Cook’s tour of Australia
To celebrate Australia’s beauty and bounty, Abercrombie & Kent and GT devised the ultimate food lovers’ tour.
Yvonne Goudie had always dreamt of visiting Kangaroo Island.
It was the prime reason, she says, for entering a competition to win a 10-day luxury food and wine tour of Australia designed by Abercrombie & Kent.
As part of Gourmet Traveller’s 50th-anniversary celebrations in November, the competition invited readers to share their most memorable travel experience. Goudie’s winning entry described a road trip in Far North Queensland – “The kind of trip where people talk instead of being on devices,” she recalls.
Goudie, who lives in Port Melbourne, Victoria, hadn’t been on a holiday alone with her husband, Max Strating, in 24 years. Their trip took them from Melbourne to the Mornington Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, the Barossa Valley, the Daintree rainforest and ended in Sydney. They were treated to some of Australia’s finest travel experiences, from chef’s-table meals and tours arranged by A&K, to five-star stays at Southern Ocean Lodge, The Louise, Silky Oaks Lodge and The Langham Sydney.
Goudie works as a consultant in international development. “I travel internationally for work,” she says, “but this was different. It was fantastic to win something that forced me to look in my own backyard.” One of the highlights, she says, was dinner in the wine cellar of Appellation, the acclaimed restaurant at The Louise in the Barossa, and a dinner at Icebergs Dining Room in Bondi. “The dessert was a foaming creation replicating the waves of Bondi,” says
Goudie. “It was pretty special.” MAGGIE SCARDIFIELD