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Adelaide: Picnic in the park and the Barossa Valley
Posted by daveb on January 30th, 2009
After a near constant four day drive crossing the Nullarbor from Kalgoorlie, we arrived at Adelaide. Named the city within a park for good reason: the compact central business district is flanked by parkland on all sides. We spent the first day familiarising ourselves with the city before treating each other to a posh picnic in the Botanic Gardens — after all we had been living on tinned food for the last few days!
The next day, we headed into the Barossa Valley; Australia’s premier wine region. As I had previously driven The Squifter around the Champagne region in France so she could undertake the tastings, this time it was my turn to enjoy the tipple. In addition to the biggies–Wolf Blass and Jacob’s Creek–we also stopped-in at a couple of much smaller operations to sample their wares. One tip to anyone following in our footsteps and coming to the region: don’t try to photograph the Jacob’s Creek signpost with the vineyard in the background. You’ll have to walk along a 110km/hour road to get a good spot, theirs no pavement and the trucks come awfully close to side-swiping you. I survived, but I wouldn’t do it again! There’s a professionally composed photograph in the visitors centre — take a picture of that instead!
One thing that made us giggle was the relative lack of fanfare that accompanied the tastings. In France, the server would indicate that you should “note the tones of the white fruit and enjoy with Filet Mignon and Grey Poupon*”. Whereas in Australia you’re much more likely to get “look mate, it’s a bloody good wine. Have it with friends or a pizza.” Much more our style!
* In truth, no French chateaux would ever endorse Grey Poupon mustard — it’s a US brand made with a rabbi (seriously, in a way). I just threw that in to see who is paying attention.
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7 comments »
Comments
Comment from martin
Time: January 30, 2009, 10:46 am
did the nice safe looking bank on the other side of the fence not look more appealing than risking life and limb walking up the main road? (pic 15)
Comment from Andrew Ames
Time: January 30, 2009, 2:49 pm
Well I was paying attention but I wouldn’t know Grey Poupon if it were to get up and poke me in the eye with a sharp baguette , I guess I am just a Palestine …I mean fillyistein… but wait is that not the name of a German barmaid.
Take Care ?
Comment from daveb
Time: January 31, 2009, 7:43 am
@martin: The bank only just started — and yes, I used that to escape to safety. Just out of shot is the void above Jacob’s Creek, which I can assure you was even more precarious that walking the road!
@Andrew: Truth is, I never had Grey Poupon either. I don’t even like mustard. I just heard some posh person refer to it once…
Comment from fraser n leonora murray
Time: January 31, 2009, 6:33 pm
Hi Dave,Fraser again,keep up the great work,loving you stories,what kind of camera are you using?yesterday I bought 18-200 nikon lens and hope that this will do all I need.The big rocking horse,we were up that in 2006. lovely area,how is the water situation there now?Are you still thinking about NZ,how long are you in the Adelaide area?I have some rellies there,bit old but they a great cup of tea.
How are you getting back to Perth or are you just drifting along?Tahnks for all the other info on your last email. Leonora just loved the spiders,the dolphins looked brill,can you swim with them?
Will be in touch very soon.
Take care.
Leonora n Fraser.
Comment from daveb
Time: January 31, 2009, 11:16 pm
@Leonora & Fraser:
We’re mostly shooting with a Sony H9 hybrid-type camera. I’d love a DSLR one day, but for now such a shooter with just a couple of lenses would be too much to carry around in my backpack. I’m really happy with it — click on Tanzania or India near the top-right of this page to get to the posts with the best photos (in my opinion). We also have a compact Canon IXUS 850 for wide-angle and discreet shots. Squiffy has a Pentax Optio WP for underwater shots.
In the Barossa Valley, the talk is all about another not-so-good year due to lack of rain. In fact the region is having something of a heat wave, which isn’t helping at all.
We’ve left Adelaide already (the blog posts trail reality by anything up to a fortnight) and, yes, we’re seriously considering going to New Zealand to escape this heat. I’ll publish a fuller article on that soon.
We’re not going back to Perth on this trip. We’ll sell our car in NSW or QLD and fly-on to our next adventure.
You can’t touch or swim with the dolphins at Monkey Mia. Apparently an hour or two south of Perth there’s a place called Rockingham where you can pay to swim with them. It’s still tightly controlled, but you can certainly be in the water with them.
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