Milawa and the King Valley

 1st Mar 2023

Finally, our holiday is coming to end. Today is our final day before returning to Sydney tomorrow. The plan is to do a bit of touring around the region taking in part of its reputation for good food and wine.

Milawa is nearby and our first stop. Here we visit the Milawa Cheese Company, which is quite a large complex with a cafe, a shop selling local produce and of course, the famous cheese making activity and sales. The cheese selection is impressive and we have a guided tasting of about 15 cheeses, for which there is no upfront charge.


Milawa Cheese Shop


Time for a coffee


Nice setting for Cafe

The cheese is excellent and we stock up before moving next door to the cafe for our morning cup of coffee.

It is a bit early for wine tasting, and we are looking forward to checking out some of Italian wine varietals grown extensively throughout the King Valley, so set our course for Whitfield, the main town in that area.

Apparently tourists (and wine drinkers) only come out on weekends, so many of the vineyard cellar doors and restaurants only open on Fri,Sat,Sun, making room for the more visionary ones to make a lot of money.

Our only wine tasting was at Pizzini Wines, an old favourite, a short drive through Whitfield town. The complex has grown a lot with winery, restaurant and cooking school now operating there. Whilst it was the usual deal to pay for structured tasting, they readily agreed not to charge for us to tast just a few wines. We ended up buying a few bottles of their Riesling, Arneis and Pinot Grigio. There is a good chance it may become my Pinot Grigio of choice.


We had already decided we we would have lunch at the Mountain View Hotel in Whitfield, which has a grea beer garden and where we have had good meals before.


They had a great menu, and we settled on 3 entrees, Calamari, Gin cured Kingfish cerviche and Duck and Cherry Pate. A lot of food but very tasty.


More than satisfied with our lunch we drove back to Beechworth, dropped off our cheese into the fridge (out of the small esky with ice pack), and went for a walk around the town.

We discovered there are actually at least 6 pubs in town, with most of them open on a Wednesday night, but we had already made a dinner booking at a small restaurant called The Ox and Hound. Beechworth is a very pretty Historic twn, filled with history of the Victorian Gold Rush, and of course a few good tales about Ned Kelly, who apparently was a frequent visitor.


Not really knowing what to expect, it turned out to be a great Italian restaurant with a small menu that was full of flavour. The restaurant was pretty full, so we are glad we booked.


We were amused to find a statue of Ned Kelly chained to the wall of one of the B&B's obviously concerned that the bushranger spirit continues and someone might knock off the statue.

We drive home tomorrow bringing to an end a great trip.

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