Clare to Adelaide

Day 294

Monday morning, time to move on and to wish the Clare valley a fond farewell. We have very much enjoyed our time here and would definitely recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in South Australia. Pastures new though and we head just a short drive away to our next and perhaps most famous of the South Australian wine regions, the Barossa valley.

Head for the heart of the valley and the town of Tanunda, where after the obligatory lap of the town and stop at the visitors information we check into the caravan park and set up. Much like McLaren vale there isn’t a dedicated cycle route to any of the cellar doors here so armed with a map we jump on the bikes and head off to make our own ‘Carmen and Richard’s spectacular Barossa valley cycling wonderland!’.

First stop and just up the road from the caravan park is Turkey flat vineyards and after saying hello to the friendly dog in the front yard we park up and taste a few of their wines (good reds, particularly the Grenache).

A bit further up the road and over several hills we come to Villa Tinto wines which is a small family owned and run place (Small but a good range).

A stone’s throw away is Rockford wines with a lovely cellar door surrounded by the (working) historic winery, a popular place too as the tasting room is packed and there seems to be a steady stream of people arriving and leaving the whole time we are there (nice range of wines, expensive).

Onto the last winery of the day, Charles Melton wines. We both get the impression this is going to be expensive as we are ushered into the tasting room and offered a seat whilst we conduct the tasting! (Really enjoyed the reds, too expensive)

Final stop of the day is the Barossa brewing company, literally over the road from the caravan park and is a microbrewery (we’ve had enough wine for the day). We order a tasting plate each to try the range and it comes as a bit of a shock when we have to pay for it! (In case we hadn’t explained all the wine tastings are free but there is an obvious air of expectation that you will end up buying something). The beers are nice but nothing out of the ordinary and we return to the caravan park where we pretty much collapse into bed.

Day 295

A lovely sunny day and a great chance to try something new.

But instead of that we are off on the bikes tasting wine again! (it’s a hard life sometimes)

There are a quite a few big names in wine in the Barossa (Penfolds, Jacobs creek, Peter Lehmann) but most of them are far out of town and so we plump for the closest one, Peter Lehman for our first stop of the day. With a huge range of wines and a visitors/tasting centre you know when you arrive that this is the big corporate end of the wine industry. The tasting room was nice though and the staff were very helpful and after tasting 14 (or so) wines we decide that we better push on or we’ll be here for the whole day.

Carmen, having tasted 14 or so wines before lunch! 

Next door is Richmond grove with a lovely cellar door in the building that is on the label! (Good Riesling from the Clare valley and classic Shiraz).

Last stop of the day for us is Chateau Tanunda and as we are working our way through tasting their wines another local winemaker from God’s hill wines comes in with some new stock for their cellar door. We get chatting to him and he offers us some of his wine to taste, which turns out to be the best Shiraz of the day (so good we come away with a bottle).

Tasting complete for the day we head back to camp Polly and prepare to move on in the morning.

Day 296

First stop of the day on our way back into Adelaide is to give Polly a bath. We park her up, take off the bikes and get out the high pressure hose and soapy broom and give her a good scrubbing.  She comes up looking like a million dollars and I think we turn a few heads as we leave town and hit the highway.

Only about an hour’s drive back into Adelaide and we return to the city caravan park and are given exactly the same spot as before! Just as we have finished setting up the sky turns black and the heavens open. It’s quite a downpour and it continues for the rest of the afternoon, finally stopping just as it’s time to go to bed.

Day 297

Up early today as Polly is in for a service (already done 10k since Perth!), we find the garage easily enough and hang around whilst it is done. All goes smoothly and we are straight on to our next appointment of the day to get Polly some new shoes. They fit the (2) new tyres and balance them up and we are done. As we drive back to the campsite we are definitely turning heads now!

The main reason we came back into Adelaide was to go to the Fringe festival and so we spend the afternoon looking through the programme (there are hundreds of acts) and head down to Rundle park in the evening which houses the main tent venues for the festival.

We enter ‘the garden of unearthly delights’ and have already booked tickets to see comedian Mike Wilmott in ‘the hunting lodge’ so we grab a beer and have a have a look around at all of the other stages and acts that are performing. Mike is a funny, drunk Canadian with some excellent jokes and we both thoroughly enjoy his routine and look forward to coming back to the festival again tomorrow night.

Day 298

A spending spree in Adelaide today. We gave ourselves each $100 from our grape picking earnings and planned to paint the town red with it. We could feel the cash burning a hole in our pockets and so within 5 minutes Carmen had blown all of hers on lotions and potions and I had brought a new game and a haircut and so we returned to the campsite not having painted the town at all (let alone red).

Out to the fringe festival in the evening and back to ‘the garden of unearthly delights’ again.

We hadn’t booked anything tonight and so were winging it. Stopped at one of the smaller stages in the ‘Castello tent’ and saw ‘The amazing Dave’ do his (impressive) unicycle juggling act.  Next up we went back to ‘the hunting lodge’ to see Tom Gleeson do a funny stand-up routine and then we saw a Danish production called ‘levelless’ about the CERN particle accelerator, which was actually very good and was in a strange theatre where you sit at the bottom and the raked floor is the stage.

What a great evening out!

Day 299

Pack up first thing and after filling up with petrol we set the TomTom for Robe, a couple of hours drive away. Less than 2km from the campsite (and entering one of Adelaide’s major roundabouts) there is a loud crunch, a high pitched wailing sound and the van grinds to a halt. I know straight away that the clutch is gone and we are stuck in gear!

“Bugger” (or words to that effect)

Luckily workmen are digging up the road (I never thought I would say that!) and they help us push Polly across the roundabout and into a pub car park where we wait for the RAA man (Note to self: Remember to renew the roadside assistance). The RAA man arrives, we explain the problem and the long and short of it is we are towed back to the caravan park (and the same spot again!) for the weekend and have to get another tow first thing Monday morning to a local garage for them to have a look at it!

What a sad sight.

So we unpack everything again, put up the tent and spend the rest of the afternoon discussing what the problem could be and how much it might cost to fix (us both being mechanics and all).

Day 300

Decide to make the most of being stranded in Adelaide for the weekend and take a lovely sunny Sunday stroll through the botanic gardens. Come across the largest single span greenhouse in the world, the ‘Herbarium’ and continue walking through rose gardens, a water Lilly pond and a museum where we find a very tasty looking apple.

Decide to call in to the National wine centre, which happens to be on the edge of the park.

The building is nice enough and they have quite a good wine education area but it all seemed a bit closed and we didn’t hang about for too long and stoped in for a pub lunch at ‘The Hackney’, just off Oxford Street on the way home!

Spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing and preparing for our early date with the mechanic in the morning.