Our Awfully Big Adventure in Oz: Cleveland Winery

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would update you with our lovely night away at a winery last weekend.

My sister in law bought us a voucher for 'lunch for two at a winery' for chirstmas, so after a bit of research, we decided to make a little getaway out of it. It turned out that the winery was a little further away than we (and Sarah) thought - it was in Lancefield, about 90 minutes north of melbourne.

So after we found out that they only honoured the voucher on sundays, and we wanted to enjoy the associated wine tasting, we booked to stay at the retreat, and take the monday off work.

Little did we know that it was actually mother's day here in oz on that day, and the place was teaming with large groups out to treat mum for the day. It was nice to see, and made for a more festive atmosphere. However, the problem was that the Grange was undergoing a large scale 'remodelling', which they failed to tell us on the phone when I booked. The cellar door was closed. Why else would you visit a winery???

We gritted our teeth, and politley made our disappointment know. Their compensation was a glass of wine each, and a glass of chamagne for helen. Plus we got to do our own tasting of the wines they had to offer, at my insistance.

We chose a nice bottle of Shiraz to have with our meal, and bought a nother couple of bottles too, one for later that night and one for keepsies.

The lunch was lovely, thanks Sarah, we both opted for the Scotch Fillet which was devine, and I had the sticky date pudding for dessert. Helen had the chocolate volcano pudding mmmmm

After lunch we headed over to reception to check in and we dutifully headed to our room.

Now, generally speaking, hotels in Australia are considerably cheaper than europe, and the standards can be much higher - I regulalry stay in 4/5 star accommodation for less that $160 a night. However, as we were paying $180 for this place, I had high expectations.....

Which were very quickly dashed....

The room was on the ground floor, dingy and had an intersting odour. The furniture consisted of a bed that was two singles hastily pushed together, a minibar (that was empty), dry biscuits that looked like they had been there for months, and 'tiny' television -similar to the portable ones you can take in your car, and a single chair, next to a single table. The bathroom facilities were appalling - basically a bog and a shower. No hairdryer, a tiny mirror, not even complimentary shampoo (not that I would ever use it).

It was no better than a seedy metropolitan motel.

Needless to say I went to complain. You see, the thing was this - although the place was teaming with families, we discovered that we were in fact one of only two couples staying in the complex that night, so it was not as if they were short of rooms, and I wondered if that really was the best they could offer.

That was not indeed the case, as they lead me up to another room, in another building. I was informed that this part of the complex had only been open for a week. You could smell the fresh paint.

Our new room was significantly better, although I have to say still a bit shy of $180 better! We were the only people in the whole new building.

After we delivered all our luggage, we headed back outside, where it was a balmy 21c with books in hand. We found a lovely swinging garden seat to camp at, and spent the best part of 2 hours just sitting, taking in the fresh air and chilling out. It was lovely.

Afterwards, we went for a walk around the vineyards. We both seemed to be in a mischievous mood because we found a whole heap of things to do - they had some kind of adventure course, which probably needed supervision, but we decided to give it a go, half expecting to get chided for our naughtiness. We had fun balancing on the high-wires, trying to get from A-B, but usually ending up at C with arms flailing.

Below is a pic of the vineyard, and the winery in the background - I was actually standing the lake bed - I would have been up to my knees if it wasn't in drought.

As the evening fast approached, we headed back to the room where we continued to chill for a few hours, watching our huge plasma TV, whilst eating home-made bacon butties and consuming modest quantities of wine. It got to around 9pm and we became bored and decided to go and explore in our pyjamas - we felt like we were on school camp or something.

We discovered that in the new wing, downstairs, was a very large lounge, with comfy sofas, a foozball table, and a brand new pool table, taht I don't think had even been used! But the piece de la resistance was the TV. It was without doubt the biggest plasma TV I have ever seen. It was wider than I am tall, considerably. The pic below shows it, the depth doesn't do it justice - it really was thiiiiiiiis big! We watched the Eurovison song contest, and really enjoyed Terry Wogan in his usual drunken tirade.

So, the following morning we rose at around 9am for our breakkie and made haste to get on the road where we decided to have a bit of a magical mystery tour, literally following our noses. We ended up at Mt Macedon, but as we were driving, we blinked and missed it! It's barely noticable as a 'Mount'!!

We headed back over to the main road again, and came across Hanging Rock, or Mt Diogenes. This place has a very mysterious air about the place. Some of you may recall an aussie movie called Picnic at Hanging Rock, where a group of teenage girls who go on a school picnic on Valentine's Day in 1900 disappear in very odd circumstances. Although this is a work of fiction, it really draws on the atmosphere of this place. When we arrived, we were the only visitors, and there was a peculiar smell to the place, possibly because they had been control-burning the bushland nearby recently, and it had been raining the night before. Anyhow, we climbed to the top, around 1,000ft up, and I was in awe of the rock formations. It really was a stunning place. And here's yours truly at the summit:So, we finished up here, and headed back towards melbourne by lunchtime. We found a gorgeous cafe in Richmond and had a nice lunch and had fun watching the world at work when we had the day off, very good.