Richard Statham was a wool grower from Barraba in northern NSW when he fi rst met master harpsichord maker Bill Bright, who inspired his love of Baroque music. Bill taught Richard and his wife Florence’s children — Sam, Nick and Oli — to play the piano and introduced the Statham family to other musicians in his orbit, including leading performers and teachers from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. They began touring with students giving master classes in country halls across western NSW and providing what Richard recalls as a “welcome diversion from crutching and mustering”.
So when Richard and his family moved to Canowindra in the NSW Central West in 1995 to establish Rosnay Organic, producing wine, fi gs and olives, it was a given he brought his love of early European music with him and was instrumental in establishing Baroquefest, an annual festival that attracts hundreds of visitors to events over three days each September.
Baroquefest is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the creative arts in this part of the state. As a tour from Bathurst through Blayney, Millthorpe, Carcoar, Cowra, Canowindra, Molong and Orange reveals, there’s something in the water of the Belubula River, which runs through a number of those towns, and it’s encouraged a host of artists, performers, producers, chefs and winemakers to enrich the region by making it their home.
The trip begins with a stopover in Blayney, 38 kilometres west of Bathurst, at, of all places, the railway station. Chelsea Howarth lives on her parents’ farm out of town, heads to Sydney two days a week, where she’s furthering her ceramics study and, for the rest of the week, takes pottery workshops in the Ladies Room on the station platform, where, twice daily, the XPT zooms past.
She off ers group classes for kids and adults, private tuition and also holds one-off catered group events such as wine and cheese and hens’ nights. Grab a coff ee and a house-made treat at the Ironbark Espresso in Blayney’s tourist information offi ce before detouring north for 12km to the historic village of Millthorpe.
Like most of the smaller towns on this trip, Millthorpe is a sleepy little spot during the week and only becomes its buzzy best on weekends, so plan your itinerary accordingly. If your visit is midweek, perhaps focus on the regional centres of Orange and Bathurst and head to the villages Friday to Sunday.
Tony and Nicole Worland have kept Millthorpe on the foodie map of regional NSW with Tonic restaurant, a Thursday-to-Sunday destination for a fi ve-course set menu featuring seasonal local produce matched with local wines.
Other must-visits are the Johnson family’s Slow Wine Co, which serves tapas on Friday and Saturday night, and the Crossing family’s Angullong Wines cellar door in the stone former stables of what was once a Cobb and Co stage coach inn. They are open daily for tastings of their acclaimed Shiraz, Cabernet and Chardonnay, as well as a range of popular Italian varietals.
There’s a bottle of Angullong’s Fossil Hill Malbec on the table at Paddington Grove, the charmingly rustic B&B Patricia & Wayne McKenna have created near their home with an olive grove acreage on the outskirts of Millthorpe. Breakfast provisions are another celebration of local fare with Trunkey smoked bacon, eggs from the McKennas’ chooks, dairy from Little Big Dairy Co, Goldfi elds Orange Blossom honey and Mumblepeg orange juice.
There’s a wellequipped kitchen — hardly surprising given Patricia and Wayne ran a local providore for years — so if you happen to land in town on a quiet night, self-catering is an easy option.
From Millthorpe, it’s 27km to Carcoar on the Mid- Western Highway. With the red-brick railway station and a wooden bridge over the Belubula River dominating the landscape of this historic village — classifi ed by the National Trust for its large number of 19th-century buildings — visitors can grab a bite at The Village Grocer or the Carcoar Royal Hotel and browse the homewares and fashion at Tomolly store.
Don’t miss Felicity Wells’ gallery, A Thousand Words, in an 1852 former saddlery building. A graphic designer and advertising creative director in her previous lives, Felicity says curating exhibitions and hosting artists’ workshops is second nature, though being a barista is more of a challenge.
Judging from the way she pumps out espresso, biscotti and Basque cheesecake, that’s clearly not true, though she’d clearly prefer to be singing the praises of Fiona Howle’s beautiful fabric works, Michael D’Antonio’s gyotaku art — a Japanese printing technique from the mid- 1800s that uses real fi sh to create stunning prints — or the exquisite timber pixel lamps made by Andrew Eisentrager, who actually owns the building and lives with his wife, Leesa, next door.
Just 55km up the road at Cowra, South African transplant artist Inel Date was similarly motivated to showcase local talent, when she and her husband came to town for his work as a rural GP. Since arriving in 2001, she’s practised her textured landscapes refl ecting the region from a studio at the back of her home, but in 2022 she opened Little Magpie Gallery as a pop-up.
It’s now a fi xture on the town’s main street and Inel champions artists including printmaker Jane Tonks, Jane’s son, Joel’s, ceramics and etchings, David Henley’s gouache landscapes, Greg Daly’s lustre-glazed ceramics or his wife, Katherine Bennett’s, slow stitching.
Inel also doubles duty as Cowra’s unoffi cial visitor information bureau and directs visitors to James Vidiluch’s Oak on Kendal for local produce done right (from Thursday to Sunday), Gingerbird Cafe for cake and coff ee, as well as Cowra’s Japanese Garden and the town’s Regional Art Gallery.
There’s more local talent 32km up the B81 at Canowindra, where landscape artist David Isbester has a gallery in the main street that he shares with local fl ower farmer and fl orist Megan Milton. He paints everything from the town’s historic streets to the golden canola fi elds he got to know when driving a retrieval vehicle for a local hot air ballooning company.
David, who was born in Cowra but has made Canowindra his home, enjoys painting in oils en plein air. He’s become a big advocate for his adopted hometown and mentions fellow artist Melissa Barber and her Klimt-esque works, the local talent that’s showcased in Finns General Store on weekends and the Age of Fishes Museum, one of only two Devonian-era fossil museums in the world.
David also directs visitors to Perennialle Plants Nursery, Cafe & Emporium, where, as well as plants, they can pick up coff ee, cakes and mean toasties and browse for everything from locally made jams and chutneys to Opinel knives, wooden spurtles (for stirring porridge) and, of course, seeds and garden tools.
There’s a showcase of local artists’ works on the walls of the tasting room at Rosnay Organic Wines where, as well as hosting Baroquefest, the Statham family produces preservativefree organic wines, fresh, poached, glace and dried fi gs (don’t miss the ones dipped in chocolate) and extra-virgin olive oil and olives preserved in Murray River salt and organic apple-cider vinegar.
They also off er farm-stay accommodation in a section of the family homestead and are a fount of information on everything from producing Pet Nat (naturally sparkling) wines to community-title developments and straw-bale housing.
Our accommodation for the night is at Canowindra’s splendid Marlow House, an elegant early-20th-century homestead with space for eight guests in three bedrooms and a garden suite. There’s a well-equipped kitchen and a grand dining room perfect for small-group weekend getaways or longer holidays.
Head north from Canowindra for 63km to Molong on the Mitchell Highway. With its heritage-listed main street and active heritage society and museum, Molong off ers a full menu of hospitality off erings including above-average pub meals at the Telegraph Hotel, great cafe fare at Lime & Stone and knitting and crochet supplies, classes and dropin crafting evenings at Hooked on Molong.
Self-catering accommodation for up to seven guests is available at Sandy Prell and Andy Sullivan’s House with a View, which off ers spacious living rooms and a roomy kitchen, perfect for families, while Sona has space for up to 10 in a former bank manager’s house curated by Pip Brett of Orange’s fabled homewares and fashion emporium Jumbled.
Former newspaper photographer turned ceramicist Jude Keogh off ers classes and ‘‘pottery and plonk’’ events at her Earth & Fire Studio for people wanting to learn everything from the basics of pinching a pot to more complex throwing and glazing techniques.
It’s just 35km down the highway through the rolling hills of the Macquarie Ranges to Orange, famous for its apples, cherries and other stone fruit along with cool-climate wines.
With more than 30 cellar doors in a 20-minute drive from the centre of town, Orange also boasts fabulous food options and great boutique shopping.
On the not-to-be-missed list is Summer Street Wine Room, where former Qualia (north Queensland) alumni Lizzie Wittig presides front of house and her husband, Matthew Eustis, mans the pans. The venue serves as a wine bar, bottle shop and Mediterranean-accented restaurant with everything made in-house and a focus on locally grown lamb, beef, poultry, dairy, honey, fruit, vegetables and even hazelnuts.
The Feed Me menu is a complete indulgence with a very moderate price tag but, whatever you choose, don’t miss the salt and vinegar roasted potatoes. The wine list is wide-ranging with everything from $50 bottles to $1500 Hill of Grace off erings and an ‘‘interesting’’ section with options from Armenia, the Jura and Austria.
Accommodation is plentiful in Orange, with B&Bs, boutique hotels, farmstays and motels off ering options from basic to bountiful. The Yallungah Boutique Hotel deserves special mention for its central location and the amenity of the 22 guest rooms in a repurposed landmark late-19thcentury Orange homestead.
After a leisurely breakfast, guests can stroll out to browse shops ranging from Jumbled to Dirty Jane’s, an antiques and collectables warehouse with a cafe that truly has every interest from early colonial to mid-century modern covered in its 60-plus vendor stalls.
Orange also delivers on the arts front, with a parade of international and Australian musicians delivering concerts at the Orange Regional Conservatorium, a Night in Nashville at the showgrounds every March and a program of theatrical events from Australia’s leading performance companies presenting at the Orange Civic Theatre at prices that should make city venues blush.
There’s an ever-changing menu of touring exhibitions and local artists’ works on show at the Orange Regional Gallery, however a highlight of the calendar is Here/Now, held in October/November.
The Gallery invites artists at all stages of their practice to submit up to two recent artworks, with the guarantee that at least one work will be exhibited. Up to 200 local artists are represented, proof, as if it were needed, of the extraordinary breadth and diversity of the creative spirit in the region.
