The Hunter

If you’re searching for your pot of Australian “vino gold”, search no further than what the locals refer to as “the Hunter”. Short for Hunter Valley, a two hour drive from Sydney will take you back to the Napa Valley of yesteryear. Rather than opt for the day tours pushed by hotels and travel agencies about town, hire your own car (if you’re comfortable driving from the right side), chart your course and prepare for a scenic drive passing small mountains and lakes toward the Great Divide (mini-Rockies).

On approach into the valley, don’t be alarmed when you first hit Cessnock, a coal mining town suffering from generations of unemployment. A throw back to small town USA of the 1950s, as a gateway to the wine country, it is no reflection of what is to follow. Ten miles further up National Highway 1, you enter the wine country of oz. But stay sober behind the wheel and take your time, as many a kangaroo will surely test your driving acumen, leaping in front of you by the droves. Compared to the occasional possum or skunk roadkill in Napa, hitting an eight or nine foot roo will surely send your Lexus 330 into traction for a few weeks. Unfortunately for the roos, they usually do not survive as is evidenced by the double digit corpses lying roadside. Anyone for a roo burger?

Cruising in my five speed Toyota corolla past low rolling hills of golden vineyards, I felt at home. Without any pre-booked lodging, I drove the one lane country roads past guesthouses, cottage inns and newer golf resort hotels. Quaint signs for small B&Bs lined the yellow brick, or rather red dirt, road. I started down a gravel driveway to the “Thistle Hill” guesthouse, set back a hundred yards from the road. Walking up to the main house, a woman leaned out of a smaller shack under construction, “Welcome to Thistle Hill, I am Chris. Would you like to see a room?”

“That would be great,” I replied, anxious to get settled for the night so I could explore the valley spoils before sunset. A quick glance at the nicely appointed room and I was prepared to offer her my information, passport, credit card, the usual check-in routine, but that was not necessary she told me. What was this? A return to trusting others? In China, they took a cash deposit in every place I stayed and would not release it until someone from my room radioed to the front desk that I had indeed not taken the towels and left the soap I did not use. It was a warm welcome nonetheless and I knew I had picked the right place.

“Would you like to join Glenn (her boyfriend) and I for a glass of wine later?” Chris continued.

“Sure, thanks,” I quipped as a deer like creature caught my eye twenty feet from the porch. “Is that a kangaroo?” I strained to see as the dim dusk light set in.

“Oh, yeah, that’s Chloe, she’s lives here. She’s lived here since she was a roolet. As a baby roo, Chloe’s mother was illegally shot by hunters so she was adopted by the then property owners.” As Chris further explained, whoever owns the property, takes it with responsibility for Chloe.

Now I really knew I had the right place. Within two hours I was petting the first kangaroo I had seen outside of captivity. My enthusiasm for cuddling up to a roo waned however, as Glenn and Chris filled me in on roo ferocity. Each year, many a local dog apparently lose their lives to kangaroos in two different, but equally unpleasant methods. The first modus operandi is a quick slash with an incredibly sharp and long nail on the roo’s hind legs. The second method is a shocker. A kangaroo being harassed by a dog, leads the canine to a body of water, usually a river or lake, and as the dog follows the kangaroo into the water, balancing on its tail, the kangaroo drowns the dog with its powerful hind feet! (Sounds a bit fatal attractionesque to me.)

Hearing those stories, my ideas of playing hopscotch with Chloe quickly turned to a game of look, stare and beware. And apparently she knew this game too as she nervously hopped around me, bread slices in front claws, toward her romping area, a mere fraction of the twenty-five acre lot comprising the Thistle Hill property. Just imagine preparing your coffee in the morning, and instead of the dog waiting at the door, a kangaroo’s head pops in looking for two slices of multi-grain or raisin bread. You might say it would give your morning a real jump start.

My first full day in the Hunter started with a continental breakfast at Thistle Hill where Chris mapped my local stops at boutique wineries in the valley. First stop would be Macquariedale Winery, the first bio-dynamic winery in the Hunter, and one of only two in all of Australia. Being a Tuesday, the roads were quiet and I proceeded slowly, keeping watch for daredevil roos leaping across the roadway. Pulling into the parking lot of the winery/home perched on a hill with a 360 degree view, a man in a dark blue fleece with neatly combed graying hair came out to meet me halfway.

“Are you open?” I inquired.

“Not really,” he said, “but come on in.”

Ross McDonald, as he would introduce himself later, was a chemist by profession turned vigneron. In his early fifties, with three young children, Ross sold a business in Sydney and headed for the hills where he purchased 220 acres of beautiful wine country land. I followed him into his new tasting room adjacent to his home where he explained the mechanics behind biodynamics.

As Ross sees it, all of farming should turn to biodynamics because the crop is better tasting, better for you, less harsh on the environment and the soil remains fertile for future plantings. Producing about 5,000 cases per year, restaurants in Europe, Canada and the US are now vying to carry his wine, noting specifically on their menus that the wine is “biodynamic”. Apparently, it is fetching three and four times his price on the menu. And after tasting new bottles that he opened for his only visitor (me), I understood why his wines were in such demand, they were excellent. Inspired by his commitment to sustainable farming, I purchased a case, shook hands and headed on to the next winery.

In total, I only visited three wineries the entire day, even skipping lunch. Wine tasting mid-week in the Hunter means you have lots of time to find out anything you want from the exceedingly cheery wine pourers and owners. Getting the real scoop behind the valley, its development and history was a wonderful compliment to tasting some fine wines. At the end of the day, I returned to Thistle Hill to drop off a few bottles I had purchased for Glenn and Chris, including an extra bottle of Thomas Shiraz mistakenly opened at the Macquariedale tasting.

Chris was inside preparing dinner for Jag and Monty, her English Setters. Before I could finish handing her the gift bottles, she invited me to join her for a glass from the open bottle. Glenn had gone to Sydney for a few days where he still runs an electrical contractor company. Chris and I began chatting by the huge roaring fireplace in her living room. The chat would turn into life history, relationships, real estate and eventually she invited me to stay for some vegetable soup she had prepared for herself.
(Above: "The Full Monty")

Apologizing profusely that it was “nothing special”, I assured her that a home cooked meal with lots of veggies was perfect and I was grateful for the invite. For a few more hours we sat at her dining table talking about life. When she was 17, shortly after her mother died at 38, Chris left home in the UK and knowing nobody, without a job, immigrated to Australia. Fortunately, soon after her arrival, she put her degree in nursing to work at a local hospital.

By 19 years of age, she was beginning to grow some roots in Sydney. On one fateful night, at a party, she met an Australian naval officer in whom a girlfriend of hers was also interested. “He was six foot eight and very handsome,” she recalled. And although now 56, Chris has aged well and it is not hard to imagine that she was quite a looker too. The naval officer, Allen, asked her out for a tennis date the following day. Figuring he would not call, Chris never booked the court, but at 3 p.m. the next day, her phone rang. It was Allen inquiring if she was able to book a court. She explained that the courts were “full” and he asked her to dinner instead.

By the end of dinner, she was forming strong feelings for him and apparently he for her. As they were walking along the water after dinner, Allen explained that he was going to Melbourne in one week and then onto the UK for a year for a tour of duty (Naval intelligence). If they were going to be together, they would need to get married. Chris thought to herself, “this is not happening.” But it was, Allen proposed and she accepted. Even today, she will say, “there was something about him that I just knew.”

At 1 a.m. that same morning after her first date with Allen, there was a knock at Chris’ door. It was a courier delivering an envelope. She opened the envelope, finding inside a small diamond ring formerly belonging to Allen’s grandmother. He wanted to be sure that she knew he was serious. In three days, Chris put together a wedding and her friends surprised her with a wedding dress, threw the couple a reception and stayed at the same motel as them on their first night as husband and wife. And unfortunately because her friends stayed in the same motel, the wedding party stayed up all night in the same room talking. By morning, Chris and Allen had spent no alone time together and Allen was off for one year.

It was a whimsical wedding followed by a marriage lasting 24 years with one daughter, and if it was up to Chris, she would still be married to Allen. But one morning on his way to town from their farmhouse in the Hunter, Allen was killed in a car accident. Chris’ world was turned upside down as the person with whom she had spent more than half of her life was no longer. Mourning was difficult, empty, dark, depressing and full of vivid dreams of Allen. To prove that she could be on her own, one day she left her successful ad agency (second career after nursing) and went to the Amalfi Coast for a month. As she recalls, “I needed to know if I could do it and for some reason I convinced myself that this was the way to do it.”

She admits it wasn’t easy being a single woman traveling, eating alone, walking alone, shopping alone, but after the first week and a half, it slowly got easier. “Maybe it wasn’t the test that I think it was, but it worked for me at the time,” she lamented. Returning home from Italy, she resumed her role as mother and small business owner.

At first she thought she would never date anyone else. But after three years, she slowly entered the dating world, for the first time since she was 19. It was scary and along the way she met a lot of creeps (her words). One example she shared was the very wealthy man who wanted to take her sailing on his large yacht. Sounded good to me, until she finally let me in on his “issues”, that is, he also wanted to bring along his dominatrix mistress. Chris felt funny about that (putting it mildly), and knowing her for only two days, you learn right away she is a straight arrow.

Fifteen years later, her “on and off again” relationship with Glenn is full steam ahead. Glenn, nine years her junior, has never been married, and is the quieter of the two. But as Chris puts it, “it took me a long time to realize all of the good qualities in Glenn. He was never going to replace Allen, but life was different now. And Glenn is a wonderful man.” When they finally committed to each other (no plans to get married), they moved to Thistle Hill, Chris’ third and final career before retirement.

Are there such things as soul mates? Is there a formula for a successful marriage? Those are the questions that led to our conversation and at the end Chris had her own conclusions. “Is there only one person for each of us? No, I don’t think so, there are those though with whom we have a special connection at different times of our lives.”

She continued, “Successful marriage? I don’t know what works for others, but at the end of the day you have to like the person. You may not always love them, but you have to like them. Allen and I didn’t always love each other, we had our ups and downs like any relationship, but I always liked him. The same goes for Glenn, he is a really good person, I always like him.”

Nearing the end of our conversation, I asked Chris if she lived life any differently after Allen’s death. Not particularly religious, Chris still wonders today if Allen’s death was a lesson for her, or if his work was accomplished on earth and he went somewhere better. She said it really didn’t change things for her, except that now if someone asks her whether they should do something or not, she encourages them to do it, if it is within their means. “I always said, ‘it’s later than you think’, and that is truer every minute.”


Roopa Update: I received an e-mail from Shubi (Roopa’s daughter). Roopa’s last scan shows miraculous results. There were no signs of the cancer cells! Amazing and obviously incredibly encouraging. The family is excited and hopeful, but remains cautious. The doctor will decide soon whether Roopa will undergo her remaining three chemo treatments. Truly fantastic news and perhaps a testament to healing energy, well wishes from across the globe and faith.