How you can enjoy a holiday every week of the year

This article was originally posted by Bev Malzard of Travel Gal Travels and was republished with permission.

Winter in Australia – all over Australia – is not a hardship. Maybe down south where there is snow and drizzle, but rarely does it lock residents in their homes for too long.

Of course, I can only speak from my base that is Sydney. Yeah, Sydney people are pretty much big sissies in the winter from June through to August. Even though I like to get out and about for walks I admit to taking the easy way out on a chilly day – fire on, tv on, locked in.

My partner and I decided last year to get out of town on the odd weekend so that we might rediscover regions within a couple of hours’ drive time or even a cheap flight away.

We even ventured further than an urban adventure close to home.

Last year we flew to Melbourne and hired a car to take us to Ballarat for two nights so we could do the Silo Art Trail drive through the western district and the Mallee. What a trip! The day couldn’t have been better – crisp cold, sunny and low-flying clouds on a forever horizon.

The experience of the illustrated silos fed our addiction to wall/outdoor art, too.

The following day in Ballarat was awful weather, so we visited the local art gallery (regional galleries in Australia are inspirational and impressive), grabbed lunch and went to the local movie house – a classic cinema built in the 1930s and renovated with love. After watching a blockbuster film we headed to a splendid restaurant (yes, in Ballarat) called Catfish, a lauded foodie haven. Owners and chef Damien and Danielle Jones have just closed Catfish and will reopen as ‘Mr Jones’ – serving refined rustic cuisine.

A drive to Melbourne airport the next day, a flight back to Sydney and we’d had an amazing weekend.

Another getaway was a drive to Wisemans Ferry, a gentle area of the historic and beautiful Hawkesbury River. A day was spent walking the old convict road, reading up on the past, and taking the three-minute ferry across the river. We drove on to St Albans, a remote settlement with a pub that has tales to tell of convicts and early farmers’ trials and tribulations. (I’d recommend reading Kate Grenville’s book The Secret River – a historical novel about an early-19th century Englishman who is transported to the region.)

Our weekends are sometimes ’half weekends’, such as a trip out west of Sydney to eat classic Vietnamese food for lunch in Cabramatta or the day in Windsor, a town that has fascinating convict buildings and a bustling brunch and lunch society.

Recently we did a three-day escape from the big smoke. A drive to the Blue Mountains and across the Great Dividing Range, and landed at Jenolan Caves. The old Caves House continues to have repairs done and the canteen is now a groovy café that serves good coffee and tasty lunchtime fare. Yet, the sight of Caves House makes one delirious with speculation and imagination – wondering how the heck this came to be. The little settlement is remote from every big town. There’s one road in and one road out – if the weather is bad, there’s no way out for a few days.

We took a tour though the cold caves and it was marvellous. The stunning caverns that have seen tourists and Victorian adventurers scrabble through, then walk planned paths gaze in awe at the natural architecture of millions of years’ worth of evolution and grand design wrought by time and water.

There are some wonderful nostalgic photographs here of guestsfrom way back – with woman in long skirts, blouses with leg-o-mutton sleeves and wide-brimmed hats, and men in coats and ties and hats, all ready to clamber over rocks and indoor ‘climbing walls’.

The following day we drove to Kanangra Boyd National Park. This has to be one of my fave natural views in the world.

The long plateau of sandstone juts out into Kanangra Valley that has undulating and wonderful folding green valleys below, where in a long-gone past indigenous tribes trod the nomadic trading route.

We sat looking over the splendour of this vast park – unsullied by crowds, roads and development. Please, let it stay that way.

A drive to Bathurst, a university town and under a big blue sky, typically really cold during winter. We ate dinner at a great surprise of a restaurant – Dogwood – an Aussie take on the best of American classic food, I went for the gumbo and the ‘dog’.

How about making a plan? Get outta town for a couple of days, change your routine and rediscover the geography of your youth, or discover an urban treasure or country town within a few hours’ drive from your front door.

As we grow older time seems to be moving faster – let’s halt its progress and advocate for ‘slow travel’ close to home.

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