Wine bottles and a sore arse at the end of a weekend - Mudgee!
When you’re feeling low and you need a break from everything, a holiday is always recommended. But even better, is one with your girlfriends. 10 girls, 2 cars and a whole lot of junk food, head off early on a Friday afternoon in June 2009 to a quant little town 4 hours north of Sydney, to Mudgee. By the time we get out of the city it is way too dark to notice anything, but even with no lights on the road we could tell, this place was beautiful. The silhouette of the trees and the landscape under the hidden moon light looked enchanting.
Entering the town, we definitely got a better feeling than we did in Lithgrow, our dinner break. With it’s rather small but yet significant ‘Clock Tower’, Mudgee was friendly. After going back and forth the one main street, we finally got our way to our Villas. The self serviced apartment was perfect for a group of 10, especially with a heater and electric blankets, we were instant fans.
So now a two day weekend with 10 girls in a country town in Australia – what does one do? All you lovers of Hunter Valley, you have competition - Mudgee is definitely a winner for me. But the wine tasting comes later; first we talk about the Horse Riding!
Now I feel it important to mention that I had never been horse riding before, and so my ‘lingo’ will probably vary from the official terms, but well I don’t care, I have a new found love – horses. A really good German friend always talked about horses and loved them dearly and now I know why, they are such beautiful and graceful animals. Yes, it is truly terrifying at first cause no matter what, they are pretty big aka high animals to sit on and ride, even if they are ponies. So out f 7 people I am one of the 3 who is left without a horse till the very end, and finally get onto a beautiful mare, Molly. She was lovely but very lazy and probably needed a lot more coaxing. Cause another friend wanted to ride her I was passed on to another one, my very own Axcel . He was lovely, needed a bit of a push as well because he is a pony after all and is spoilt and temperamental, especially in the stable. So we practice for about an hour and half, we all find our horse and give them a trot on the farm, have our packed lunch and then head off to the reserve to ride them in the open.
The best way for me to say this is that I felt like I was in a movie, being shot in the Australian outback where you ride on a horse, take him down to the creek for a sip and gallop across the terrain. Ok so I am exaggerating a bit, I couldn’t gallop with the horse and there wasn’t any wind blowing my hair away, because as sexy as it may sound, you gotta wear a helmet, so maybe that bit isn’t true but everyone is allowed to alter the truth a bit. Rest of it all was divine, you see the blue sky, the green grass, the stream of water and you’re riding a horse and the wind with a slight nip in air is felt on your face, and then out of no where he starts to canter and since you’re a rookie, you almost fall off your horse , twice, almost. Phew!
Now while 7 of us were living a scene from a Hollywood cowboy movie or let’s just say Macleod’s Daughter, 3 of the girls were off on their hired bikes riding from vineyard to vineyard. Didn’t experience that bit but there you go, there is something for those who are scared of horses too. So apart from the normal wine tasting sessions one could have – which mind you were very good – there is a bit more to Mudgee for me than there was when I went down to Hunter Valley.
Oh and before I forget, the Saturday night in the local pub was the icing on the cake. Always wanted to see a country pub, and everything I had thought of was so true, no altering the truth here, it’s all true, the blokes, the music, the local band and the dancing, all true :
