We left Canberra around 10 am and coasted down the loping undulations of the Hume highway before peeling off to the small town of Milawa (population around 600)

A sign in the town proposes that the word Milawa is Aboriginal for flat ground. Wikipedia disagrees, telling us that the local Bpangerang people were custodians of the two local rivers and the name is a joining of ‘Mila’ meaning eyes, and ‘Wah’ meaning water.

Today the area is known for gourmet food production including Milawa cheeses, mustards and Brown Brothers wines. The reason we chose to stop here is that the Brown Brothers Vineyard graciously allows RV’s to stay in their ample car park overnight for free.

The trip was not without adventure as we found ourselves dodging some super intense storm cells which Google maps insisted we should transect in series like some sort of catastrophic dot to dot puzzle.
At a couple of points we felt like storm chasers as Google cheerfully directed us down some gravel road into a dark purple oblivion.

In the end we mostly dodged the worst of it. No thanks to our navigator. However, the multiple lightning strikes combined with strong winds and little rain we saw in the area does not bode well for the towns battling bush fires at the moment.

After settling in we walked the short distance into town, pausing at the local pub just long enough for some well earned sundowners before retreating to Ripley for the evening.