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Published: January 13th 2010
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Day 257 - Day trip to Hahndorf from Eden Valley
Gosh it’s warm even in the early morning at the moment. We’ve hit on the time of year where South Australia is having the temperatures ramped right up and the weather forecasters are predicting 40+ degree heat for the next few days. Needless to say we thought it would be safe to hang the washing out on the line while we were out and about today, there doesn’t seem to be much danger of rain just at the moment!
Whilst I mucked around with the blog, Darryl prepared a delicious looking picnic lunch for us to enjoy with Jacquie later on. With all of us on a travellers budget and no income we figured it’s far better to picnic than café dine although that probably won’t stop us having a coffee somewhere along the line!
We left the showground in good time to make it to Hahndorf for 10am, the journey winds its way through beautiful countryside and lovely looking towns and once there we find a nice shady spot to park the car in. The sun is already blazing down and we’re beginning to feel lucky we
did our walk in the national park yesterday as there is no way we’d be able to handle it today.
Hahndorf has a very European feel to it and a very German history having been established back in 1839 by Lutheran refugees. These new settlers literally walked up the hills from Adelaide carrying their few possessions. They then cleared the bush, planted vegetables and in time built a Lutheran church of wattle and daub with a thatched roof made from kangaroo grass. Sadly I forgot to go and look for the church during our wander so one day we’ll have to come back! Darryl seemed much more settled in the Brittania Furniture & Antique shop than he did anywhere else, perhaps it was because the owner was originally from Taunton and that’s where all the furniture & antiques are imported from! How we laughed! It was like being transported back to the bungalow in Ruardean with Nan & Grampy Kettle or the house in Devizes with Nan & Grampy Jackson or the early days of the Howells household!
I’m not sure what we were expecting today, but so far we’ve not heard one German speaking person at all
which seems a little sad really. We chatted to the lovely chap in the antiques shop but he’s a Brit, the adorable lady in the Christian Save and Share charity shop but she was from Ireland and then the cockney rebel in the glass shop. Where are all the Germans who made this town so special?
Our mobile rang and I gleefully answered it thinking it would be Jacquie but it wasn’t. It was Diane, Siggy the showground caretakers wife. We were supposed to be leaving today but had decided to stay longer, we just hadn’t shared that with Siggy yet! There were so few people on site and loads of spare pitches so we hadn’t thought it would be a problem but unfortunately Diane had just booked a couple in for a week and promised them our shady spot! Oh no! I apologised for not leaving them a message and Diane agreed to put the new comers down by the tennis courts so we could stay where we were. Phewie!!
We continued our wandering which eventually took us to Udder Delights for a coffee a milkshake and a bit of structured cheese tasting. The tasting assistant told
me off a bit, in a practised beautiful way, for helping myself to the cheese. Admittedly the next piece she offered me was significantly smaller than the healthy slice I’d offered myself!
And then she was here, the lovely Jacquie. She’s looking wonderful for all her travelling and farm sitting and it was just great to see her. We chatted for a bit over a coffee and a milkshake then thought we might aswel go to the park for lunch.
Bless her she bought us pressies! Three dozen eggs and a Christmas cake! Good on you Jacquie, of course there’s a story behind them both. The eggs are from the chooks where she’s house sitting at the moment, they just won’t stop laying and Jacquie can’t consume the quantity being supplied and the Christmas cake was made by her cousin Lyndal (who Jacquie is house sitting for) and they are in plentiful supply too! Thank you very much for the pressies mate, gratefully received and soon to be game fully enjoyed!
We spent a great couple of hours sharing our different experiences from being on the road. You can read all about Jacquie’s adventures on her
blog her
pictures are great and the way she tells her story is fabulous. It’s tough travelling on your own, very different from sharing all the duties so we think good on her for doing it all. She’s been around the top end, through Cooper Pedy where there are mine shafts just waiting for you to trip up, she’s been told off by a ranger at Devils Marbles for giving water to a pigeon and parking the Delica inside a shade sheltered to get out of the heat and then there was the time she went all the way to Berry Springs outside Darwin for a swim only to find it was closed due to the discovery of a 4.7 metre saltwater croc in the waters!! We delight in telling her how much we think she will love Western Australia with all the marine life activities it has to offer. We became water babies coming down the west coast and just loved all the snorkelling around Ningaloo Reef, Coral Bay and Quobba. Totally magnificent.
In all too short a time we have to make a move but it’s been terrific to catch up and there’s every chance we’ll spend some time
together tomorrow so it’s not the big goodbye just yet!
We had to get going because we’d arranged to meet Russ at Wolf Blass, it was so good of him to offer to take us around that the last thing we wanted to do was keep him waiting. Unfortunately Tom Tom didn’t help us in our quest much when it took us to the vineyards rather than the winery. Admittedly there is an element of human intervention here but if there’s blame to be laid then the GPS cops it every time.
Our tour around Wolf Blass was excellent. It’s an absolutely huge winery and we’re walking around for a good hour covering the various aspects of the business. The open fermentation housing is state of the art as is the very impressive packaging centre they have on site too. The automated warehouse is quite haunting with the technology controlled putaway and picking operation. It makes for tight and towering stacks of racking, something only possible when there is no human risk to calculate. Thanks very much to Russ for sharing his valuable time with us, we really appreciate it and thoroughly enjoyed our trip into the world
of wine making.
And so to the end of another day. A quick visit to the toilet, with the camera, gave me a friendly chat with the resident red back spider who is still living under the U bend. I suspect he’ll be finding a new home tomorrow once I’ve alerted caretaker Siggy, a red back on the toilet seat is a bit too close for comfort!
Night all
Dar and Sar
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Jan Kettle
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Prost - ein toast!!
We enjoyed Wolf Blass wine this Christmas (actually we like it anytime of the year!). We visited Hahndorf a few times while we were staying in Adelaide and went especially to see the Christmas lights on one occassion. xxx Mum K