why worry

It's Australia Day here, with lots of official flag flying, marching bands, citizenship ceremonies, speeches, and cascading gongs. That's the official image; the reality is that great bulk of citizenry spend the day at the beach or some other pleasant pursuit. Australia Day also marks the end of the summer holidays for most, and the school year starts tomorrow. That's strange because the end of January is like the end of July in Europe, a time when most set off on holidays. Moreover, summer here continues for another two months or more!

Yesterday, Dot and I, and Dot's friend Jane, got in the festive mood by driving over to a local vineyard for lunch and a bit of wine-tasting. The whyworry vineyard is part of the big push in this area to produce cold-climate wines. Most of the investment in grape growing come from outside the region, but this operation was set up by a local sheep farmer at Uralla 21 km south of Armidale and he must have had a sense of humour to name it thus. The vinyard is 1130m asl and the owners told us that the climate is much more like France and Southern Germany than most parts of Australia, which is great for producing Riesling.

The lunch was very good and cheap, but I didn't taste too much wine as I was driving. We certainly enjoyed the wines they produce and bought several bottles. We lingered long soaking up the lovely landscape as shown in the picture. The distant hills to the north were about 40 km away and draped with a massive thunder cloud. Between us and the 1400m hills were miles of quiet pastures and woodland, all bathed in fierce sun-light. By the way, the temperature at 1130m was a very warm 31 centigrade (or c. 88F).

AS