Travel: Stanthorpe

In something unconventional, the year started off with a trip into southern Queensland. I must say prior to the trip, I experienced some trepidation with the notion of voyaging to farmland country (especially with my carefully concealed and subtle disdain for farming, agrarian lifestyles and "those" people in general. I attempted to rein in these feelings of superiority and try to better relate with my fellow (albeit lesser) man.

As trips go I would definitely recommend travelling during times of severe weather and road construction. A little infinitely-slow crawl through torrential rain and sign-waving road workers.

Stanthorpe is a fairly nice place - full of verdant fields and tasty vineyards. The town is one of the few that I've visited that didn't have a Bates Motel feel; like I was walking into a place where something was terribly wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it until a dude attacks my vulnerable naked flesh in the shower. The citizens are friendly but not too friendly - a relatively proud folk, earned from decades of family farming of exquisite boozes and intoxicants. I can understand that. Aside from Castle Glen (the liquer wholesaler) most establishments have a real sense of class, as opposed to a veneer of class.

Perhaps my dissatisfaction with Castle Glen was with my expectations - I was expecting a castle-shaped brewery filled to the brim with royal liquers, with wenches to serve my whims and a fantastic factory tour with periodic breaks for Oompah Loompah songs. Instead it was little more than a glorified bottle shop with tasting and bottles that were fruity in both appearance and sexual preference.



Wine tasting is something that all people should try at least once in their lives. If they can overcome the inherent pretentiousness of the activity you really start to learn things about how wine is made - while this wouldn't be of much interest in anyone, it is something you don't hear about in school between Shop A and algebra. The shop attendents are more like hosts, taking you on a culinary tour of their products with a level of ascerbity I find both familiar and compelling; it's comforting to know that the Australian countryside has some inhabitants that aren't hicks. It most definitely introduced me to the notion that just because people live in rural areas doesn't mean they have no class; my distaste for bogans is profound but bogans cannot be farmers by definition - bottom feeders that add nothing to society.

Stanthorpe is just the right size - everyone who lives there has a job and has a purpose. It isn't big enough to have unemployment so there isn't any riffraff. If there is one odd observation it is the complete lack of any non-caucasians - almost suspiciously so.

Perhaps poverty, vagrancy and racial diversity were all eradicated by the residents of Stanthorpe eating all the Aboriginals.