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6 July 2002
Herd instinct - RYLSTONE WEEKENDS AWAY
VISITOR'S BOOK
THE PLACE ALKOOMI COTTAGES, Breakfast Creek Road, Rylstone, NSW 2849.
BOOKINGS Phone June Keech on (02) 6379 1381, email alkoomi at winsoft.net.au PRICES For all three houses, it's $65 a double a night, and $30 for an extra person; family rate $75 a night. Dinner at the Bridgeview Inn, $92; breakfast at Bizzy Birds, $28.
HOW TO GET THERE Drive through the Blue Mountains and head west on the Lithgow/Mudgee road. At the village of Ilford, turn onto the Rylstone/Kandos road. Drive through Rylstone and four or five kilometres out of town turn left onto the Mudgee/Lue road; drive for about five kilometres, then turn right onto the unsealed Breakfast Creek road. Keep going for about three kilometres - Alkoomi is on the right.
ROOMS AVAILABLE NEXT WEEKEND No.
CHILDREN Yes.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS No.
SMOKING No.
PLUSES Pioneer ambience, comfortable beds, local wildlife.
MINUSES Inadequate lighting.
RATING 14/20
There's no black snake, but Margot Saville finds life in a slab hut a very authentic experience.
I've wanted to go to Rylstone ever since I found out that my favourite butcher, Carlo Colaiacomo, has a cattle property there. Carlo owns the A.C. Butchery in Leichhardt, which makes the best sausages in the world. Whatever's good enough for Carlo's cows, I thought, was good enough for me.
So one crisp autumn morning I put the spouse and Small Daughter (aged five) into the car and headed west. With just one pit stop at the Blackheath Bakery, we went straight over the Great Dividing Range. For the early settlers, driving their bullock drays in the 1830s, the plains must have represented endless possibilities. For us it was exhilarating to have left the noisy inner-city and feel a sense of rural isolation.
And you can't get much more isolated than Rylstone. About 240 kilometres north-west of Sydney, it's a little place with a population of 750. It's incredibly pretty, with that look of a perfectly preserved, mid 19th-century theme park.
Alkoomi Cottages, where we'd booked our accommodation, are about eight kilometres out of town towards Mudgee. There are three of them: one modern house built in the 1970s, and two restored 19th-century slab huts probably built for shearers.
The slab huts are incredibly authentic - apart from a rudimentary kitchen and a bathroom, you could look around and imagine Henry Lawson's drover's wife killing a black snake with a broom.
Our cottage, No 1, suited a couple with children, while the second has space for two couples. Inside ours, roughly laid wallpaper covered the slabs, buckling over the joins, and the walls were hung with large sepia portraits of dour Victorians.
As soon as I saw them I realised that I had probably made a mistake. In fact, short of booking into Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Waters, there's probably not much point in going away with an architect. As a rule, they really like only their own houses, as they are the only places over which they have total control.
In the living room he shrank back, shrieking, "What about my chintz allergy?" Soon there were so many complaints about the decor that he was banished outside with the newspaper. Then, ignoring the howls ("have you seen the knick-knacks?"), Small Daughter and I went into Rylstone to explore.
By extraordinary luck we had managed to arrive on the right weekend. First, there was the Rylstone Arts and Crafts Fair where our $2 entrance fee gave us free tea and home-made biscuits. I managed to acquire a few lace-edged face washers and covered coat hangers (very good for hitting small children as they don't leave marks).
Finally, laden with pickle jars, we retreated to the Bizzy Birds Cafe, which had opened that very day. Lesley and Terry McCarthy, sea-changers from Marrickville, have opened the sort of cafe I'd go to in Sydney because it serves great, fresh food and excellent coffee. Bizzy Birds also sells fantastic soap, and the sort of interesting crafts that made me think the hills are full of talented artists.
Alkoomi is self-catering, so we needed to go out to eat. Sadly, the Bizzy Birds roost at night, but they booked us into the local restaurant, the Bridge View Inn, a beautiful sandstone building circa 1868. In front of a roaring log fire, we consumed large steaks and an excellent bottle of local red wine. The S.D. had chicken nuggets and ice-cream with chocolate sauce, a perennial favourite.
When we got back to the cottage, we lit a fire in the pot belly stove and tried to read the newspapers. Unfortunately, the house was suffused with the sort of Victorian gloom that made reading impossible. It was only by removing all the lamp shades and sitting 10 centimetres away from the globes that we got some light. But eventually we gave up and went to bed.
The next morning the daughter and I walked around the property, spotting animals. There are wallaroos in the back paddock, scores of parrots and cockatoos and even a pet wombat called Wendell, who likes having his stomach rubbed.
Back at the cafe we ate a delicious breakfast, cooked by the McCarthys' daughter, a chef. Terry even managed to catch (and release) a large huntsman spider which had taken up residence under the table. To the S.D.'s delight, Lesley entertained us with tales of black snakes in the compost heap.
On the way home we visited the area's principal tourist attraction, the Wollemi National Park. Although you can't see the Wollemi pine (it's hidden away), the park, which is part of the largest wilderness area in NSW, has wonderful bushwalking.
Within it is the old Kandos weir (attractively renamed Dunns Swamp), where you can fish, swim and go canoeing. There's also a good picnic and camping ground at the weir, from which a short walking track leads to an Aboriginal site, featuring hand stencils estimated to be up to 7000 years old. At nearby Newnes, there are picturesque ruins and a glow-worm cave inside an old railway tunnel.
I was sad to leave Rylstone, but on the way home we drove past several good-looking hereford bulls, grazing quietly. Maybe, I mused, we'll meet again. On a plate1 .