Gulaga Mountain, the ancestral birthplace of the Yuin people. She holds the sleepy village of Tilba gently against her bosom and all the land around hums with her maternal love. There are places on this earth that are beautiful, there are places that are inspiring, and then there is places that make you’re whole soul sparkle like a freshly poured kombucha. Effervescent. Gulaga is that place. In 1852 gold was discovered upon the slopes of Gulaga and thus was born the village of Tilba. It didn’t take long for the gold to run dry however and in the 1900’s the remaining population turned to cheesemaking, and that’s what the town is still famous for today.
Now ‘famous’ may be an exaggeration. The town has a population of 80 and just a smattering of tourists that want to take a break from the highway, but famous or not, they do make really good cheese!! The ABC cheese factory, home of Tilba Real Dairy, was established over 120 years ago and was the first cheese cooperative in Australia. They run a small herd of Pure Jersey cows under the shadow of mount Gulaga and produce a huge range of award winning cheeses, and other dairy. Tilba is a Heritage protected town, all of the buildings were built in the 1800’s and are protected from alterations so if you took away the cars and powerlines you could really be wondering what century it was!
After a powerful night of Gulaga dreaming, Yilla and I awoke giddy with the thrumming of ancient song in our veins, dressed in our nicest dresses, adorned our best 1800’s personas, packed up a little basket of Deb’s homemade muesli and some local blueberries and jumped on our trusty rusty bicycle to go fetch some yoghurt from the cheese factory. We met the owner there and of course she used to live in Mullumbimby! What is this world? In fact in the few hours we were in Tilba we met three people that used to live in Mullum! Ah, well the tribe knows where the good living is. We picked up some yogurt and some cheeses for lunch and had a delicious yoghurt muesli breakfast outside the cheese factory and picked up a few good reads from the Tilba Library.
I was so happy to be there I skipped up and down the grass again and again while Yilla looked on, delighted. After brekkie we checked out the local indigenous art gallery where we met the curator, Karen, a delightful local woman who had bright purple hair and had also had her first child when she was 21, we got on like wildfire and she spun us a yarn about a mate of hers who works in social services with kids.
Oneday the boys she was looking after where having a fight because one of them was had explained to the other that milk comes from cows udders. The disbeliever was so offended and horrified at this suggestion that it was almost coming to blows until the social worker stepped in and assured the boy that yes, milk really did come from cows.
“No! Milk comes from the supermarket!”
“…and where does the supermarket get it from?”
The boy was so disgusted that he dry retched and ran to his room, slamming the door behind him. Luckily for this kid, his social worker was so moved by this reaction that she contacted a nearby dairy farmer and asked if she could bring the boys out on the weekend to see how things work. So, the weekend comes and the farmer shows the boys around the farm and gets them to help with a the milking. The once-disbeliever was so awestruck by the dairy farm and the process of milk production that now he goes there every weekend to help out and aspires to be a dairy farmer himself. How’s that for a success story huh?!
Reluctantly Yilla and I pulled ourselves away from Gulaga’s embrace and pushed on south to Bega, home of Bega Cheese, which is distributed to every supermarket across Australia. Chances are you have a block in your fridge right now!
The contrast between the Bega cheese factory and Tilba Real Dairy couldn’t be more stark. While in Tilba you can watch the cheesemakers in action in their little kitchen, accompanied by the soundtrack of twittering birds outside and the wind in the leaves, Bega is like the Mordor of the cheese world. Chimneys billow smoke and steam into the sky. There is a stream of massive haulage trucks constantly coming through the barbedwire-topped gate, and you’re not allowed to see into the factory. Visitors are welcome in the tiny quaint dairy museum thats huddled under the hulk of the factory’s industrial sprawl. We didn’t sample any of the wares within because it didn’t look or feel like food, but upstairs there is actually a rather fantastic and fascinating museum exhibiting the history of dairy in the region. I’m not sure if it’s what the exhibit intended but it really showcases how farmers got trapped into the impossible situation they’re in now, with increasing demands for production and diminishing resources. Yilla liked the cow statues.
I tried to maintain a positive attitude, but big business makes me angry, especially when it parasitises hard working farmers. The dairy land around Bega has been bought completely by the cheese company and compared to the dry, brown, non-dairy fields, the dairy fields look like a veritable paradise. They are glowing emeralds. To the untrained eye they are lushness incarnate. Cow heaven. But green isn’t always good. Not when it’s green because they have been sprayed full of synthetic nitrogen and phosphorus fertilisers which wash into waterways, and become food for algae that deprives the water of oxygen, suffocating the lifeforms within. Nitrates also leach into groundwater used for drinking which is particularly harmful for small children and has been shown to create cancer-causing compounds within the body. Nitrates from choking waterways also flow into the ocean, harming marine life and impacting fisheries. So not great. But pretty. And profit producing!
We didn’t stay in Bega long. Just abit further down the coast is Eden. The last town in NSW, and it deserves its name. I’m not sure if it was the usual Eden climate or just the day we were there, but the air was crisp, cool and intoxicating. Hiking along the rugged coast, I could feel my northern roots come alive with the song of selkies, (seal-women creatures of Irish myths) and my blood became exhilarated by the pull of cold, raw sea. We found a sheltered pebbly beach right beside the wharves and although I could see the distant figures of fishermen hauling their catch off of the boats, I couldn’t resist a skinny dip in the crystal clear water. Ahhh… this is living. Enveloped in liquid silk amongst mussel covered boulders and whispering tendrils of seaweed. This beach was really magic, and we spent hours collecting sea glass and discovering shells and anemones that we’d never seen before. I even found a paua shell! The cliffs also had these round red markings in them, which reminded me so much of indigenous rock art, although I’m sure they were natural formations. But this land was defiantly alive with the song of ancient ways.
After soaking up wild naked beach time and reaching our maximum quota for goosebumps we got to don our thermals and spoil ourselves with hot tea and organic cookies at Sprout wholefoods cafe, soaking up the ambience of their garden laden with herbs and flowers and to Yilla’s delight (and mine) ripe grapes hanging overhead. After tea we checked out the Eden community garden where we picked fresh apples straight off the tree! Apples! We are definately getting south! Exciting!! Next stop, Victoria!
Food Oasis 