Blogs from Barossa Valley, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 7

Ah… du bon vin! Après une partie de tennis et un tour sur le Jumping Pillow au Holiday Park, on a conduit en direction de la vallée Barossa, reconnue pour ses vins Shiraz. C’était une superbe journée - ensoleillée, avec un beau ciel bleu mur à mur. En chemin, on a arrêté à « The Toy Factory » et au « Whispering Wall », afin de rendre la journée plus intéressante pour Gabriel et Alizé. À la manufacture de jouets, il y avait plusieurs jouets fait en bois. The Whispering Wall est essentiellement un barrage en béton avec des propriétés acoustiques incroyables. Une simple conversation à un bout peut être clairement entendue à l’autre bout, 150 mètres plus loin! Bien sûre, on a aussi visité quelques vignobles : Gomersal Wines (où il y avait un parc ... read more

Arriving in Adelaide Day 30 October 31, 2008 Happy Halloween! They do celebrate Halloween in Australia, but doesn’t seem to be as big a deal as in the U.S. I didn’t need a costume, I looked scary enough after two days on that train. Although it was a good trip, we were ready to get off the Ghan. I had a problem sleeping last night, mainly because it was so cold and Joe didn’t do much better. The view from the train window this morning was more of the same…red dirt and rocks and scrubby plants. But as we neared Port Augusta, we saw mountains, towns, rivers, farms, ocean inlets and more kangaroos. There were miles and miles of wheatfields and it was harvest time. Our big excitement was the spotting of about 20 emus! They ... read more

Just got back from our winnery tour of the Barossa Valley and have had the best time drinking lots and lots of wine! Our tour guide from he Groovy Grape company picked us up really early (about 7.55!) and took us first to the biggest rocking horse in the world - it really was massive. We then went onto a huge dam called 'The Whispering Wall' where one person walks across to one end and the acoustics mean that you can have a conversation with someone like they were right next to you. After this our tour guide said to everybody 'Right, lets get pissed!" and took us to our first winnery at Jacob's Creek (our wine guide didn't really know anything about the wine process but knew lots of facts he'd obviously got out of ... read more

After a day looking round the city I thought it might be nice to get out into the country side, and why not kill two birds with one stone by taking in a wine tour. Edith being such a wine lover was really up for it so we set off at 9am for a full day trip. First stop in the Barossa Valley was the Wolf Blass winery. Tried about 8 different wines including an extra special one which we had to pay a further $5 to try as it cost $200 a bottle. Shortly after that we went for dinner so I decided to try Kangaroo again. Quite like it now but it is a bit more chewy than steak. After dinner we set off to a further 4 vineyards, I had been determined all ... read more

Rising early we set forth for our first official wine tour. Clover and I grew up working from time to time as wine pickers in Southern Oregon and figured it would be nice to pass through wine country viewing it from a different angle. Thus we set out to see what the entire hubbub around the Barossa Valley Shiraz was all about. Barossa Valley starts a little over an hour from Adelaide and has come to be one of Australia's most internationally recognized wine regions. This is where you’ll find Jacob’s Creek, Wolf Blass, and even Cockatoo Ridge (widely known for its Yellow Tail label). At the current moment there is approximately a 100 wine cellars (wineries that have their own label) within the Barossa Valley. In the early days this region was first offered to ... read more