Barrossa Valley - wine country- south australiao

Hello everyone,  Matt here...

Hope you are all fine and dandy, we are currently sat up in the local library in North Adelaide,   after a really top sightseeing walk through the city today, soaking up all the views of the  wonderful buildings -old and new.

We also visited the Adelaide Art Gallery and caught the free buses that run you all around the city CBD, I must say the Adelaide CBD does resemble the Melbourne CBD, even down to a tram that runs out to Glenelg (a beachside suburb of Adelaide).

We have not had a chance to download the photos from the last couple of days and will endeavour to put them on our next blog, along with our drive through the Adelaide Hills and surrounds.

From our last blog, we drove about 1-2 hours south from Clare to the Barossa Valley.

As you can see from one of the the pics below, we spent our first night smack bang in the middle of the vineyards at an information booth car park! (the Barrossa really lacked any free rest areas)...

We woke up early (6.30am) with the sounds of hot air balloons flying nearby and as we stepped outside the van and into the sun rising over the fields of grapes, we could see in the distance two huge hot air balloons taking people on a scenic ride.

After watching the balloons fade off into the distance we decided to "get the hell outta there" and make a beeline for the nearest cafe (Rumours in Tanunda) to grab some brekkie before hitting the vineyards for some wine tasting.

Barrossa Valley SA 13.11.10 - Hot air balloon = alarm clock!

Barrossa Valley ; Looking out over the valley; cold wind and 17C!

this stretch pink Hummer was parked at one of the wineries  - it takes tour groups around the valley; cool...Louise wanted one of these...

Sun 14.11.10 - this peacock was at Maggie Beer's shop and kitchen; If you watched the show "the cook and the chef" this is where it was filmed (see below).

That painting of Maggie and Simon on the left wall, was in the Archibald Prize 2009 (at the Art Gallery of NSW) and we voted for that one for the peoples choice prize;  Not sure if it won; but its a really great painting of the two of them.   Those stools are for a cooking demo that takes place most days,  we didn't stay to see it as we wanted to get out and about and do some wine tasting.

And speaking of wine tasting we were shocked to find that the Two Hands vineyard and the Seppelts vineyard both wanted to charge us $5.00 each to taste the wine produced there!  We voted with our feet and found other wineries that did NOT charge and made our purchases after our free tastes;  As my old grandad used to say 'they're taking the piss...'

The one interesting thing we meant to take a photo of in the town of Tununda was outside the police station;  No, not a cop looking for drunk drivers, but instead of having an A frame sign reading 'Cellar door open' which are everywhere outside wineries here, the local cops, having a sense of humour, had one reading  'Cell door open' complete with the police insignia!   I assume this was to deter people from being over the limit?  It gave us a good laugh anyway...

time to end now as Louise wants to get going and find somewhere to bunker down for tonight;  More of our adventures soon;

Love to all;  Louise & Matt xxx

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