Our next stop on our South Australian tour was the Barossa Valley - one of Australia's best known (and best regarded) wine regions. We have missed wine tasting since we moved from California, so the Barossa was a very nice treat. For reference, the Barossa Valley is about 50 miles northeast of Adelaide.
We stayed at another bed and breakfast. The only bad thing about staying at B&Bs is that now our expectations are set too high for future trips! This B&B was just outside of one of the little towns in the Barossa up a gravel road and situated on 15 acres of private wooded land. Here is a little picture from our first evening.
We spent three nights and four days in the Barossa, and the weather was beautiful pretty much the entire time. We visited a total of 15 wineries over the course of our stay.
Most of the wineries had elaborate properties - it reminded us somewhat of the Napa Valley.
Down the hill from where we stayed was a reservoir and dam that is referred to locally as the “whispering wall”. The ladies at our B&B told us about it, and we checked it out. Through some accidental feat of engineering, the dam wall is built so that a person at can “whisper” from one end and the sound is carried perfectly along the wall to the other end where those gathered can hear you clearly. It was quite interesting.
The valley happened to be celebrating the “Vintage Festival” while we were in town. There were several art shows as well as cheese and wine pairings (the food-related events were our personal favorite!)
All the towns along the Barossa were quant and beautiful. Unfortunately, they also strongly enforce speeding laws. The town nearest our accommodation used an unmarked police car as a mobile speed-camera. As we passed through town on our first evening, there was a bright flash as I drove by. I was “gutted” (as the Aussies would say).
I was even more gutted when it happened in the exact same place the next day. On the third day, I drove 10 kph under the speed limit all the way through town. As we passed, I commented to Kristi that I was relieved to get through town without another ticket. I must have been feeling a little too relieved, however - just on the other side of town I was blinded by yet another flash! Unbelievable.
I don’t really like it when people make excuses as to why they shouldn’t have gotten tickets…. BUT, I would like to reiterate my frustrations about Aussie speed enforcement: (1) the speed limits here are crazy low (ie, 48 mph on the freeway!) and (2) the speed cameras, which are everywhere, only allow a 1.8 mile-per-hour margin of error (3 kph)!!!! I find it maddening.
The good news is, it has now been several weeks since our visit and no tickets have arrived yet. So, all’s well that ends well I guess!
The picture below is at a little look-out just outside the valley. We actually stopped by here during one of our evenings and did some star-gazing. I mentioned before that there are several signs that we are becoming accustomed to life down under. Here is another: we now look up at the night sky and can spot the Southern Cross constellation as easily as we once spotted the Big Dipper. (We see different stars now that we are on the bottom side of the Earth.) I do kind of miss the Big Dipper though – weird, huh?
The very last winery we visited was one of our favorites. It’s called Seppeltsfield, and is one of the oldest in the region. They specialise in fortified wines, and we particularly liked their Torquays and Sherries. I had never tried anything like them before. Apparently, Australia is somewhat famous for these types of wine. We bought a bottle of Torquay that tastes like sweet iced tea. It sounds random, I know. But it actually is delicious.
Of course, after purchasing a bottle at pretty much every winery we went to, we remembered that we had to fly home and we hadn’t allowed for any extra luggage space. Plus, the airlines now are very strict on weight limits (they actually don’t mind if your bags are overweight – in fact, they are happy to charge or the privilege!). We originally considered finagling the carry-on rules to try to get everything on board, but we quickly decided that wasn’t a good idea. So, we ended up shipping our wine home. That worked out well – in fact, our wine actually got home before us!
So we very much enjoyed our Barossa trip, and our wine rack is now full again for the first time since moving to Australia. Our last stop on our South Australia tour was probably our favorite – part four is coming soon!
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