After spending 12
days at work, Ryan and I were really looking forward to our break last week
because it meant the arrival of Ryan's mom Susan and his brother Bryce. One year into our stay in Australia, it was
amazing to see some more friendly faces.
Susan and Bryce had already spent a week in Australia, so they were over their jet lag and settled in pretty well. I arrived home first at 6pm, and spent the next hour catching up and waiting for Ryan to get
home. By 7:30pm when he arrived, we were
all peering out the window eagerly watching for his taxi. A few hugs later, we promptly headed to
Justin and Kelsey's for dinner.
As usual, dinner
with them was amazing. They always outdo
themselves with the food, wine, and company, and this time was no
exception. Picture an entrée of pork
belly and crackling, a main of Spanish paella filled with mussels, shrimp,
pork, veggies, and a million other things, and homemade macaroons for
dessert. All of this accompanied by
various wines from South Australia. How
are we so lucky to have friends like this?!
Content, we all stumbled home at 11:30pm.
The next morning I
was happy to be back in my own kitchen and got right into cooking a delicious
breakfast of blueberry muffins, beef fillets, eggs, grilled veggies, and
fresh fruit. (For those of you aware of
our new food philosophy, breakfast is by far the best improvement!) I also managed to get a short skype chat in
with my family, and quickly packed for our camping adventure. Susan and Bryce were interested in seeing the
Australian Outback, so we decided to take them to the Flinders Ranges. They're about a 6 hour drive north of
Adelaide, through 2 wine regions, and we hadn't been there before, so we
thought it would be the perfect 5-day trip.
The adventure began
with picking up our MASSIVE campervan at 10:30am.
This beast had 3
double beds, 2 eating areas, tons of storage space, a 3 burner stove, a
bathroom (that technically had a shower), and even had a kitchen sink. It was so complicated that we had to watch a
half hour video before we could leave the rental office. The only downside was that it was a standard,
not automatic, which made for an interesting start to the trip. I opted to drive since I get quite carsick,
but I felt sorry for the passengers in the back. It was pretty scary to drive it through town
to the grocery store and back to the house, but once we got it packed up and
got on the highway it wasn't that bad.
Since we didn't
leave town until about 2:30 we decided to spend the night in the Barossa
Valley, only one hour north of Adelaide.
Lucky for us it is a wonderful wine region! We stopped first at Charles Melton - a winery
known for red wine. It was beautiful with a nice hot fireplace and two quiet Dalmatians, but Ryan and Susan fell in
love with their delicious wines. They
each ended up buying a Grains of Paradise 2009 Shiraz, which was the most
expensive wine we've ever bought. I of
course didn't try it since I was the driver, but I still managed to back us
into a ditch on the way out. Without
hitting any vines (though it was too close for comfort), and with lots of
guidance, I eventually got us unstuck.
Next, we drove 500m
down the road to Rockfords. I had been
there before with Justin, but it was a first for Ryan. It's a nice old place, also with a fireplace,
and of course the wine there is also awesome.
Collectively we
managed to buy a case of delicious wine and a few mustards and jams, and then
we were on our way to our campsite in Nuriootpa. Our campsite was nothing fancy, but we were
excited to set up the van, crack open the wine, and play some board games. After a delicious stir-fry for dinner though, everyone was so exhausted and wined-out that we all gladly went to bed
early.
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