Cobdogla & Green Lake

It’s a bit sad to be heading home, but needs must as Deen has already missed 5 weeks of earning money so for her a holiday carries that extra cost. She is also missing her little cat, PJ, who is in a cattery, but they do send Deen a photo every couple of days. After an uneventful trip from Wilmington we set up camp at the Cobdogla Caravan Park which backs onto a lagoon which filled during the recent Murray flooding. Cobdogla is a small village that is surrounding by grape growing blocks that used to be 10 acres, but may now be amalgamated into bigger holdings. A guy I worked with, Ronnie Duncan, purchased a block at Cobdogla and used to make a red wine that would blow your head off. Marg and I shared a bottle and were both very drunk after finishing it, such was its potency.

The caravan park had been saved from flooding, as had the village, by a large levee constructed by the local council. It was a massive piece of earthwork that makes you wonder where all the earth came from. The flood came about 2/3 up the levee which has been partially removed to allow access to the lagoon.

After setting up we visited Glossop Winery for a wine tasting. They have table wines but their specialty is fortified wines and their Topaque (Tokay) was excellent. They also had a very good sparkling Durif which I am drinking while I type up this blog. Next day our activity was to visit the Banrock Station Wetlands and Cafe. Banrock have regenerated the wetlands and now regulate the water flow to the wetlands to simulate what would have happened when the Murray was a “free” river. The wetland did suffer in the recent flood so the extensive boardwalk was closed as it had been damaged. However the 3 Km walk through the bush was an enjoyable one. Here are some photos taken on the walk.

The most noticeable thing on the walk was how healthy and green all the native bushes were and there were a few in flower, but you had to look hard.

The cafe overlooks the wetlands and this is the view you get from the wide deck where we sat to have lunch.

The Banrock Cafe have a set menu for $40 which includes two starters, two salads and two mains and all were excellent. The starters were olive bread, olive oil and Dukkah and a home made croquette fish finger, all of which were excellent except the Dukkah was a bit salty to my taste. Both salads were excellent as well, one was pearl couscous with roquette with dried figs and apricot and flaked almonds. The other salad was roast potato and pumpkin with roquette and burrata (made from mozzarella & cream) mixed through it.

The first main was pan fried Mulloway with cauliflower puree and capers and the other main was red wine and honey glazed chorizo with roasted sweet potato and crumbled Feta cheese. To go with this we had tastings of five different wines, three whites and two reds which were all very drinkable but non outstanding. The one thing we forgot to do was to take photos of the food! We would definitely recommend a visit to Banrock Station if you are travelling in this area of Australia.

On the way home we crossed the Murray and stopped for a photo.

That evening we couldn’t resist another sunset photo, this time at Cobdogla with Venus making an appearance.

Next day we moved to Green Lake (near Sea Lake) and on the way we passed the Walpeup silos which were being painted.

Green Lake is a great camping spot which has power and water available at some sites in a casual setting around the lake. We enjoyed our last campfire and took a couple of photos late in the day.

We had purchased two small lamb roasts from the butcher at Burra, who is renowned for their saltbush lamb. We scrounged up some veggies and cooked the roast in my oven style BBQ. We hit a sweet spot and everything was cooked perfectly – meat, spuds, beetroot, onion and capsicum – all baked and delicious and enjoyed with some excellent wines. It was a marvellous end to a truely wonderful holiday. All that’s left now is the drive home tomorrow. In this holiday we have travelled over 7,000 Km in just over 5 weeks and visited some wonderful places that will stay in our memories for a long time. We are so lucky to be living in Australia and able to easily visit such memorable places. So that’s it for now, if you have subscribed you will get an email the next time I am travelling and publishing a blog, thanks for following, I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did.