
