Join us in historic Carcoar this winter for an authentic village life experience
Your invitation to join us in Carcoar for winter weekends away – a warmly authentic experience of village life.
Embrace the joy of slow food, slow travel and slow living.
Photo Credit: all gorgeous photos of Carcoar throughout this post have been taken by the marvellous Belinda Satterthwaite of Tomolly stylish homewares and interiors store. Your very first stop on a visit to Carcoar!
Here’s me (on the top far left) sharing a spontaneous afternoon of Orange region cool-climate wine & locally-made cheese by the Belubula River in our home village of Carcoar with a bunch of my fellow Carcoarians, just after we were allowed to come out of isolation a couple of weeks ago.
We were filming as part of the new #WeWantYouBack campaign being run by Central NSW Tourism to encourage you all to come and explore the countryside and discover our vineyards, cellar doors, country towns and gorgeous little villages.
So I’m going to do my own bit right now and invite you to spend a glorious winter weekend in historic Carcoar with us, we would so love to share country village life with you all xx Kelly
For a tiny village [population 200] we have a surprising amount of beautiful boutique cottages and homestead accommodation options dotted around our now verdant hills, and plenty of them have open fires [so does the local pub, hooray!]. Choose from a cosy hideout for two to rambling mansions for a group of friends to share a weekend away together – take a look at my top local accommodation tips and ideas of things to do around Carcoar.
Millthorpe village is also only 15 minutes drive away with even more boutique accommodation options and you could also choose to stay in Orange and come out to Carcoar for a day trip, it’s a 45 minute scenic drive from Orange.
SPECIAL WINTER WEEKEND VISIT OFFER FROM SILVER COMPASS TOURS
I would love to say I have tour packages available for your visit to Carcoar, but the truth is life has been so hectic for the past two months during the COVID-19 lockdown I haven’t had a chance to put any new packages together.
Paolo & I have been focused on saving our little Italian locanda, Antica Australis
And we are very pleased to report we are well on our way to having achieved this! When the lockdown hit we had only been open for three weeks, and we were not eligible for any government support as our business was too small and too new. With the support of our local communities we have kept our little locanda going with takeaway events and from mid-June we will open for private group bookings too.
Now that Antica is safe, I’m taking a look at finalising new day tours and a high-end food and wine experience package for the Orange wine region. Stay tuned!
SO FOR NOW: here’s the deal – simply plan to make your own way here, book your accommodation and get in touch to reserve me as your personal Host for trips made from mid-June to end of August 2020.
I will take you on a personalised guided tour of the historic sites of Carcoar (it’s awash with pioneer history, perfectly preserved heritage buildings and the entire village is classified by the National Trust).
I can also make recommendations for you to self-drive to local cellar doors and vineyards, and can even help you arrange to have wine and local produce hampers waiting for you on arrival at your accommodation.
There’s no charge for booking the guided tour or for helping you out with recommendations, I’m going to run this all spontaneously on a ‘pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth’ basis 😍 with absolutely no obligation to pay anything.
[I will be making a $35 donation to the Carcoar Historical Society each time I run the tours to help the committee continue their vital archiving & research, so if you’d like to help me cover that it would be most welcome].
ANTICA AUSTRALIS
Our charming little Italian slow-food locanda, bringing a little of the soul of rural Italy to the heart of regional Australia. If you were busting to go to Italy this year, come and hang out with us – Paolo is cooking traditional dishes from his home region of Ciociaria (an hour south from Rome) using local and in-season produce. It’s BYO ❤️ 🍷
We will be opening up Antica Australis in Carcoar for private bookings for Family & Friends groups of 10-12 guests on weekends in June, with a traditional Italian menu available for lunch and dinner (we are only allowed to seat 12 inside with the current restrictions). We will then be hosting some special winter events, including a Xmas in July Medieval Banquet and an Indigenous ingredients inspired Australian menu in August.
Please note that with all the constant changes to rules and regulations we never know what we’re doing until we’re doing it. Also, we are in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and only open on weekends. Get in contact with us if you’re thinking of visiting and we’ll send you through an update.
Map of Orange and surrounding villages courtesy of Orange360 (below):
“My destination is no longer a place, but a new way of seeing.”
– Marcel Proust
ABOUT SILVER COMPASS TOURS
We are a boutique local tour operator specialising in carefully curated hosted premium food and wine travel experiences in the Orange wine region of the Central West of New South Wales, Australia. We also host food and wine cultural experiences to the ‘hidden’ food and wine regions of Ciociaria and Molise in central Italy.
Silver Compass Tours was awarded Bronze for ‘Excellence in Food Tourism’ in the 2019 Regional Tourism Awards and is a Quality Tourism Accredited Business through the Australian Tourism Accreditation Program. We are a proud member of the World Food Travel Association and a certified WFTA Culinary Tour Operator. We are also currently engaged to become a Sustainable Tourism Tour Operator Partner for international accreditation and certification with Travelife.
Owner and Chief Experience Officer, Kelly Picarazzi, established Silver Compass Tours in 2014 after returning to Australia following a global tourism and communications career. She has recently been named one of Travel Massive’s ‘Top 100 Inspiring Women Travel Founders’ globally for 2020.
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Silver Compass Tours members receive updates and priority access to tickets and booking details for all of our local food and wine experience packages, as well as our Wild Heart of Italy cultural food and wine adventures to Italy.