Royal Mail Hotel: Where to stay in the Grampians, Victoria
The team behind the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld are growing their portfolio with the relaunch of heritage cottage accommodation.
First, a geography lesson. Think of the Grampians Ranges (also known as Gariwerd) as an exclamation mark that rears up emphatically from the patchwork plains of western Victoria. Dunkeld is the dot at the bottom. Lesser known than the adventure-tourism hub of Halls Gap, this small farming town has been quietly blossoming into a destination for a more sophisticated type of regional escape, thanks largely to the continual evolution of the Royal Mail Hotel.
The humble bluestone inn on the main drag was purchased by the local Myers family in the 1980s, revamped extensively and houses the two-hatted Wickens restaurant. Its reach has now expanded to the countryside, with the opening of the refurbished deluxe Mt Sturgeon one-bedroom cottages, just 3km from town, set in seclusion inside the Mt Sturgeon biodiversity reserve that abuts Grampians National Park. A new two-night Gariwerd Luxury Escape Package allows guests to enjoy the full country-culinary experience. To help to fulfil the “luxury” and “escape” side of things, I’ve been loaned a Mercedes-Benz S-Class saloon, a $370,000 dream machine named 2021’s World Luxury Car of the Year. The transition from city to country is thus achieved in supreme comfort, thanks to air suspension, sumptuous leather seats with massage function and lane-holding steering assist. The serrated silhouette of the Grampians appears in the west after three effortless hours, backlit by the setting sun.
Mt Sturgeon Station was one of the first settlements in Victoria’s Western District, with its bluestone workers’ cottages constructed in the 1850s. After falling into disrepair, they were restored and converted by the Myers family to accommodation in the mid 1990s, but after nearly 30 years of service were again in need of an overhaul. Step in Melbourne architect Nicholas Byrne, whose tasteful fit-out is dripping with rustic authenticity. “We strove to amplify the beautiful original features,” says Byrne. “We want guests to experience the cottage how it would have been for the original inhabitants.”
I doubt those early farm workers would have been greeted by a marble sommelier’s bar with a bottle of Champagne on ice at the end of their sheep-shearing shift, nor woken to a breakfast of organic granola, fresh fruit and yoghurt. We eat outside in a minimalist courtyard as a golden wave of sunlight creeps up the flanks of the house, magpies carol and wallabies bound silently through the dewy grass. From our sunny perch, the land drops into a pastel-coloured valley of river red gums, straight out of a Hans Heysen painting. A walking track meanders into town, skirting the base of the mighty Mt Sturgeon, with its commanding rocky, sandstone crown.
With no internal partitions, the cottage is divided by voluptuous leather lounges and linen curtains. Nothing is affixed to the bluestone walls, allowing the textural stone to flow uninterrupted. Dark red timber beams run across the ceiling, echoing the jarrah floorboards (not original, but you wouldn’t know it). At night we get the wood fire blazing; the walls glow orange and are warm to the touch.
I love the modern attention to detail. There are USB ports as well as power points on floating bedside tables, a decent Bluetooth speaker and eye-catching pendant lights with misshapen, frosted glass. In a quirky, country touch, the ensuite is inside a water tank, tiled in rectangular mosaics, with luxury fittings and a generous vanity. The one oversight is the lack of a full-length mirror; it’s important to look one’s best for a meal at one of Victoria’s most acclaimed regional restaurants.
A private transfer picks us up for the short drive to Wickens, also designed by Byrne, and named after executive chef Robin Wickens. Full-length windows look out to Mt Sturgeon and Mt Abrupt, with the skyline playing out a mesmerising colour shift as darkness falls.
We kick the evening off with herbaceous cocktails, a prelude to the carefully chosen cellar match that takes us through the vineyards of Austria, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Romania. Australia is represented by a Tyrrell’s chardonnay/semillon blend, a Yalumba viognier and a classy 2009 cabernet sauvignon from Crawford River Wines, just an hour down the road. We’ve barely scratched the surface though. The 30,000-bottle strong hotel cellar, which guests of this package are welcomed into for a sommelier-hosted wine tutorial, houses the largest private collection of Burgundy and Bordeaux in the southern hemisphere. It’s the ever-expanding legacy of a hobby started by Allan and Maria Myers 40 years ago.
If the wine is a round-the-world tour, our 12-course degustation menu is emphatically hyper-local, with 80 per cent of the menu harvested from the hotel’s kitchen garden or the surrounding farmland. The Mt Sturgeon kangaroo is a highlight, the tender cut working in bittersweet harmony with chicory root and cocoa nib puree. Our night is bookended by dishes that subvert sweet and savoury assumptions: a canape medley of cheese custard, vanilla mille-feuille, and carrot cake, with dessert courses of celery mousse (artfully moulded back into a celery-stick form) with cream cheese sorbet, and jelly baby vegetables. Minds bended and waistlines extended, we waddle to our waiting car.
The second night’s meal is at Wickens’ casual cousin, Parker St Project, which in any other town would be swank central. Here, it’s still a gourmet experience, with the same Great Ocean duck, kangaroo and Royal Mail lamb served at Wickens, but to a backdrop of kids playing in the beer garden and people in racehorse costumes galloping round the room (possibly a one-off occurrence). It’s a much-needed reminder that we’re in a country town, and is terrific fun.
A morning tour of the kitchen garden (purported to be the largest of its kind in Australia) offers a backstage pass to the restaurants’ engine room. Chef Wickens leads the way as we inspect spaghetti squash growing up trellises, clumps of society garlic with dazzling purple flowers, and every berry under the summer sun. Everything we see has been germinated in a glasshouse. A computer program spits out spreadsheets to guide plantings, inspiring a menu that changes about 35 times a year.
Organic principles govern the garden. Local farms supply mulch and manure; all waste from the kitchen comes back here, and fertiliser is made from fish frames. A squadron of ducks has run of the garden, keeping the slugs and snails in check. “It’s the best form of pest control we’ve found,” says Wickens.
Experimentation is encouraged. It remains to be seen if the young avocado tree will give good fruit.
“You might be pleased to know we have failures, too,” says Wickens, who now knows passionfruit doesn’t like growing over archways. Instead, he’s replaced the crop with hops. I learn that the white asparagus we enjoyed the night before with tarragon and jasmine is not a different variety but regular asparagus grown in the dark.
There’s one thing we must do before we leave, and it involves paying penance for gluttony. The view from the summit of Mt Sturgeon is worth every drop of sweat shed on the 7km loop track. Keep walking for 13 days and you’ll have completed the 160km Grampians Peaks Trail, traversing the entire exclamation mark. This time our journey is just a comma; a quick pause for our pleasure senses to germinate, in a town planted firmly on the map.
In the know
The Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld, is three hours’ drive from Melbourne. Gariwerd Luxury Escape Package (for two) includes two nights at the deluxe Mount Sturgeon one-bedroom cottage, dinner at Wickens restaurant and Parker Street Project, transfers from cottage to restaurants, in-room breakfast, tour of the kitchen garden, wildlife tour, cellar tutorial and a demi-bottle of Champagne on arrival; $1850 (Wed-Thur), $1950 (Fri-Sun).
Ricky French was a guest of the Royal Mail Hotel and Mercedes-Benz.