In the season finale of Great Australian Walks Susie Youssef is in South Australia’s Clare Valley to embark on a section of the renowned Riesling Trail.
It follows a track that was formerly the train route through the valley until the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires rendered the track unusable.
Arriving by car at the town of Penwortham, where Susie meets the mayor, Allan Aughey, who arrives like many on the trail by bicycle. Dubbed the “mayor with flair”, he is unmissable, dressed in shades and patterns of blues with an elaborate cravat to match.
He reveals how the valley has become a hub today for artists. “We have very innovative and creative people here…visual artists and theatre people from all over Australia,” he says.
Susie then wanders through vineyards to Sevenhill Cellars, where she meets Nick Ryan, a famous wine writer who reveals how a group of Austrian priests built the Clare Valley’s oldest winery. He takes her to an underground crypt – the final resting place of Jesuit priests. “The reason wine- making started here in the first place was to produce sacramental wine,” Nick explains.
As she makes her way along the trail, which is shared by walkers and cyclists, she meets Brendan Kluska, the self-proclaimed last man of Polish descent still living in what was once a vibrant Polish community in the Clare Valley. He shows her photos of the Polish community in Polish Hill River, where they made their home half a world away from Europe until the early 1900s. She also joins a new trail, the Wine and Wilderness Path, which intersects with the Riesling Trail.
7:30pm Thursday on SBS.
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