Vombatidae Vombatidae Vroom Vroom

There is a winery in the Upper Hunter Valley which has a problem with toilet doors. (Indeed, in so far as one can allocate a gender to a securely hinged reinforced protuberance, this particular winery has a problem with male toilet doors.)

The history of this strange and disturbing case is as follows.

Last July, during a howling southerly gale, a male staff member was caught short in the vineyard, and couldn't make it to the staff-designated ablutions block, and so was obliged to detour to the very isolated and substantial convict-built public convenience. This tastefully presented facility in laborious sandstone block and rustic corrugated roofing normally promised double comfort because of the efficient provision of a substantial convict slab door complete with an obtuse catch which, when closed, provided colonial protection against mice, men, and importantly on this occasion, anatomically freezing, southerly winds.

Now our hero who shall remain nameless, (let's call him John) is a sanguine sort of a chap at the best of times and is not easily brought to the edge of expletive rage, but when his eyes fell upon the splintered remains of the dunny door banging forlornly in the aforementioned gale, he was aghast.

Not only had this impenetrable relic from another era been substantially compromised, but the culprit also appeared to have scratched most of the mortar out from amongst the heritage listed sandstone blocks in the lower third of the structure. "Why would anyone bother?" John thought. Graffiti is one thing, WET tax another, but unbridled vandalism to a national trust endorsed dunny was beyond the pail. (sic) And the stench! Not an odour his wine making nose could positively recall from its library of smells..a warm vegetative cloying waft of putrefied straw and earth which stubbornly hung in the swirling air of the now ramshackle john.

There seemed to him to be more than a hint of a long dead 2010 Winemaker's Reserve Bin Trebbiano in this abhorrently abysmal bouquet. And there remained a definite reminder of the pungent herbaceousness of any number of current release New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs about the aroma, slightly improved though through the unexpected presence of a quite upliftingly hideous pong of ammonia, burnt goose fat and rancid leeks.

Turning away into the face of the gathering storm, it struck John (who actually invented the concept of conspiracy theories) that this was no simple case of vandalism of a public loo. How else could he account for the unhinged force needed to unhinge the enormous door; and what was the purpose of the putrefying desecration of the crime scene itself. And why the deliberate selection of such an isolated icon of colonial architecture? No, there was evil stalking (and kicking and pooing and ponging) here. What he now feared was the possibility of systematic and wanton destruction of our Nation’s heritage, and it now seemed likely that his convict built dunny was but the first on this architectural psychopath's list.

And yet, may there have been a more innocent explanation? Could it have been that one of his winery visitors had chanced upon the recently opened (and soon to be closed on health and moral grounds) Sandy Hollow All Night Diner and sauna parlour?.

To the locals, this notorious place had become well known in the week since it opened on account of the risk involved in actually consuming anything manufactured on the premises. (No one had had the courage to try out the unsavoury delights of the sauna.) As it turned out, this peculiar all-nighter was quite close to the vineyard.

It crossed John's mind as he wandered absently back to the winery, that such a person may have become entombed behind the faulty catch of the dunny door, and realising that hot air rises, attempted to free herself from this malodorous prison by lying on the floor and kicking the crap out of the reluctant closure. After a series of failed attempts it seemed likely that she took to scratching the mortar out from amongst the sandstone bricks until she realised the danger of collapse such a course of action entailed and, stretching her oxygen depleted lungs to the extremities of their cage of ribs, gave one last almighty kick to deep breath freedom. The ancient door gave a shudder on its reinforced hinges, a splintering of timber was heard and the whole thing collapsed under this last desperate onslaught.

Plausible enough thought John as he gathered the necessary cooperage tools together to restore the door to its former tongue and groove glory.

Strange thing was, the day after he'd reconstructed the door and once more eased his conspiratorial mind back into neutral the same ramshackle scene greeted his visit to admire his handy work.. Same pong, same smashed door and very similar scratchings about the foundation stones.

This all transpired last July, and I am happy to report that things remained as normal after the second resurrection of the dunny door, this time using the ancient art of arc welding and incorporating the tasteful placement pre-stressed concrete reinforcement.

Winter pruning now gave way to a spring flush of vigorous growth, and the balmy days of autumn ripened the grapes beautifully. Everything had returned to normal. The Sandy Hollow diner had lapsed into receivership and was now the subject of an Investigation of Callous Australian Cuisine (I.C.A.C) inquiry, the national economy had begun to recover. All seemed rosy in John's vineyard.

That is until last Thursday.

As the cold and wet of his July pruning habit dictates, he set cross-legged sail for the isolated reinforced colonial convenience in answer to a shout of nature. When he got there, he noticed that not only was the dunny engaged, but that the familiar waft of a year back had returned. And the noise! Amongst the seismic bangings and thumpings John could catch what sounded like a winery centrifuge at full tilt, grinding away at the foundations.

"Whoever was in there was havin' too good a time," thought John.

At that hairy moment, like the stone rolling away from the tomb, the pre-stressed door's stresses gave way and an omnipotent cloud of sand, dust, steel filings and the overpowering pong of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc erupted from the gloomy depths. There followed a squint of beady eyes, a shake of an animal coat and the bulldozer of the Australian bush sullenly headed off toward his own short-sighted horizon.

"Christian" as this particular Scwartzeneger wombat has become known has now become a bit of a celebrity round Sandy Hollow vineyards. He's been credited with burrowing through a dam wall, overturning unwary vineyard tractor drivers machines, and demolishing hundreds of meters of fence which once stood in his way.

And even if the Australian wine industry should wither on the vine, like his sacred Hollywood alter-ego, dunny door or no dunny door, one thing about Christian the Sandy Hollow wombat is for sure, and that is "he'll be back"!