epicure escape review of french island llamas

Extract from "Epicure Escape"

The Age Tuesday, December 10, 2002

photo by Matt Eckhaus

Whether it's by llama, horse, raft, ferry, bike or train, half the fun can be in getting there on some Victorian gourmet tours.
- by Dani Valent

I want food and wine in the countryside, but I've had enough of the four- cylinder soundtrack. I want to pedal to morning tea with the wind in my hair. I want to sneak up on wineries by water. I want a trusty stead to clip-clop me to a picnic and I want to choo-choo my way along a gourmet trail. And, dammit, I want a llama to carry my lunch.

Country Victoria's restaurants and wineries know that getting day-trippers within sniffing distance of their glorious wares is half the battle. There are a number of ways we can be lured: make some decisions for us (we're trying to relax - we don't want to think too much), reduce the number of financial transactions (I'd rather be refilling my glass than reaching into my pocket for plastic), take driving out of the equation (not the designated driver short straw again!). And of course, involve cute animals wherever possible.

The French Island Llama Experience ticks all these boxes and then some. This day-long adventure kicks off at tiny Stony Point on the Mornington Peninsula. Take the Frankston - Flinders Road south past Hastings or catch the train via Frankston. However you come, make sure it's in time to catch the 10am ferry from Stony Point, which takes about 10 minutes to reach Tankerton Jetty on French Island.

Your hosts for the day, Alison Pitt and Jane Unwin, will pick you up from the ferry and initiate you into the mildly anarchic ways of French Island. The island's 60 residents more or less rule themselves through a mix of voluntary committees and small-town gossip. They have to generate their own electricity, collect their own water and bury their own dead. Most of them don't bother registering their cars, which means that French Island is something of a treasure trove of dusty old bombs for whom license plates are all but a distant memory.

It's a short but bone-shaking drive in Pitt and Unwin's (registered) Land Rover to Tanderum Farm. The women bought the 16 hectare clearing three years ago, and moved here from Eltham on something of a seachange, scaling back careers in orthoptics and physiotherapy respectively. They have planted 1000 olive trees and plan to produce French Island's first olive oil when they get enough fruit. Meanwhile, they're growing vegetables, planting native trees, generating wind and solar power, and tending eight llamas, a couple of Clydesdale horses and assorted alpacas, goats, chooks and dogs.

It's a lovely set up and you could be there in two hours, standing under a gum tree, complete with munching koala, holding a llama by a rope. If you're like me, you will embark on an instant and grand love affair with your big-eyed, long snouted llama and be wondering how you can take him home. Take it from me: you can't.

What you can do is lead him around French Island for a walk through paddocks, along bush tracks and down mostly car-less gravel roads. Along the way, you can chat to your fellow walkers (up to six can go on a walk) and your hosts. Of course, communicating with your sweet-faced llama is a major activity, too: you'll be saying "walk on" when he spies something invisible and grinds to a halt, you'll gasp in amazement when he stops and pees for a full five minutes and you'll try to be stern when he stops to snack on trackside greenery for the 20th time.

Two hours of leisurely strolling finishes up at a shady picnic spot with views of Western Port and Phillip Island. There, Pitt and Unwin will unload the llama's custom-built saddlebags and serve up a tasty al fresco spread. The meal starts with home baked bread, olives, olive oil and cheese. It might continue with tomato and Camembert flan and a salad and local greens. Dessert might be chocolate mud cake with strawberries and cream. All the food is packed in ice and has been tested for its fitness to travel by llama. Wine is by T'Gallant, which is developing a vineyard on French Island. While you're scoffing, the llamas sit down for a spell under the trees and get a big drink of water and a sheaf of hay as a reward for carrying your lunch.

After the meal, it's a short walk back to the farmyard, where you can reward your llama with a handful of pellets, then leave him to mingle in the paddock. You'll be dropped back at the jetty in time for the 4.30 ferry back to Stony Point. And, in case you have any ideas, please note that llamas are not permitted on the ferry.