From 4.30-10pm on Saturday June 23, in a secret location near Moss Vale in the NSW Southern Highlands, guests will celebrate the horned hunter as he is reborn during Winter Solstice, in a Feast for the Beast centering on whole, sustainable, farmed animals cooked with fire.
Get ready for a culinary adventure, local mulled wines, storytelling, wassailing, fire-side music and revelry as organisers bring the feast to life on a local Highland Burn.
To tap into Celtic traditions, they looked at the customs of druids and wizards of the old age and borrowed the Gaelic festival practice of playing games to please the gods that control the end of harvest and the start of the darker winter months.
Expect some bobbing for apples, kids games such as tunnel ball and tug of war, as well as stories of old.
General admission is $95 for adults and $45 for children, with an all-inclusive food-and-beverage package, or be master of your own private round table complete with butler/serf to serve a three-course meal with matched wines. Cost is $195 per person.
Location details and map will be sent via email 48 hours before the feast.
A ‘bold, evocative and experimental’ event in Mandurah, in the Peel Region, a one-hour drive south of Perth, is set to take the art and fashion worlds by storm on the weekend of June 9-10.
Wearable Art Mandurah showcases evolutionary works of art on the body, with finalists chosen to exhibit their creations in categories including avant-garde, metallic and transformation.
At the centre of Wearable Art Mandurah is a stunning, full-length, theatrical stage showcase featuring the pieces, as well as workshops and exhibitions across the weekend.
The Sunday showcase matinee performance includes options for those who may have sight, hearing or accessibility issues, including a behind-the-scenes meet-and-greet with the designers, a tactile experience, premium showcase seating and access to a live audio description of the event.
Workshops include ‘Creating Form with Fibre’, where participants will learn a variety of innovative techniques to work with textiles and natural fibre materials; and ‘Creating Movement in Wearable Art’, where participants can explore the possibilities of motion with award-winning artist Helen Coleman.
Visit www.visitpeel.com.au
Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia has added iconic Eden Valley winery Yalumba to its 22-strong portfolio.
Established in 1849, by Samuel Smith, a British migrant, Yalumba takes its name from the Aboriginal meaning ‘all the land around’ and is one of Australia’s most historic family-owned wineries — a fiercely independent fine-wine producer driven by the preservation of provenance, progressive thinking, sustainability and excellence.
Yalumba has an enduring commitment to the quintessential Australian wine, the cabernet-sauvignon-and-shiraz blend. Two of its wines — The Signature and The Caley — are both acknowledged as international benchmarks for the style.
With its own on-site cooperage, Yalumba has the advantage of being able to have full control over the oak used to craft and age its premium wines.
Yalumba’s magnificent estate is located near the town of Angaston in South Australia’s Eden Valley in the Barossa region, a scenic one-hour drive from Adelaide. Oak barrels, family artefacts and artworks line the walls of the famous Wine Room where passionate Wine Room Ambassadors introduce visitors to the wines and many stories of Yalumba.
Cruise holiday specialist ecruising.travel has just released a 31-night cruise package that explores the must-see cities in South-east Asia on board Celebrity Millennium.
Embarking from Singapore, visit ports such as Ho Chi Minh City, Taipei, Kagoshima, Hong Kong, Halong Bay and Bangkok before arriving at your final destination of Singapore, where you will have three extra nights at The Fullerton Hotel to explore this cosmopolitan city.
The cruise sector includes all meals and entertainment on board the recently refurbished Celebrity Millennium.
This cruise departs in February 2020 and prices starts from $5399 per person twin-share, including return economy airfares from Australia and transport in Singapore.
Phone 1300 369 848 or visit www.ecruising.travel
Excitement is brewing in Hawaii’s Kona district with the inclusion of Greenwell Farms in Lonely Planet’s Global Coffee Tour book, a taster’s guide to the world's best coffee experiences.
The lusciously illustrated new book states: “Among a handful of Kona coffee farms open to the public, none is more historic than Greenwell Farms, established in the 1850s. Friendly tour guides at this family-oriented farm will patiently explain the entire process from harvesting and pulping coffee cherries to drying and roasting the beans. This is your chance to get up close and smell a coffee tree, as well as to taste free samples of freshly brewed coffee.”
It also features things to do nearby, including Kealakekeua Bay State Historical Park, Ka’aloa’s Super J’s Authentic Hawaiian Food, Kona Coffee Living History Farm and the iconic Kona Coffee Cultural Festival.
I’ve visited Greenwell Farm a couple of times and chatted extensively with its President, Tom Greenwell, whose great-grandfather, Henry Nicholas Greenwell, was a British adventurer accidentally stuck in Hawaii and who purchased significant enough tracts of land to plant citrus and coffee.
I can certainly vouch for the authenticity of the experience at Greenwell and for the passion of its staff. It’s a bit like visiting one of the great Australian winery cellar-doors.
Visit www.greenwellfarms.com
An earlybird offer enables Australians to secure 2018 prices on any of On Foot Holidays’ 32 self-guided walks through Europe for 2019, if booked before September 30 this year.
The deal is valid for all On Foot Holidays’ inn-to-inn walks, including those that journey through some of Europe’s finest wine regions. After a day spent hiking through beautiful European countryside, walking-and-wine devotees can enjoy a glass of red or white, often sourced from the very vineyards they travelled through.
France and Italy constantly compete for the top spot among the world’s wine-producing countries, and On Foot Holidays offers walks through both nation’s wine regions.
Walks in Italy’s Ligurian Hills and Southern Tuscany, for instance, weave their way through meadows, villages and vineyards, enticing walkers to taste the local reds, among the finest in the world.
Including all accommodation, breakfasts, selected evening meals and all luggage transfers — meaning walkers simply carry a day pack — walks in these regions start from about $1538 for seven nights per person twin-share.
Visit www.onfootholidays.co.uk
