Nestled in the rolling hills of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, the picturesque small town of Mudgee is renowned for its excellent wines. Weekends see hundreds of tourists coming to taste the wines from the 90 grape growers in the Mudgee district. They visit the wineries that are located on the various roads leading out of Mudgee and scattered around the nearby small towns of Gulgong and Rylstone. Wines can be sampled and purchased at the cellar doors of many of those wineries that are open to the public. While not as well known for its wines as other Australian wine regions such as the Hunter Valley, the Barossa Valley or Yarra, Mudgee’s viticulture dates back to 1858 when German settlers established the first vineyards in the area. Many of those original German families, such as the Kurtz and the Roth clans, are still living in Mudgee and their names still feature on the local wine labels. Many tourists try to visit the Mudgee Food and Wine Festival that is held every September. With the normally pleasant spring weather, this festival is a perfect venue to taste Mudgee’s famous specialties, such as shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. Honey Mudgee’s honey is another tempting taste treat that attracts tourists and gourmets alike. There are a number of apiaries that you can visit. A number of honey varieties can be tasted and purchased – including yellow box, iron bark, blue gum, and red gum, as well as honey flavored with eucalyptus, clover or wattle. Some of the apiaries having working hives on display, where visitors can watch colonies of honey bees at work. Historical Heritage of Mudgee Mudgee is a town of special interest to Australian and colonial history buffs. The original inhabitants were the Aborigines who called the area Moothi (meaning “nest in the hills”). White settlers arrived in the early 1800s. Mudgee was at first a village servicing the surrounding farming properties. With the discovery of gold in nearby Hargreaves in 1851, the area grew rapidly as it sold supplies to passing gold miners. Several churches, a town hall, a police station, a courthouse, a post office and a mechanics institute were all constructed in the years that followed. Agriculture including wool studs and vineyards were developed. The railway reached Mudgee in 1884. Fortunately, a large number of the old buildings have survived and remain in superb condition. Market Street and a number of other streets have whole streetscapes of buildings dating from the late 19th century, so that the visitor can experience the sensation of stepping back in time. One of Australia’s greatest poets and short story writers, Henry Lawson (1867-1922), spent many of his early years in Mudgee. You can see the school he attended, the remains of the Lawson family house and a number of locations that Lawson wrote about in his poems and stories. If time is not a problem, a short trip to the nearby township of Gulgong may also be recommended. Gulgong is an old goldmining town and its winding streets still follow the original goldmine claims. Like Mudgee, Gulgong has some genuine original streetscapes from the late 19th century. Of particular interest are the Prince of Wales Opera House where Australia’s great opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931) once performed, the Henry Lawson Centre, and the large Pioneers’ Museum. Mudgee is Well Worth a Visit Mudgee is just a few hours’ drive up from Sydney, Australia’s largest city and the capital of the state of New South Wales. Many tourists visiting Sydney take the opportunity to see a little of rural Australia, and Mudgee often is visited for that reason alone. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/819346

People from around the world are familiar with the American festival of trick or treating also commonly known as Halloween. However, this is not an American occasion and has its roots firmly in Europe with a version of the holiday dating back as far as Roman times with the Roman feast of Pomona who was the Roman goddess of fruits and seeds, together with the festival of the dead which was known as Parentalia when people celebrated life with food and wines.

Historically, in Britain, we are more familiar with the Pagan festivals held by the Celts and Gaels going as far back as the first century which were to celebrate the end of the Summer in a festival called Samhain and where people would give thanks for a bountiful harvest that would hopefully provide food to see the villagers through the long winter months when fresh food would be scarce.

The theme from these early Pagan festivals developed into the early Christian holy days of All Saints Day on November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2nd, where the church believed that incorporating older Pagan traditions into the new church would make for an easier transition to the new ways. These holy days involved Christians wearing masks so that the dead would not be able to recognise them and keep them from harm. This can still be seen every year in the costumes and masks worn by trick or treaters all around the world.

The tradition of carrying lanterns by the early Christians has also been continued today in the form of Jack o Lanterns and carved out pumpkins with face shapes in the sides which then have small tea lights inserted in the middle to give a spooky glow to them.

Halloween certainly signifies the beginning of the long winter months and falls just a couple of weeks before we in the UK put back the clocks an hour, when British Summertime officially ends and Greenwich Mean Time returns until the following Spring time.

With so much of our history and tradition involving celebrations and festivities, it’s good that many people today who are not religious, still use this time of year as a good excuse for having parties with family and friends and holding parties when once again there can be free flowing wines and an abundance of food to celebrate another prosperous and bountiful summer.

Red wines, white and rose wines all personify the meaning of harvest when the grapes have been grown and fermented into a resulting delicious bottle of wine. Wine growers in California and other parts of the world celebrate a good year’s work in winegrowing by throwing parties for all the workers in the vineyard and enjoy the fruits of their labour with bottles of the vineyards wines, from Merlot to Pinot Grigio. wine tours Willamette Valley

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