Blogs from Barossa Valley, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 3

We had a wonderful day of wine tasting in the picturesque Barossa Valley. Paul, home now from Brisbane, drove me, Tracy, and Lesley around the countryside. Despite the rainy weather, we managed to visit 6 out of 130 vinyards in the valley. Paul was such a good sport as our DD and photographer. He was excited to have the opportunity to drive his new car as you will see in the photos. We also had cake and coffee in Lyndoch and lunch at Blond Cafe in Anguston. Thank you, Lesley for taking the day off work to be with us and for your research and planning. Thanks Paul and Tracy for another day of fun in the trip of a lifetime!... read more

Today is the day we part company with Faye and Neil, very sad as we have had such a really great time together, lots of laughs and lots of drinking (both Coffee and Alcohol!). After packing up we left Mt Barker and travelled to Woodside, another pretty town in the hills. This was to be our final coffee before Faye and Neil headed across to Mannum and we continued North up the Barossa. Leaving Woodside we travelled via Lobethal to the Eden Valley. Along the way we went through Mt Torrens, Birdwood and Mt Pleasant before coming to Springton and the Herbig Tree. The earliest known european settler that settled in Springton Friedrich Herbig lived in a hollowed out red gum which still stands in the main street. Herbig was a German tailor and he arrived ... read more

Day six. On the road again. After a slow start this morning, due to phone calls to Authorised Service Agents in Victoria, Adelaide, Whyalla, and Alice Springs trying to track down a replacement part for the fridge (yes, still the fridge) we left Mildura heading towards Adelaide. A pleasant drive, although I think I had my eyes closed for a fair bit of it. The sun is very bright. We stopped for lunch at a roadside rest stop and were absolutely appalled by the amount of rubbish left there. Admittedly, there were no rubbish bins, but really, if you can carry the rubbish there, surely you can take it away with you. Somebody had even dumped a bag full of make-up. (Nothing in my colours.) We prepared for the next stage of our trip by doing ... read more

2 April 2011 Hello All! A week ago, on what we thought would be our last evening in the Barossa, we sat on the lawns of a lovely little family-owned winery and listened to live, local, acoustic music while eating our picnic dinner. It was lovely! But... we are still here in the Barossa!! Do you remember mention of grape-picking in my last entry? Well, fools that we are, we did it!! We have just finished a week of hard physical work and are both a size 8 now! We saw an ad. for grape-pickers and phoned. The immediate response was, "You're hired". That was the easiest job interview I've ever had! After I expressed concern about whether we would manage with our "nurses' backs", he said he give anyone a go. Good, anyone was us! ... read more

Barossa Valley Having based ourselves at one of Australia's largest wine producers for a few days, we decided we'd better comence some wine tastings and explore the beauty of the Barossa Valley. McGuigans, Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Saltram each provided moscato, shiraz and tawny ports which impressed our taste buds. We made a quick stop in Angaston to sample some of the local cheeses at Barossa Valley Cheese Company - finding the 'prince' goat cheese absolutely delishous! Angaston butcher made some very appetizing salami for happy hour later on, and we headed to Mengler Hill to check out the view over Tanunda, Angaston and Lyndoch. Afternoon tastings included Chateau Tanunda (which had a rather exclusive VIP tastings room), and Jacobs Creek was our final tasting for the day. Barossa Valley Farmers Market was on Saturday morning ... read more