We recently had a lovely afternoon visiting the Banrock Station Wine and Wetland Centre. It’s not far from Barmera – our current house sit. Banrock Station has 250 hectares of vineyards, 900 hectares of floodplains and wetland, and 600 hectares of rejuvenated woodland. It’s part of the Hardy’s group of wine companies – Reg worked for them for over 20 years. In case you don’t know he’s a winemaker – which makes me very happy!! The Banrock Centre itself is set high on a hilltop – lovely views over the wetlands below. There’s an interesting information area – all about its environmental history. Much work has been done since the project started in 1994. The wetlands and floodplains had stopped flooding naturally – locks on the river had seen to that. But now they are artificially flooded – keeping the soil healthy, fauna and flora thriving. There’s also a great restaurant/cafe on site – tables spilling out onto verandahs – and wine tasting available at a large central bar. But we weren’t there for that! Wine and food were off the agenda. We headed off on one of the wetland walks – map in hand, drink bottle at the ready. The track took us across a wide flat plain – lots of baby trees in plastic tubes – part of the ongoing rejuvenation. Then onto a boardwalk – crossing over floodwaters and winding through bushland. Saw some beautiful black swans and lots of ducks along the way. We visited the Shelduck Hide – a hut with lots of little windows looking out onto a vast lagoon. Beautiful. Retraced our steps along the boardwalk and back to the centre. Remained strong – no afternoon tea. However Reg did weaken – he decided to do a little wine tasting. One out of two’s not bad! Two bottles found their way safely to our car.
Winter in the Riverland is beautiful. Mostly sunny days – mid teens. The nights are freezing! Frost and fog in the morning are common. The golf course – really our backyard – is beautiful in the mornings! Quite eerie as the fog rolls in. Love taking walks on the golf course. Nice to have a chat to the golfers – though we do tend to put them off their game. They get a little nervous with an audience. Another beautiful area nearby is the Murray River National Park. It’s bordered on its southern edge by the River Murray and has some amazing cliff views across the river at Bookpurnong – especially at sunset. I’d never seen them myself and was keen to visit – so we headed off one afternoon on a mission. Reg in charge of directions – he’d checked out google maps. Need I say more. We took the back road – and got lost! Still we saw some interesting countryside – said a quick hello to a couple of locals. Two kangaroos nibbling at a farmers crop! We did finally make it to the park but soon realized we were miles away from the cliffs. We’d used the wrong entry point! But we kept driving, navigating a narrow dirt track along Katarapko Creek. The creek happily winds its way through the park – great for camping and kayaking. Visited some lovely campsites and an interesting creek boat ramp along the way. Gorgeous photos below!! Will return another evening to get photos of those amazing cliffs!! Maybe printing out a map may help!
Love again
Di and Reg
This entry was posted in Australia, Barmera, Riverland, House Sits
- Banrock Station
- Barmera
- fog
- frost
- house sit
- kangaroo
- Katarapko Creek
- Murray River National Park
- Wine and Wetland Centre