This was published 13 years ago
The Royal Mail Hotel, Grampians review: Gateway to the Grampians
Against a mountain backdrop, Jill Innamorati-Varley discovers grand old towns and fine dining.
The girl at the Blue Denim cafe at Essendon Airport isn't fazed when the person I am travelling with orders "a half cap, decaf, skinny, mocha chocolata".
She just replies with a wry grin. "We can do that."
Her cheery attitude sets the tone for our foray into the Southern Grampians, in the heart of Victoria's Western District, a journey that begins in Hamilton, a 40-minute flight from Essendon.
Hamilton and the nearby towns of Dunkeld and Coleraine, which lie halfway between Melbourne and Adelaide, are liberally sprinkled with well-known people who were variously spawned, reared, sheltered or found eternal rest within the bosom of its rich volcanic soil.
Hamilton is the birthplace of the founder of Ansett Airlines, Sir Reginald Ansett. It is also where the soon to be canonised Mary MacKillop's father resides in the city's old cemetery.
Dunkeld, which lies at the southern gateway to the Grampians National Park, was known as Mount Sturgeon until it was nostalgically renamed by Scottish settlers after a town in Scotland.
Rising majestically out of the landscape are the southern peaks of Mount Abrupt and Mount Sturgeon, named by Major Sir Thomas Mitchell when he camped in the area in 1836.
Over in Coleraine, 35 kilometres west of Hamilton, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser's property, Nareen, lies north of the town. Cosmetic queen Helena Rubinstein lived here and most likely honed her retailing savvy when she worked in her uncle's grocery shop. Pioneer-age poet Adam Lindsay Gordon was a regular at Coleraine's GreatWestern Steeplechase before his suicide in 1870.
In its pastoral heyday this rich, blue-ribbon landscape held more sheep per hectare than anywhere else on Earth.
Much of this prosperity and conservative make up can be seen in Hamilton in its tree-canopied streets, fine houses, substantial bungalows and impressive public buildings and in its skyline dominated by the spires of Presbyterian, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. Aviation has a significant place in Hamilton's modern history and Sir Reginald Ansett's contribution is respectfully saluted in the Ansett Transport Museum, on the shores of Lake Hamilton. Housed in one of the airline's original hangers, its centrepiece is a Fokker Universal aircraft, similar to the one used on the first Ansett flight in 1936.
Harking back to a genteel time, the Hamilton Botanical Gardens with its rotunda, sweeping lawns and towering pine and oak trees, was first planted in 1870 and redesigned by the curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, William Guilfoyle, in 1881.
Considered one of Australia's finest regional galleries, the Hamilton Art Gallery is the custodian of the Shaw Bequest, one of the 20th century's major bequests of historic silver, porcelain and glass. Here, too, is a rare collection of 18thcentury paintings by Paul Sandby. The other major Sandby collection is owned by the Queen and housed at Windsor Castle. Eleven kilometres west of Hamilton, in the Henty wine region, Bochara wine's charming rose strewn cellar-door cottage was the former home of a returnedWorldWar I light horseman. Today it provides visitors with a comfortable and historic venue for tasting Bochara's pinot noir, sauvignon and gewurztraminer.
In Dunkeld, the Royal Mail Hotel may well eclipse the town's most outstanding features, mounts Sturgeon and Abrupt. It is here, in this former Cobb & Co royal service watering hole, that gastronomic pilgrims come to worship at the table of chef Dan Hunter.
Named "Country Restaurant of the Year" in The Age Good Food Guide 2009, the Royal Mail Hotel is high on our list to dine. Our lunch starts with the "to share" menu of jamon iberico with tomato bread; artichokes and anchovy; and vegetables in escabeche. It continues with fried quail with beetroot, carrot and almonds and a side of heirloom black and yellow tomatoes. It drifts into hazelnut mousse, honeycomb, chocolate and crema catalana.
The Royal Mail also provides respite in stylish four-star accommodation with panoramic Grampian views, while minutes away, in a pastoral setting, is the Mount Sturgeon Estate where historic bluestone cottages provide semi self-contained accommodation for up to 12 people.
Far from being an average country town, Coleraine has an excellent distraction of a chocolate factory, a cafe-style food store and a historic blacksmith's shop.
At Glenelg Fine Confectionery, chocoholics can indulge in chocolate tastings and watch demonstrations of chocolates being made. Fiona Wall Fine Foods is a pretty shop with a display of vintage food scales and shelves brimming with gourmet products. Homemade biscuits, she says, are a growing part of her range and are sold to cafes around the state. You can peer through the cracks in the timber slats of the old blacksmith's shop, which dates from 1888, and see the intact machinery that occasionally gets fired up by appointment.
Coleraine's historic railway station, the Eucalyptus Discovery Centre and its vintage cars museum, Coleraine Classic Cars, dating back to the 1920s, will cause you to linger longer in Coleraine before you head further into the Grampians National Park.
Jill Innamorati-Varley travelled courtesy of the Melbourne Convention & Visitors Bureau and Southern Grampians Shire Council.
FAST FACTS
Getting there Hamilton is 295 kilometres west of Melbourne, about a three-and-a-half-hour drive via the Henty, Glenelg or Hamilton highways. Sharp Airlines flies daily from Essendon Airport to Hamilton, return airfares from $218 including tax, phone 1300 556 694. V/Line trains depart fromSouthern Cross station to Ballarat and link to a V/Line coach for Hamilton. Fares from $53.80 return, phone 13 61 96.
Staying there The Royal Mail Hotel has rooms as well as one- and two-bedroom apartments. Rates $180-$350 a night including continental breakfast. Mount Sturgeon Estate, a fully operating sheep station three kilometres from the hotel, has accommodation for up to 12 guests in Mount Sturgeon Homestead as well as one- and two-bedroom bluestone cottages. Homestead rates from $900 to $1600 a night, including breakfast provisions. The bluestone cottages are from $200 a night. For all properties contact the Royal Mail Hotel, phone 5577 2241, see royalmail.com.au. More information see visitsoutherngrampians.com.au.
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