Wines not Wails

The objective of today was to visit the Great Lakes Winery at Wootton and while in that locality to visit the Wootton Historical Railway Walk.

Rather than go back West to Buladelah and follow the Old Pacific Highway to Wootton and then back East to the winery we noticed that Wattley Hill Rd off The Lakes Way goes to Wootton so we set off to follow that.  It was a bit potholed in places but we kept encountering signs to ‘Winery’ so guessed we were on the right track.  Eventually we got to the winery and I went in to see how the staff felt about small dogs.

Before getting that far two large dogs, of the kelpie-etc breed, appeared and headed for Tammie who was being exercised in the carpark.  Before Frances could pick her she disappeared under a pile of sniffs (as usual, keeping up her end of the protocol).  A rapid lift by Frances and a yell by the wine purveyor and calm was restored (larger dogs restoring themselves to from whence they had come.  Tammie then played with the purveyor’s 3 year old son while we got down to tasting some beverages and comestibles.

Some fair time later – there was a lot of talking as well as tasting – we emerged with 6 bottles of wine, 2 of olive oil and 2 rounds of Lindsay Blue cheese.  All very palatable and deserving of folks attention if in the Wootton area. 

We also got a map showing the location of the walk we wanted to do.  Part of the route to the walk involved the Old Pacific Highway to the edge of the settlement of Wootton (the winery is in the hinterland thereof).  My goodness, that was an astonishing bit of road: slightly worse than the Captains Flat Rd in every respect, but this one used to link Brisbane (2m people) and Sydney (4.5m people) rather than Canberra (300k people) and Captain’s Flat (perhaps 500 people)!  However our business was to find Squires Rd which was easy and even had signs to the Historic Railway Walk.

I think the walk is in State Forest rather than National Park so there was no bulldust around.  It was a lovely walk for about 1km following the old course of the rail line with some steps and/or bridges where creeks crossed.  The main trees were Eucalyptus grandis ‘Flooded Gum’ which are really beautiful with tall straight trunks and white bark. 

Many sorts of ferns and palms were in the understorey.

 After the kilometre we got to the end of the maintained section.  This meant progress was going to be a major bush bash so we turned and after a bit of a stroll up (and that word is used deliberately) Squires Rd, returned to the car.

We rolled out to the village of Wootton where the major attraction appeared to be the Brush Turkey Café.  We did no more than take a picture of their interesting letterbox.

 After getting home – and commenting often en route about the great scenery with pasture near the road and forested hills and gullies as a backdrop – I went to explore further the firebreaks around the property.  It got a bit swampy in spots which meant Melaleucas had a nice place to live.  A White-cheeked Honeyeater was obliging,

 as were the Royal Australian Airy Fairies who only made noise for about 30 minutes (and stayed well above tree top height).  A Scarlet Honeyeater (one of the constant 'voices' of this week) also allowed a snap:

Not the greatest image but it was about 15m (horizontally and vertically away from me).