After 24 hours of
flight delays (not to discourage anyone from coming to visit us), my Aunt
Jeanne and Uncle Ben arrived in Adelaide from BC, Canada. Despite the setbacks they had, they were in
good spirits and eager to go for a swim at the beach. That was actually only the 3rd time I have
ever been in the ocean, but it was really nice and warm. After that we headed home for an Australian
meal of kangaroo burgers.
The next day we went
to the Adelaide Central Market in the morning (one of my favourite places), and
since it was Chinese New Year there were people walking around in costume with
dragons and drums to celebrate. We bought
all of the ingredients for a gourmet picnic and headed to the Botanic Gardens
for lunch. A first for me was going into
the rainforest exhibit, which I mistakenly thought was the butterfly exhibit,
and we saw a cool spider but no butterflies.
While walking back to the car we ducked into the National Wine Centre of
Australia for some much needed air conditioning, but it was also a nice, free
museum about wine making in Australia.
That night with our purchases we made the best homemade green curry I've
ever had, which is exciting since we've been trying to master it for a few
years now.
Sunday January 29th
we headed to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills for a scenic drive, some wine
tastings, and a wander around the quaint German village. Turns out, though, it was the Crush Festival
that weekend so it was a lot busier than we had expected. We seem to have a knack for showing up
unaware to festivals in Adelaide! First
we went to Somerled for a fun and delicious tasting, and ended up buying some
wine (Alta, Sauvignon Blanc, 2011). Our
lunch at the German Cake Shop was disappointing, despite the delicious sounding
name and the good reviews, but we supplemented lunch with some cheese and condiment
samplings at other shops along the way.
We took the scenic route home and were lucky enough to spot a koala at
one of the viewpoints.
That evening we met
Ben and Jeanne's friend Fay for a drink and some dinner. She leant us her car for the week and is very
knowledgeable about the area, so it's always fun to see her. Upon her suggestion we bought fish and chips,
then ate them on the beach while watching the sunset.
 |
| The green hat Jeanne is wearing was a freebie from a drive through beer store. We didn't buy that brand of beer, but Fay sweet talked the young clerk and somehow we ended up with a free hat! |
On Monday we headed
to the next major wine region in the area, McLaren Vale. On the way we stopped at Seaford Beach to
watch the surfers, but proceeded to the McLaren Vale Info Centre where the gang
did their first wine tasting from 90 Mile Wines. Next was Oxenberry Farms, which was an
extensive wine tasting with a delicious lunch to follow. The wine wasn't great, but it was good
practice for the 3 tasters (I was driving and not tasting).
Wirra Wirra was the
next vineyard on the list, and one Ryan has been trying to get to since we
moved here. They have great red wines,
and Ryan even joined their wine club to
get better deals! We now have an
assorted case of red wine for whoever visits us this winter (hint hint!) After all of the wine we decided to do a beer
tasting, but Vale Ale didn't excite anyone so we went to our final destination:
Mables Chocolates!
On our last day of
playing tour guide we went to the Barossa Valley, which is the third wine
region in the area. After a short walk
through the town and into the Barossa Regional Art Gallery, we went to Maggie
Beer's Farm Shop for lunch. This was
super exciting for me because Maggie Beer is a very famous Australian woman
known for country cooking. I've seen her
on Masterchef and tried some of her recipes.
I knew there was a slight possibility that we would see her, but I
figured it was very unlikely. Turns out,
she was actually doing a photo shoot on the property that day! We didn't meet her or anything, but she was
around the whole time we were there.
Every day they do a cooking demonstration there as well, which was quite
a fun and delicious experience.
Since everyone was a
bit sick of wine, we went to the Mengler Hill Lookout and Statue Park for a
break. There we had a beautiful view
over the entire valley, and we also explored the abstract statues created by
artists from all over the world.
To end off the day,
though, we went to Jacob's Creek. It's a
brand of wine available in Canada, so we thought it would be fun to check it
out while we were in the area. The have
a bunch of wines here that aren't exported, so it was actually a better tasting
than we were expecting. We especially
liked the Moscato!
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