Barossa Valley

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Hi,

I've been quite busy over the past three days but now I have my final day in Adelaide for a bit of R and R before going to Alice Springs.

The day after my last update I took a day trip to the Barossa Valley, which is where a large amount of Australia's wine is produced. After the pickup from outside the hostel we drove out of Adelaide through the very scenic, almost European looking countryside of the Adelaide Hills and onto the Barossa Valley. It was quite strange to look at, being all green hills and trees- it seemed almost familiar but with the distinctively Australian Eucalyptus trees lending it a slightly off-kilter atmosphere. It was a bit like the almost but not quite realistic looking human features that modern CGI can produce- the 'uncanny valley' effect.

En route to the first of 4 wineries visited we had an all too brief stop at Birdwood to have a quick peek at the 'Big Rocking Horse', an example of of Australia's apparent love of over-sized kitschy 'stuff'. Being firmly fixed to the ground, I would debate whether it counts as a rocking horse at all though.

Well after that we got to the Wolf Blass winery which is one of the big ones, where basically we tasted some wine. This was all good by me! All the wine buffs were no doubt appreciating the talk by the tour guide and the person at the winery about all the complexities of flavour and whatever, but since I basically know that there is red, white and rose wine, it all went a bit over my head. It was also at this point that I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't have gotten to bed bed four hours before it was time to get up for the tour. The combination of heat, too little sleep and ever increasing quantities of alcohol from 10am meant that I spent much of the day in a slight haze! Oh well, I brought it on myself.

I did take the opportunity to answer one question I've had for a while- can I tell the difference between cheap plonk and a really good wine? There was the option of paying 10 aussie dollars to have a glass of their best wine (retails at 185 aussies dollars per bottle), so I had some. It was perfectly nice... but not so much nicer than normal wine. I guess I'm just not that refined.

We then had lunch (nice rare kangaroo steak with mash). There were three more smaller wineries after that. In fairness the pattern was much the same- go there and taste some wine. In the interests of moderation after the first winery I generally stuck to trying the whites and roses only.

A couple of other things during the day- an really good view of the Barossa Valley from Mengler's Hill Lookout, and the deeply odd Whispering Wall- a dam wall where the acoustics are just right so that one person whispering something at one end can be clearly heard at the other about 150m away. It really was a surreal experience.

But anyway, that's enough waffling, on to the next couple of days.

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Photos

Giant Rocking Horse
See... it's stuck! It can't rock at all!

Whispering Wall
From where I took the photo, the people in the distance could hear me talking normally

View from Mengler's Hill Lookout
It's all green and European