‘Love cheese and pastries? Day trip to Kenilworth, Queensland’

Kenilworth — cheese heaven and home of the 1 kilogram doughnut. One kilo doughnuts you say. I bet Homer Simpson-types and a few hundred policemen are regulars around here.

Kenilworth, Queensland, is a small town in the south-east of the state on the Mary River in beautiful upper Mary Valley country, behind the Blackall Range. It’s only about 1.5 hours’ drive north of Brisbane, and 50 minutes from Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. Charmingly, it appears to retain its 1920s atmosphere.

The adjacent Conondale State Forest provides excellent facilities for horse riding, walking and fishing and accommodation options vary from basic camping to luxury retreats; but we’re just day-tripping.

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I love a Sunday drive the only problem is that it falls on the weekend with all the crowds and traffic implications. With retirement comes great power, purpose of choice and, bingo, a sudden lightbulb moment shouts out in your brave new world — any day can be Sunday.

Also, rumour has it, that it’s better for all concerned to separate me from the general population. I tend not to care for MOPs (members of the public), their offspring or any of their family members; nor they me. Apparently I get cranky if they get too close either by sitting, standing, milling, queuing or looking/gazing within 10 feet of my person … Geez, you tell one four-year-old boy, very politely, to “Go away!” (alright, I may have said “bugger off”), and you are tarred for life. In my defence, he was peeing on my shoe at the time; long story, true story, but perhaps for another day.

To celebrate (in whimsy style) such decadence and power gone crazy (like a homing pigeon boomerangs to the ‘like-mined’, crazy often sits comfortably intercranially with me), I declare any weekday can be Sunday. You heard me! I proclaim The Sunday Drive can fall on any day ending in ‘y’, however, I think we all must agree that a Saturday cannot possibly be a Sunday because, well, that’d just be weird. Saturdays should remain intact and in-violent. Agreed.

Now, where were we? On a car trip to Kenilworth I believe, home of my favourite cheeses, with one destination in mind … Kenilworth Dairies, makers of fine dairy products (including cheese), “was established in 1950 as one of the many rural cheese factories owned by the Kraft Corporation. Following a move to centralisation in the late-1980s Kraft decided to close the Kenilworth factory. Two employees and a local businessman came up with the idea that perhaps some of the workers could buy the factory. The rest is history; the Kraft Kenilworth cheese factory became Kenilworth Country Foods Pty Ltd (now Kenilworth Dairies) and reopened for business on the September 7, 1990″.

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From handcrafted, matured, wax-coated cheeses made using traditional recipes, to a wide range of flavoured gourmet club cheddars, to every day family favourite cheddars and fetta cheese, Kenilworth Dairies has a cheese for every taste and a cheese for every occasion.

I love cheese. I love to try new cheeses. I love people who play with and invent new cheeses. I love the cows that provide the ingredients and the usually stunning countryside in which they wander. Visiting this beautiful place, cellar door and cheese factory was amazing.

Never one to travel directly from A to B and back to A, a detour via C had us stumbling across the Kenilworth Bakery. Here we were told in hushed whispers of the monumental 1kg doughnuts (plus bee sting) — happy happenstance or fate?!

Additionally, these very innovative guys have perfected the coffee and doughnut combination. No, not separate but an all-in-one entity. Imagine a centrally almost-hollowed-out doughnut, filled with tummy-warming mocha; believe it.

No, I haven’t reinvented the wheel with the declaration that any week day can be Sunday, but pointing the traveller in the direction of Kenilworth and one of the best dairies in Australia may be gold-medal-worthy any day of the week. The bakery was the cherry that topped the icing on the doughnut.

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