Oh dear God - I'm in Dromana

Chatting to my dear friend Sherri the other day and I mentioned that I was a bit restless. I needed another travel experience. “Where can I go pet?” I said “Just a daytrip”

Well, guess what she suggested – Dromana of all places. Yes, that’s right Dromana! “Oh dear” I said “The last time I stopped in Dromana was when the engine blew up in to old Merc on the way to see my friends at Portsea. Well no one ever told me the silly thing needs oil as well as petrol.

Dromana? Are you sure, dear? But there are so many caravans there”

Sweet Sherri convinced me that there was this gorgeous little place called Heronswood somewhere in the wilds of Dromana that I really needed to explore, so before I braved all those ghastly seaside holiday suburbs, I thought I’d do the right thing and research. I managed to find a brochure called Peninsular Visitor and instantly I knew Sherri was right.

I read all the information, which only a gifted travel writer with a passion for adjectives could create, and I was sold. Listen to this - this was what was in the book – “Satiate the desire to savour the array of sublime wine in the disarmingly charming cellar door”. Of course they were referring to one of those continental wineries but I thought, how charming, the whole place sounds just so floral. I had to see it. Thank goodness for travel writers like him and me.

Down the old Nepean we went and once past Brighton I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being intrepid again. Along the way I couldn’t help but notice that the bayside suburbs have changed. There are very few fibro beach shacks any more – most of the houses along the highway are now brick. How modern.

I arrived at Dromana two and a half hours after leaving South Yarra and pulled out the old Melways that always sits under my spare handbag in the glove box. I found the address of Heronswood and climbed up the hill from the highway pushing the old Merc to her absolute limit. And there I was pets, atop a little mountain by the beach. Any higher and I would have been right up Arthur’s Seat, so to speak.

“But this is a house”. I thought. “A house, in among other houses. I hope Sherri hasn’t sent me on a wild goose chase” I parked the car, pinned on my wide sun hat and walked towards the gate. Oh the view was breathtaking – absolutely breathtaking. In the distance I could see dear little Port Phillip bay with a couple of large container ships bobbing on the horizon. But between me and the bay was a garden –a beautiful, green, lush and neatly laid out garden. I opened the gate and felt like a Bronte girl. Oh it was just beautiful. Large trees, pockets of neat little plants, (I could live without some of those succulents though– they should all be replaced with petunias, but each to her own) and wide stretches of green, green lawn. I meandered through the plants along windy little paths, trying to pronounce all the botanical names that were written on little signs until I came to a curious looking building with a thatched roof. A THATCHED ROOF! Was I dreaming? Oh no, it wasn’t just my vivid imagination playing tricks on me again, it really was a thatched roof.

“Hello, you gorgeous little piece of England. I haven’t seen anything a pretty as you since I was in the Cotswolds” I squealed to the building. “Aren’t you just perfect?”

Below this gorgeous roof was a restaurant, or cafe or kiosk thing that had little tables sitting under big umbrellas which overlooked the garden. Gorgeous. I spoke to the polite young gentleman who had the most divine English accent and asked him for a table in the shade. I also asked him several questions about the garden and the cafe because, in part, I just wanted to hear him speak. Mmmmm. He told me nearly everything on the menu comes from the “garden to the plate” reducing the “food miles” which is a term I’d never heard of before. I was glad he used the word ‘miles’ instead of ‘kilometres’ – much more romantic. Nice fellow – big eyes, dark hair, strong jaw. I sat there at my little table - the air filled with the aroma of the most fragrant array of herbs growing all around me and swaying in the seaside breeze. Oh, I just wanted to pick them and fill a basket. Honestly pets, I felt I was living that Simon and Garfunkel song one on of my favourite cassettes, sitting there among the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Good God, that Garfunkel had dreadful hair!

Within minutes the young man with the accent and tight apron was back at my table asking me what I’d like for lunch. I’d had plenty of time to peruse the menu and reading through it made me feel a little bit sorry for them all here, poor things. Let me explain. Usually when I read a menu, I have my little French/English dictionary in my handbag to translate. I love the challenge of all those cute little French terms. But the poor little Heronswood menu– not a foreign term at all! I could understand the menu perfectly and didn’t get a chance to use my dictionary at all. A bit of a disappointment I must say – not a ‘mille feuille’, ‘jus’ or ‘beurre noir’ to be seen. A woman with my skills could really smarten up this menu, I thought, as I popped my dictionary back in my handbag for another time.

The blackboard was presented in front of me which invited me to partake in a luncheon of either pork loin, lamb rump or chicken breast (all those rumps, loins and breasts sounded a little risqué to me). “I’ll have the pork, thank you dear” I said flicking through the wine list just for show – “...and a Bitters Lime and Lemonade please, with a straw. Thank you pet”.

As I sat there for a short while, counting the pretty little cumquats on the shaped tree in front of me, a group of women walked past the al fresco part of the cafe where I sat. They were obviously foreign. Each of them picked the tips off the growing herbs in the garden and spoke in Spanish or Italian or some other language about their scent. Then another woman – (she wasn’t foreign but she was American) said to her husband. “Look George. Look at all these ‘erbs”.

Oh why can’t Americans speak properly?

My meal arrived and the gorgeous young man with the big lips and beautiful hands explained that all the vegies, served separately, were from the garden and probably picked that morning. How pretty they looked. Ruby coloured beetroots with pomegranate and Roquefort , mixed string beans with sesame seeds and garden zucchini with lemon thyme and goat curd. Gorgeous.

My pork was absolutely divine and served with a little apple puree drizzled over its top. When asked if I wanted dessert, I immediately declined but asked to see the menu anyway so as not to offend. Oh, thank goodness – a foreign term. Panacotta.
“I’ll have the panacotta please dear” I said.

Dear me, it was the most delicious little blancmange I’ve ever tasted. So smooth - just like they’d whipped cream through it! And it came with a tiny little pile of baked rhubarb that looked like a neat little stack of quisonnaire rods in a pretty pale pink sauce which could probably have been called a ‘jus’– sublime.

After an hour and a half sitting there, writing little notes and taking in the beautiful atmosphere, I asked for the bill. Now this is unusual, pets. I only had to reach into my upper undergarment and peel off one fifty dollar note – and I got change! I thought that was real bargain. I really did.

There’s more to Heronswood than a garden or a cafe, or a thatched roof or even the fragrance, the views over the bay or the gorgeous house in the middle of the garden. Or, even the pool lawn. So, so much more than that.

I remember some clever person or other saying something to the effect that “The meaning of synergy is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. I’ve never really known what that means because I’m not really good with sums – I used to leave all that sort of thing to Harold, but I think whoever it was that said it, must have been talking about Heronswood, pets. – Yes, that’s it. Heronswood is a synergy. Or is it a Whole.

No, I think synergy sounds better – don’t you?

My travel diary

Look, if you can’t really bring yourself to a trip to Dromana, just say that Heronswood is on the Mornington Peninsular. It’s gorgeous, believe me. You can’t see any of those ghastly caravan parks from on top of the hill but you can get a few pretty views over the bay. On the way back, take the Nepean Highway and go through Brighton, otherwise you’ll have to travel through Springvale or on that dreadful Eastlink thing where they dumped all that rubbish but called it “art” Hmmmm.