Walcha Mountain Festival

Sunday we took a trip out to Walcha for the Mountain Festival.  Walcha's a pretty small town, comparative to Uralla, about 65 km southeast of Armidale on Thunderbolt's Way.  The town itself seems to be doing all right for itself, with an amount of shops open even for Sunday.  It seems a bit out of the way from Armidale, but Walcha's on the most direct route from Tamworth to Port Macquarie on the coast, so it must see a bit of traffic passing through.

Trees on the way to Walcha.

The festival itself was held at the Langford Homestead, another 2km east outside of town, a historic estate that was built in 1904.  We missed the tour of the house (would have liked to do it, but they were booked out until 3pm when we were eating lunch at 12:30) but stepped inside the entryway and had a brief (very brief) look around.  Pretty cool: it actually seems to be in much better condition than the Saumarez Homestead outside of Armidale (another estate from the same time period), but the Langford House is privately owned while the Saumarez Homestead is part of the National Trust and relies mostly on government funding.

It was a really beautiful day!  Sunny and warm despite frosts just two days ago.  The festival had surprisingly good food: sausage sandwiches are normal Australian fare, but there was a Walcha cafe stand with deli-type foods, mostly salads, and most importantly, pretty good vegetarian options.  (We got the wild rice and veg + the beetroot and potato salad.  Really good.)  Though the best part was definitely the fresh doughnuts... pretty tasty.