Fine food and wine are a winning combination and both can be found in Southern Queensland Country. Take yourself on a culinary tour around this beautiful region and experience a thriving foodie scene you won’t forget in a long time. Try these five tips from House of Travel on where to stay and visit to make the most out of your trip.
Go on a wine tour

With ample wineries to choose from, knowing where to start is no easy task. Twisted Gum Wines offers single-vineyard crisp whites, pink moscato and deep reds. The cellar door is in a beautiful old Queenslander and is open on weekends. At Symphony Hill wines, visitors can meet the winemakers in a funky tasting room and sample medal-winning gewürztraminer and the flagship Reserve Shiraz. Ridgemill Estate has a more modern appearance, and stocks distinctive European-style single-origin wines with a focus on sustainability and organic and biodynamic farming.
Get a taste of rural Queensland

The Barrelroom restaurant has been run by Travis Crane and partner Arabella Chambers for the past two years. Part of Ballandean Estate Wines, the restaurant features a wall lined with giant 150-year-old German barrels of ageing port and liqueur muscat, giving the rustic space a sweet and woody aroma. All ingredients used in the restaurant are sourced from sustainable and organic local producers that the couple carefully check to ensure their standards are met. “There are a lot of places that claim to be using local produce, and to some extent they are, but not to the same capacity we are,” says Chambers.
Take a scenic road trip

It’s a little-known fact that Southern Queensland Country offers the most accessible Outback road trips in Australia. Take a short jaunt starting in Brisbane and venture to Charleville and Cunnamulla. You can stop in Lightening Ridge for black opal mining and then loop back to the city via the Art Deco town of Goondiwindi, the perfect place to grab a quick bite.
Choose the perfect accommodation

If you are looking for somewhere cosy to stay, consider The Studio B&B at Bunnyconnellen Olive Grove & Vineyard. Or, spread out in your own house at Ravensbourne Escape, which has sweeping views over Ravensbourne National Park. There are plenty of accommodation options, so shop around first.
Enjoy local produce

Award-winning chef Amanda Hinds and her family run Hampton’s exceptional bistro Emeraude, where every ingredient is sourced from within 40 kilometres. Hinds clearly takes great pleasure in sourcing carefully grown regional produce. She describes the local stone fruit with relish: “the sort you bite into and all the juice runs down your chin”. Plus, there are the “sensational” local avocados that thrive from the higher altitude and longer maturation on the tree, and meat cured by a local butcher with pine needles and cones from the forest.
Talk to House of Travel today to start planning your holiday. Call 0800 713 715, drop into your local House of Travel store or click on hot.co.nz.