Blogs from Clare, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 2

No Comments on the blog ! fantastic, Trish and I do not have to respond , more time to sit on the beach...anyway ..back to the blog ! After a great free camp at Tarlee, we headed further north on the Barrier Hwy passing through the town of Riverton where the local community have preserved many of the significant old heritage buildings. Next was Saddleworth, settled and named after "Saddleworth Lodge" in Yorkshire by pastoralist James Masters. This town, like many others, also enjoyed the copper mining boom. We then headed across to the Clare Valley 'proper' via Auburn. It was initially named Tatehams Waterhole in 1849 after the towns first settler, William of Tateham, who reputedly lived in a dugout on the north side of the river. Maybe all this living in holes in the ... read more

Today started in confusion as we tried to leave the Apartment car park. We had paid the bill and handed over the garage door opener and lift security key and were in the underground car park unable to open the door or get back up to reception - quite a challenge. Once we got out we got lost trying to fight the one way street system of Adelaide to get on to the Main North Road heading up the Clare Valley. This is a wine growing district near the Barossa Valley but quite independent. We stopped for lunch at Clare before travelling on through Wilmington (not in Sussex) and then to Quorm and the Pitchie Ritchie Park accommodation. We could not find the owner so raided the office to get a key and let ourselves into ... read more

The grand finale to the 30th birthday celebration took place in the glorious wine regions of McLaren Vale, Clare Valley and Barossa Valley. Although neither Sidd nor I consider ourselves to be serious wine connoisseurs, we love sampling new wines and learning as much as we can about the different grapes and the wine-making process. Visiting wine regions is an annual adventure for us - our honeymoon was spent in Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley and our first year anniversary was a trip to Kelowna for a wine festival. Although some of the locals said that the state of South Australia gets overlooked by tourists, for us it only made sense that our first big trip would be to the wine regions of Australia. McLaren Vale is south of Adelaide and we spent a day there ... read more

The little town of Burra took my fancy.Lots of beautiful old stone buildings and houses all restored to original condition. The town began in 1847 when copper was discovered in the Burra creek, which we camped on. We did the heritage trail of the mine and had a Fab Friday night bootscooting at the Burra Hotel. Taught the locals a few new moves! Kris and I left the kids at camp and drove to Clare Valley, stopped at a few wineries, art galleries and saw the catch of the local fox hunters. We drove onto Adelaide and went to the Central Markets in the city, where we bought some salami called 'Bum Burners' we are yet to find out if they work. Drove on into the Adelaide Hill to the worlds largest Rocking Horse, 6 stories ... read more

Hello there everyone! Well...if you've been wondering where on earth we've been for the last couple of weeks - we've been out in the bush - experiencing the 'Real Australia'! We have been lucky enough to have been put up and looked after and thoroughly spoiled by Mike and Belinda - some friends we met on our tour of India, who live in a tiny community in the outback and run the primary school there. Its one of the smallest schools in New South Wales, with only 6 kids! They are such lovely children though, and very excited to meet real 'Poms' and interrogated us about soccer, snow and if there are any sheep in England!!! The kids all live on remote sheep stations in the area, which occupy huge amounts of land - anything up ... read more