Spring in the high country. Sounds good, right? As well as the alpine air, stunning views and ski-crazy population, I’ll be damned if a weekend in Bright doesn’t mean delicious food. It’s high country grazing for humans.
Despite a less-than-welcome beginning to our weekend – a highway accident means we arrive two hours late and in the dark – the beds at our accommodation at Chestnut Tree holiday apartments make it worthwhile. Fluffy mattress toppers mean that any spare time we have we feel compelled to crawl back into bed.
Next day we wake to views over the mountains and what I think is a freakish one-off; a camellia so tall it reaches the balcony of our first-floor unit. Turns out these gorgeous specimens, with flowers the size of dinner plates, are so common they appear to be used as landscaping infill all over the town.
Nola Williams bought the Chestnut Tree with her husband, John, 30 years ago, when it was little more than a near-vertical sheep paddock. I suggest to Nola she must be proud of her achievements, because as well as the stunning camellias, magnolias and dogwoods, the garden has more then 3000 tulips, along with roses, daffodils, miles of hedging, a pool and a play area. “Too busy,” she says. I believe her.
If it’s hard to drag ourselves away from Nola and John, our next stop proves even more difficult.
Breakfast is at retro-chic cafe Coral Lee, and co-owner Sam Martin is clearly a force of nature. We are all instantly smitten. We eat light-as-air pancakes and I have an Earl Grey tea so good I spend the rest of the meal gazing at it with a great deal of fondness.
Martin says she and co-owner Leonie Duggan make everything, except the bread, on the premises and source as much as they can, including my tea, locally.
Martin says their reputation for using local produce is gaining quite a following.
