Charlotte Varcoe
SOUTH Australian celebrity Andrew “Cosi” Costello is in Mount Gambier this week, filming for his popular television show South Aussie with Cosi.
Travelling to the region on Wednesday, Mr Costello spent four days filming across the South East focusing on popular tourist destinations such as the Blue Lake, Little Blue swimming hole and Umpherston Sinkhole and visiting local businesses such as Mayura Station and Coonawarra cellar doors.
Mayura Station head chef and manager Mark Wright said he was happy Mr Costello was visiting the popular tasting room for a second time in a number of years.
“We are so happy he is coming back to the business and promoting the region,” Mr Wright said.
“We were fortunate enough to have Cosi here a few years ago when he visited the restaurant and did a segment and to this day we still have customers coming through citing the show and saying that is how they found out about us.”
Looking forward to a potential influx of visitors and a slow-burn of customers as a result of the show Mr Wright said the region would also benefit from the exposure.
“We will definitely see immediate short-term uptakes in bookings because that is what happened last time but we are also expecting a good slow-burn of people who did see the show and put us on their bucket list,” he said.
“The other thing with South Aussie with Cosi is there are sometimes repeats of previous shows so we do recognise the long-term effects from the visit.”
Labelling Mr Costello as “easy to get along with” and a “great ambassador” for South Australia, Mr Wright said he looked forward to hosting the television personality in the tasting room today.
“We will grill a few steaks for him and have a chat about the tasting room as well as our Mayura Farm,” he said.
Speaking with The Border Watch, Mr Costello said he and his production team try to visit the South East as often as possible to showcase the area.
“We pretty much visit every region of South Australia and last time we were in the South East was when one of the Covid-19 lockdowns happened,” Mr Costello said.
“We were filming and got told that we had to be back home by midnight to make the curfew so we finished the filming and raced back to Adelaide.”
He said despite the rush from his last visit, Mr Costello was looking forward to spending a few days exploring the area.
“We are looking forward to filming a whole bunch of different things around the region including the Blue Lake, Little Blue and a number of businesses,” he said.
“We will also be filming the forests around Mount Gambier because I really like the forests and I want to encourage more people to go for walks through here and explore it.”
Mr Costello also commented on the farmland across the region calling it “beautiful”.
“I love farmland and all of the farmland in the South East is so beautiful and I think Mount Gambier and the South East are very lucky because you also have the Coonawarra area and all the wineries too,” he said.
“There is an amazing stretch of coastline as well and it all accumulates.”
The episode featuring the South East is scheduled to air next month.
