I’ve long felt I had to trek far from home to truly feel like I’ve had a getaway, which is a ridiculous perception really, given you can quite literally camp in your own backyard – like the kids have been doing these school holidays – and feel as though you’ve had an adventure.
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I’ve also never been keen on paying to stay overnight in a town just 40 minutes from home when I could easily just turn around and drive home after enjoying my time there and save some accommodation costs.
But last weekend I flipped my own script.
A group of girlfriends and I had a date locked in for a getaway together for quite some time (which is a feat in itself to co-ordinate one that suits us all), but no destination decided.
Initially, we thought some ocean air would do us well and had almost settled on somewhere down on the Great Ocean Road.
But as the date grew closer and we were all suffering burnout of some sort — whether it was emergence from a winter filled with endless sickness, issues with teens, higher or more stressful workloads than usual, and so on — the idea of spending so long in a car travelling to and from a destination seemed even further exhausting.
Seeing as it wouldn’t be warm enough to swim yet (for adults, anyway), I suggested we just stay by some other body of water, like a river or lake, for a view and a stunning sunset much closer to home.
After all, our goal was really just to hang out together, eat some delicious food we didn’t have to cook ourselves and catch up properly without the interruptions and responsibilities of home.
In all honesty, the destination and the lodgings hardly mattered — we could have stayed in a dilapidated old leaking caravan next to a farm dam and we still would have gotten what we needed.
Nevertheless, we decided on a lakeside apartment at Nagambie, just 53km and 38 minutes down the freeway.
I mean, nobody even needed a toilet break during that journey, can you imagine?
Having lived in Shepparton most of my life, and long before the freeway bypass was built, I am incredibly familiar with Nagambie.
I’ve stopped there many times to fill my tummy, engage in water sports, participate in running races, for weddings, to watch people skydive, browse markets, take photographs of historic bridges, for riverboat cruises between wineries, and so on.
This time we didn’t really have a plan, which is also a bit of an alien concept to me.
But I was embracing the idea of just relaxing instead of filling every second of my time, so I didn’t regret wasting any of it.
We arrived around lunchtime on sunny a Saturday, with just enough wispy white clouds in the sky to add some character to the bright blue canvas as we looked out to it over Lake Nagambie, perched on chairs on the outdoor deck at the brewery.
A chilli crab burger, some calamari with squid ink dressing, crispy chicken bao buns and cocktails on the side were a great start to our girls’ weekend.
While we could’ve headed straight to our accommodation’s balcony and its stellar views, it would probably be near criminal to not visit a winery in a well-known wine region, yes?
Yes, we thought so too and we really didn’t want to get arrested for such crimes.
So we took the short drive out of town, down some country roads until we arrived at the delightfully charming and historic Tahbilk.
Our host, Michael, led us through the tasting of many wines at the rustic cellar door there, educating us on grape varieties, how certain flavours are achieved, the wine-making processes, explaining how ageing affects tastes and introducing us to the resident boss dog roaming around the floorboards – all with humour and grace.
We could have gone to any winery and tasted any number of lovely wines, but who knows if we’d have been lucky enough to land another character as entertaining as Michael?
So on that note, content enough with our lunch and wine tasting, we retreated to our apartment for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
We put on some lounge wear, music on the balcony, footy on the TV (let’s talk no further about Carlton losing) and some home-made cocktails on the table in front of us with a cheese platter for dinner, and talked, laughed and indulged our way into the night as the sun set over the water.
Yes, it was a quick trip close to home (we weren’t even away for 24 hours), but this weekend was the weekend I finally convinced myself I really don’t have to travel too far to feel like I’ve had a break.
And if I wasn’t the one who washed sleeping bags and packed down tents (because I seem to be the only one who can get them to fit back into their bags for some suspicious reason), maybe I’d even start camping in the backyard, too.
But somehow, that seems like more work than going to Nagambie for a night.
• Bree Harding is a former News reporter and a single mother to three children
Senior journalist