Someone once said that getting drunk is just borrowing happiness from tomorrow. While I had amazing cheap and cheerful night the morning was a bit more bleary eyed thanks to the lost sleep from drinking. Finally at 9am I knew I had to get moving if we were going to check out of the hotel on time and sure enough we did. It was a bit of a flurry of packing and wondering where to stash the gifts I bought but we managed and then headed off to pick up a rental car and get on the open road.
I was going to be the sole driver of this endeavor and I had asked Bren if he was nervous about it. Without hesitation and a “what are you talking about” look he said no of course not. Naturally as I pulled out of the lot and drive around the city I could feel him tense a bit but he soon relaxing into being the navigator of our road trip. We had a bit of a false start at breakfast. Sid, as well as a bunch of his local Tassie friends, recommended a breakfast spot to us. He had warned us it was small and has a long wait on the weekends but we thought surely a Tuesday morning would be fine. And bit were we wrong. It turns out “Small Fry” is across the street from a Best Western and had an hour long wait. Back in the car and, thanks to a lost in translation moment, driving a lap around the city we found a small cafe in a shopping arcade that turned out to be really good. By then I was so hungry that I ordered two breakfasts which I later struggled to put away.
Bren picked as our next destination the town of Richmond which was about 20 minutes north of the city. I wasn’t quite sure what specific part of Richmond he was directing me to drive but I do have faith in my quokka so I simply followed whatever the GPS told me. I’m glad I did because I was pleasantly surprised to find he picked the vineyard of the wine that I ordered and loved when we went to fancy dinner our first night in town. The cellar door (which is what they call the visitors area slash tasting room) was in what appeared to be an old farm house. We walked through a beautiful picnic area with large timber supported awnings and into the farm house which was set up much like a steak house with huge wooden tables and glass stemware waiting to be filled with their wares. We asked to do the single origin tastings which I’m okay with admitting that it took me 3/4ths of the tasting menu to understand what that meant. Basically Pinnoy has two vineyards and each had its own soil type, atmosphere, and micro biome. They make a special version of each of their wines where the grapes are sourced only from one of the vineyards which creates a surprisingly different flavor profile from the others. We had the director of the vineyard walk us through each one. It turns out that she’s the wife of one of the siblings who own the vineyard and it’s been family owned and run since it’s beginning. As we walked through the wines Bren and I had a great time watching each other’s reaction and listing to the different flavors we found in each. There was only one where we universally agreed that it was not for us and that was the Chardonnay. One of them was just meh and the other tasted like melted butter on toast, a strange flavor for a wine in my opinion. When we were done they offered us to try any of the other wines on their list and we went with a German sounding one and the one I had at dinner. I ended up buying the Pinot we had at dinner because why not right? I really enjoyed it and looked forward to either bringing it back to New York with me or sipping it with Bren while we watched tv together. We walked outside and took a look around the gorgeous scenery when I suddenly remembered that the young woman we first spoke to offered to take our photo. I whined to Bren that he didn’t remember so he went inside to find the woman and she came out to take our photo. She said that she was an expert and positioned us just right in front of the entrance of the cellar door. The picture came out wonderful and I was so happy to have it to commemorate our trip together.
Back in the car and the GPS just started talking and I started following and admiring the scenery as I drove. We drove through farms and then a small cute village that looked like it had a lot of money. Bren pondered about where they could have gotten their wealth from and I reminded him that we were in wine country, it was all wine money that built them up into something postcard perfect. All of a sudden Bren goes, here it is! and I looked around and said what? All I could see was a school up ahead and some trees near us. He said we're going over it now and I realized that we were crossing a stream on a small stone bridge but still didn't understand. It turns out he had lead us to Australia's oldest bridge, or maybe it was the oldest structure too, but regardless it was a very old stone bridge built by convicts. It took a moment to find parking as there were at least a dozen other tourists there frolicking on the verdant green hill that sloped down to the stream. Bren ran down to the stream too and found a spot on the hill to sit where he tried to communicate with the ducks who were swimming and fishing in the stream. I continued walking around to see if there was a way to get to the other side by foot (there wasn't) and admire the craftsmanship of the inexperienced laborers. It was a pretty good pit-stop to enjoy the sun and take in some of the local history.
I asked Bren where he wanted to go next and he picked out another vineyard that we had passed on the way. As I drove back down through the mountains I stopped off at Coal Valley Farm so Bren could try the cheeses (he loves cheese) and we took a look around to see that it was also another chocolatier. As we drove way he saw that we could’ve gone pig diving but I’m glad we passed on that. A few more farms and rolling hills later we ended up at the next vineyard, Frogmore Creek Winery. This one wasn’t nearly as warm feeling as the other but the scenery was magnificent. We got to overlook the grapes and a large lake that I had to get Bren out of his phone to look up and notice that morning as well as a huge radio satellite dish. Bren was convinced it was moving but I wasn’t able to look carefully enough while driving to confirm his suspicions one way or the other. I said to Bren let’s sit in the restaurant. I wasn’t hungry but I was hoping we could do the tasting from there since their sign said the tasting was free if you went to the restaurant. I was mistaken and while it was free we still had to get up and stand at the counter next to the register to do it. Most of the wines were pretty mediocre and some were downright bad. When we got to the dessert wine though I found I really enjoyed it. Again when we went to fancy steak dinner Bren had picked out a dessert wine that I would have slapped him to get another glass of it. The one from Frogmore was very similar but a little less syrupy which I liked. I bought it as well as a nice canvas and leather wine tote which was on clearance. After all if I’m going to be toting all this wine home I should have something fashionable to put it in right?
Back in the restaurant we sat and discussed the satellite dish and how this vineyard was a good wedding venue because there were plenty of bushes for people to sneak off to. Eventually I grew a little impatient. After all we ordered two raw dishes, why all the wait? Bren speculated that maybe she didn’t put the order in to fire yet and started to scan the room for our waitress. A few moments later she turned up with our dishes - beef carpaccio and raw scallops. Both were great and we nearly licked the plates clean. The waitress came back and asked if we would like dessert then handed us the menus again. At $18 a pop I wasn’t all that sold on getting something but since cheesecake was on the menu I knew quokka would be getting that. The waitress came by again to take our order and sure enough Bren got the cheesecake. The waitress lit up and said wonderful, it’s one of her favorites and it’s even shaped like a rabbit (true to its name). Suspicious I asked which was her favorite dessert then and she said that she loved them all equally. That after traveling all over the world and indulging her sweet tooth that she was hard pressed to find anything as good as the desserts here. Now my interest was piqued. I got the one I had been eyeing, a chocolate mousse called “Pearl.”
The desserts came out and they ended up being everything the waitress said an more. My Pearl was literally a pearl of white chocolate covered chocolate mousse on a chocolate seashell with crumbled cookie and chocolate balls. Bren’s rabbit was a rabbit shaped blueberry cheesecake surrounded by fresh berries. They were both as delicious to eat as they were to look at.
Stuffed we made our way back to the car. As we approached Bren was suddenly on his phone. I knew he often would talk to work on his day off but I had hoped that they would leave him alone while we were out of town. His tone made it sound like he knew the man and he was asking what time we could come by the shop, so I thought maybe he wanted to go back to Sid for his haircut? We got in the car and he finally got off the phone and then said ok let’s go. I asked him if he had been talking to work or something and he laughed and said no, that he was on the phone with Pete the owner and operator of Belgrove Distillery. It was a distillery that the woman at the Lark tasting room couldn’t speak highly enough about and in fact had an agreement with her husband that should Pete ever be available she’d leave her husband for him and he’d be fine with it as long as he got a few bottles of whiskey. So Bren chucked on the GPS and we were off again.
Now since we were using Bren’s phone for navigation that also meant we had to use his phone for the music as well. Personally I’m always a little nervous to share me eclectic music library in a public setting especially since I’ve been known to hang out with music snobs from time to time. I never take music that seriously and simply enjoy it if it’s good. I think Bren was a little surprised at first when the car started playing his music when we first go it but he quickly adjusted to roll of DJ, specifically picking out “good road trip music” as he put it. As we drove out of Frogmore he played something I was jamming out to and I turned to him and said that it was a good thing that we had such similar taste in what we like in music otherwise our road trip would have turned bad very quickly.
The road to Belgrove brought us on to one of the highways in Tassie. Bren scoffed every time the gps used the word highway to describe a road. Having driven all over Australia and New Zealand I already knew that in a lot of rural areas the word highway basically just means any road where the turn off points are far apart. The particular highway that we got on to go to Belgrove reminded me very much of the two lane highway that switchbacks it’s way through the Catskills mountains in upstate New York. I had really gotten into a grove when Bren said I think the turn is up here. Good thing the traffic was so light because I had to slow down in a hurry and turn onto a loose gravel road. It appeared to just be someone’s farm driveway and so I proceeded slowly as Bren and I wondered what we were getting into here. We passed a magnificent mansion of a home and I told Bren that I could have my wedding here too and he grunted in agreement. I parked the car on the grass next to another car and as we got out a shadowy figure appeared to come out of a small farm building. I couldn’t hear what he said but Bren shouted back. It turned out to be Pete.
The two men shook hands and exchanged greetings. Pete said he was glad to have us and I was amazed as he took out his phone to take a photo of his workers timesheet which was on a half of a piece of college ruled notebook paper. He was dressed in solid boots, shorts, and an old crew neck sweatshirt. As he told us the story of his farm I could hear the sheep bleeting down in the field just below us. Then he began to walk us through his small, handmade distillery. Bren was completely enamored with the tour, having never learned how whiskey is made before. I’ve been on a few of them and so I was more curious about how he managed to fit so much equipment in the small farm building and how he learned how to make so many of them or upcycle them. The grain sprouter was an old industrial dryer, the masher an old milk drum. Barrels were everywhere in all shapes, sizes, and types. Even the rafters were crammed with barrels and large stainless steel storage tanks that got fed down into the still. The still he had made himself which I found amazingly impressive, especially when he pointed to a three inch long piece of duck tape on the side and described how the alcohol slowly eats away at the copper and that he just needs to weld the hole. He then invited us to dip our fingers into a variety of plastic jugs of all stages of liquor and whiskey. As we tried the first his phone rang and he then handed it off to Bren and asked him to confirm with the gentleman on the phone that the spirit he tasted was in fact smokey. Bren did his usual thing of managing to instantly befriend whoever he was speaking to. It turned out to be the man who contracted Pete to turn some of his grain into whiskey for him. A lot of that happens at the facility where people will ask him to distill or store some of their own spirits.
After sticking our fingers in more questionable pools of liquid we went off to the tasting bar. Pete limited my tastings since I was the driver but Bren had open season on any of them. Personally I didn’t expect to like any of them since they simply aren’t my style of whiskey (they most definitely are Bren’s though) but when Pete handed us a white whiskey to start I thought maybe I just need to find the right one of each brand that fits my flavor profile. After two of the whiskeys I moved on to what I affectionately monikered the garbage half of the range. Pete is all about experimentation and not wasting anything so anytime someone has extra of something he distills it and turns it into a liquor. The funniest one was called “Kissing a Stranger.” They had gone to a wine event in France and noticed that everyone was mostly spitting out the wines since there were so many to try. Figuring that it was a waste of good alcohol, Pete asked to take the contents of the spittoons of wine with him back to Tassie. He did this twice and distilled the waste into a clear spirit which he then sold back at the event again as a fundraiser for aboriginal youth programs. All of the garbage spirits had a similar story - there was a bunch of liquor or alcoholic beverages or fruit that was going to get thrown out and instead he turned it into a whiskey.
We eventually hit the end of our whiskey journey and Bren picked out a bottle of one he liked and then convinced me to pick up a bottle of the coffee liqueur that I enjoyed. He said “get it. You can bring it into work for Scotch Friday and have a story to tell everyone.” I realized he was, of course, right and knew me extremely well so I got the bottle and paid for his as well. I handed him the bottle of whiskey and told him it was his birthday present as we walked out of the farmhouse distillery.
Back in the car with a few more hours to kill I said to Bren let’s find a place for dinner. Unfortunately our phones were pretty rubbish on the farm so I drove down the road to the only highway service area in the entire state probably. We pulled in and realized that we probably needed to do something with all our new purchases. The amazing part of domestic flights in Australia is that it’s like pre-9/11 America - you can walk on a plane with nearly anything including up to 5 liters of alcohol. Even with this open policy though we were flying a budget airline that has strict carry on weight limits that we would certainly be over with our sheep vodka, sheep gin, pinot, dessert wine, whiskey, and coffee liquor. Bren agreed to check his bag and take on the liquor as his carry on instead along with his suit so I got to work adding a checked bag to our tickets as he went to the bathroom. By the time I washed my hands and finished booking a checked bag I found Bren sitting at one of the tables outside with a water and something edible in a brown bag. I thought it was a pie at first but when he handed me the bag to grab one saw it was a dim sim, one of our favorite nibbles. I told him he had to find us a place for dinner and so we got back in the car and he started searching. At first Bren said let’s go back to the city but I reminded him that we were already on the same peninsula as the airport and would have to drive 20min back in to the city just to drive 20min back out so we scrapped that idea and went for one of the small towns nearby.
That brilliant logistical decision was made moot by the poor city planning of the greater Hobart area. I basically missed one turn in a roundabout and that brought us all the way back to the suburbs of Hobart. By the time I made my way back to the restaurant we wanted to go to I was annoyed and cursing all traffic circles ever made. Bren had to start specifically pointing at which exit to take which I’m sure helped his confidence in my driving ability. The upside was that we ended up doing a quick stop at a beach near the airport and it was probably the highlight of getting lost. We made our way down the sand and took in the beautiful view of the bay while feeling the cool sea breeze and tasting the salt in the air. Bren caught me out of the corner of his eye taking a selfie and told me he'd take my picture instead, climbing back up the sandy hill to frame me with the water and the cliff faces of Tasmania. We stood there for a little while longer enjoying the beginning of the sunset and wondering aloud where everyone else who was running or walking along the beach had come from since there was only one other car parked near ours before returning to the poorly planned streets of greater Hobart.
I got turned around a few more times but we finally made it to the restaurant and I was happy just to get out of the car and stretch my legs. The restaurant is basically what I would call part of a family fun center. I wasn’t sure what to expect but we walked past the mini golf course, through a mini mart of sorts, a cafe for pizza that was closed, and finally ended up in a pretty fancy looking restaurant. It wasn’t super fancy thankfully but they definitely nailed the aesthetic. We sat down, looked over the menu real quick, and just as we decided what we wanted Bren realized that he may have left his brand new and very expensive headphones back at the hotel. He had been leaving them in the living room on the coffee table while we were there and we both had the same thought looking at them there that there was a good chance he would leave them behind. I didn’t think it was really my place to babysit a grown bearded man and his belongings so I didn’t bother checking to see if he had grabbed them. So Bren got nervous (the gps on them is absolutely rubbish) and went out to the car to look for them while I sat there examining the menu. Thankfully they were in the car and he returned victorious.
Dinner was pretty good. Afterwards I could see the effect the lack of napping was having on Bren’s face and I could feel it on myself as well. He said he was tuckered out and that I must be tired from driving all day. We tried to figure out a place to just relax but couldn’t think of or find one. I said that it was a great business idea to open up a lounge where you can just sit on a couch and watch Netflix. Rent by the hour like a PC gaming cafe and we could make a bit of money. Unsure of what to do and clearly over sitting at the dinner table I suggested we just hang out in the car. The temperature had really dropped while we were eating and I was glad to have the shelter of our vehicle. I couldn’t convince Bren that the backseat was more comfortable then the front so we split the car - I took the back and he took the front. He put on YouTube which was super easy to watch together while sitting behind him and then a few minutes later we were both asleep. I woke up at 9pm and Bren roused from his slumber a couple minutes after that. I told him to go pack up his bag to get checked then got out of the car to move back to the front. I was rudely welcomed back outside the car by the roaring cold wind. I ended up changing my shirt into something thicker then hopping in the front seat where Bren already had the keys in and the heat on waiting for me. We sat there for a minute thawing then made our way to the weirdest gas station ever.
First Bren had asked if we could return the car without refueling. Unfortunately pre-paying for fuel wasn’t an option with Avis Australia but if we couldn’t find a petrol station that I would just pay the penalty. When I told him how much it was he said absolutely not and found us a gas station. There were two options and so I just stopped at the first one and it was the oddest gas pumping experience I’ve ever had. It was at the end of a long term parking lot and unmanned. The pumps here don’t have the credit card machines built into them, which for a country that’s arguably much more credit focused then the states is extremely odd. The unmanned pump was old school but they set up what looked like an atm machine in the center of the two pumps where you basically put in the pump number, your credit card, then you got petrol. I managed to navigate the whole ordeal and get us back to the airport without issue. We were, however, running late.
Bren was worried about returning the car by I told him that it should be the case where we just drop it in the lot and then hand the keys to someone at the rental desk. That said I didn’t know exactly where the rental desk was and we were cutting it very short. We hustled our way down the tiny airport and suddenly Bren stops and turns around to go inside. I look and somehow he managed to spot the rental car desk. Keys dropped we headed to the baggage counter next with 25minutes before our flight was supposed to start boarding. The gate agent didn’t seem disturbed by our lateness at all which I found suspicious.
We made our way to the security point and suddenly the lack of urgency made sense. Our flight was delayed by over 30 minutes. I guess it’s just as well. We sat around the airport, Bren watching Netflix and I had started writing then had an uneventful flight home and an extremely eventful uber after that where the driver refused to go to the pickup point and at 1AM we had to walk to the other side of the airport to finally meet him.
I’m sure I’ve written it here before but I am a really glad that I had Bren with me on this Tasmanian adventure. There is no one in this world that I would have rather done it with. Next time I’ll just have to make sure we go for longer then three days.
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