Work life balance?

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Well, we definitely seemed to have tipped the scales much more in one direction than the other since the last few weeks in Adelaide have consisted of a whole lot of work for both of us. But it wasn't so bad (although the one week of almost 80 hours was a bit much)... And really how often in the last almost 4 years have we had to say that?! At least our location was good, our apartment was really nice, we are not in different cities, and the weather has been not to bad at all for nearing the end of winter with mostly sunny days, and the odd sprinkle here and there.

We did manage to have Sundays off, or mostly off anyways. One Sunday we finally managed sneak off and we headed towards the Barossa Valley wine region which is home to around 150 wineries and a huge amount of well known wineries like Jacob's Creek, Yalumba, Penfolds, Peter Lehmann, Wolf Blass and Saltram, as well as smaller boutique wineries. Since we only had a day, and not alot of time to research we decided to start at Jacob's Creek, and then have lunch and then go to another couple on the way back home. Probably not the funnest day for Brett who was the designated driver or skipper, but it was a really beautiful area and some really good wines to wet the pallette with, although they didn't let us try the famous Penfold's Grange that starts at around $800 a bottle depending on the vintage, (not that we thought they would), but they did sneak me a tasting of a $200 bottle of Cab Sav that was quite nice. But then again the $20 bottle tasted pretty good as well. It was a fun day and glad we got to check out this wine regopn, we couldn't get over the amount of wineries around every corner, and all located about 60 km northeast of city. Their is also a big wine region in the Adelaide Hills and also the Maclaren Vale area, not sure if we will have time for all this though.

On another Sunday, we had a few hours we could spare from not working and went to check out Ethelton which is only about 10 minutes from us but an old port area and where you can (hopefully) see some of the dolphins that live in the Port River , which they say is the furthest inland and closest to a major city that any dolphins live. We lucked out and managed to spot a few dolphins right away jumping around in the river, and you could do a cruise for $6, but no need since you can see them right from the wharf!

The last Sunday we were there we decided to take a drive down to Victor Harbour which is about 80km south of Adelaide and takes you through the Maclaren Vale wine region, but we were a bit wine'd out (and on a tight schedule so I could get back for a few hours work) so didn't stop at any wineries. Next time... Victor Harbour was a nice little beach area that is one of the areas around Adelaide that has surf and is a really popular summer holiday destination. We didn't really do a whole lot here though, had a quick look around, had lunch and then it was back to the grind...

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