Day 1
Whilst staying with Graeme & Briony in Melbourne, I decided to take the journey from Southern Cross station to Rutherglen, a small town 190 miles northeast of Melbourne, near the Murray River border with New South Wales. The journey was very good, the first part by one of the regional trains took me to a town called Wangaratta where I changed to a small bus onwards to Rutherglen.
After leaving the bus, I quickly checked into my accommodation in the Poachers Paradise motel, where my room was very nice and comfortable and suited my needs perfectly. I then went for a look around town, a former gold mining town, today Rutherglen, recognised as one of the premier wine-growing regions in Victoria with around 20 wineries in the area, approximately 1 per 100 of the 2000 or so population. I found the town and its residents very friendly, they were all really interested to learn that I was born and raised in Rutherglen Scotland and many were quick to tell me how it came by its name, apparently in 1860 gold was found in the area and in the newly formed Star Hotel, the publican, Ruglonian John Wallace, was told: “Shout the whole bar and you can call this town whatever you like.” So he bought a beer for everyone in the pub and called the town Rutherglen.
After a walk around town, I ended up in the same Star Hotel for dinner and a beer and enjoyed watching some of the Australian Open tennis on TV before hitting the sack.
Day 3
Today being Australia Day meant that it was a little quieter in town and there were no winery tours available so I settled for a long leisurely breakfast in Caffeine N Machine, a bakery café with a vintage bike museum display situated at the roundabout at the entrance to the town, I then discovered that the towns tourist information office across the road was open, and it was there that I was directed to the towns old school museum which became my next stop. The museum was interesting with many exhibits showing life in the old town, it was also good to chat with the 2 volunteers in attendance, they were very keen to find out the differences between the 2 towns and they were quite surprised by the size of Rutherglen in Scotland. After a nice afternoon sitting in the sun reading, I finished off the day with another nice meal in the Star Hotel before retiring for the night.
Day 3
Today I arranged a tour of some of the wineries with one of the locals, Alister Chisholm, an ex-pat Scot who has lived in Rutherglen for a number of years and runs a B&B in addition to running tours. After brunch again in Caffeine N Machine, I was picked up by Alister and off we went to visit ……. for some tasting sessions. Back in town, it was time to visit the local supermarket for some bits for the return journey before catching the bus back to Wangaratta for my return to Melbourne, by the time I got back to Morialloc to be collected by Graeme I was pretty jiggered to say the least however, I really enjoyed my adventure into a part of Victoria I had never seen before and the town of Rutherglen was a great place to visit.
Jim's travels 