Glovebox Gourmet

(Evening Standard, 2005)

We’ve all seen enough outback celebrity game shows to know that ‘bush tucker’ hides a multitude of culinary scare stories, mostly squirming grubs and insects coaxed from bits of bark with twigs. Contrary to a banquet of bugs, though, the countryside of the New South Wales Eurobadalla Nature Coast promised hidden pockets of gourmet delights, from chardonnay to seafood, secreted away among the coastal hamlets.

Driving south is still a comparatively rare activity, even for Sydney-siders. Warmer weather lures people north, with most other weekenders taking the well-worn path out to the Blue Mountains.

Two hours beyond the Sydney suburbs, though, a string of National Parks and State Forests flank the scenic Princes Highway, which links Sydney and Melbourne. The new Glovebox Gourmet guide from the local tourist office promised a wealth of worthwhile detours for car-bound connoisseurs, and as Wollongong and Kiama disappeared from my rear-view mirror, I was at least confident I wasn’t going to go hungry.

South Durras, among the wombats and kangaroos of Murramarang National Park, is a leisurely four hour drive from Sydney. It’s an unlikely place to find withering opinions on British supermarket vegetables, but Keith Jackson of organic farm High Tech Enterprises has plenty to say about the corporate liberties being taken with terms such as ‘vine ripened’.

Jackson is rightly proud of his hydroponic tomatoes, cultivated with a true passion for organically tasty produce. The space age greenhouses belie what is a family-run industry. In the high season, visitors can enjoy the ripe spectrum of his fruit and veg harvest, with everything from peaches to pasta sauces that make it hard to go back to High Street shelves.

Back on the road, the fertile pastures quickly opened out onto open coastline, with the seaside town of Bateman’s Bay providing a breezy, invigorating base for the first day.

Down at the marina, I was just in time to catch Mark Rawlston, owner of Oyster Shed Boat Hire, taking a group tour of his oyster farm on the Clyde River Estuary. It’s a shockingly labour intensive business, taking a precarious three years to cultivate a premium oyster.

Slurping down a few tasters back at the shed, though, I was easily convinced that the oyster was Mark’s world. His partner Enola’s innovative dishes were complemented by a couple of cheeky ones straight from the shell, an oyster knife crash course thrown in. We all left with freshly packed samples, served up as a baker’s dozen, just in case.

I took my booty back to Corrigans Cove, a boutique guesthouse overlooking Corrigans beach on the outskirts of Bateman’s Bay. The old joke about being on the seafood diet (“If I see food, I eat it”) was beginning to have a portentous sound to it.

The next day I started early to head a couple of hours further south still, through the culinary-sounding towns of Broulee and Potato Point, down into the lush Tilba Valley.

Tilba Valley Winery was bought “on a whim” by former BBC employee Peter Herrmann in 2001. He tells me that he “needed something to do”, a void now filled by producing award-winning Chambourcin in a ten acre picture postcard.

It isn’t that there aren’t good wines to be found among the dozens of back garden producers in the area, but since you can survey Peter’s idyllic surroundings from the stunning wooden dining room whilst you enjoy a glass or two, it seemed rude not to.

A couple of minutes away is Central Tilba, a town which the word ‘quaint’ could use as an image consultant. In the shadow of Mount Dromedary, tourists dawdle in the local leather and woodturning workshops before inevitably being drawn to the historic ABC Cheese Factory.

Tucking into a square of their Sun Dried Tomato Club Cheese, the assistant nonchalantly mentioned that it was voted second best cheese a few years ago. Not in the region at a local fete as I first assumed, but, it so happens, on the planet, in international competition. A few dollars later, I was equipped for a world-class picnic.

The town of Narooma provided the suitably dramatic venue, set as it is on the stunning Wagonga Inlet, a haven for naturalists and whale watchers. With the mountains of the Great Dividing Range on one side, the estuary and Montague Island Nature Reserve on the other, any al fresco feast is going to enjoy the best of backdrops.

As well as the seemingly compulsory famous oyster and seafood outlets, Narooma boasts organic honey, quail’s eggs, tamarillo chutney and even home grown lavender, not that you need relaxing agents at this point.

The Grove B&B is set back from the town up on the hills, and crams about as much of the panorama into its view as is possible. Given a big enough hamper, you could wallow in Narooma’s landscape for weeks, but even one night is still worth the drive.

I was planning to make it back to the city in one day. I joined the early morning legions at local gourmet legend Muffins and More, a heritage listed store just off the highway in Mossy Point. I chose a mango muffin, plus a ginger and cherry to go, from their improbably large menu of diet-thwarting home-baked goods.

Back on the Princes Highway, provisions stores in Bodalla and East Lynne offer a round up of local produce, just in case you missed anything. I broke the journey at historic Mogo, a former mining village where you can pan for gold. I preferred to pan for home made fudge and ice cream, with a couple of pastries just to see me back to the city.

With wine, cheese and all manner of potted goods to take back, the Eurobodalla Nature Coast had lived up to its gourmet billing. Just be warned that you may need more storage space than just your glovebox can afford.

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