Adelaide June 5-8 2009

This past weekend was a LOOONG weekend as Australia celebrated the Queen's Birthday.  With an extra day off I headed to Adelaide, South Australia.  The original plan was to spend two days on Kangaroo Island but because of the cold and rain I scrapped that plan and spent my time hanging around Adelaide.

I arrived late Friday night and settled in.  On  Saturday morning I was up early enough to do a bit of a run (again just a little over 10 km) around the outer terraces of Adelaide.  Adelaide's CBD (Central Business District)  is surrounded by North, East, West, and South Terraces and so I ran around the CBD. It was a good way to get my bearings (I actually thought I was heading west until I hit the first terrace sign that let me know I was heading east).  Most of the CBD is surrounded by park land so by running the terraces I was able to see all of these parks.  

After a quick shower I headed off on foot to discover Adelaide's CBD.  My first stop was the Adelaide market.  I have to say I was very impressed with this market.  The food looked so good that I ended up buying some bread, meat, fruit and vegetables.  I had an excellent lunch.  

From the market I walked around a bit more and ended up outside Haigh's chocolate on King William and Rundle Mall.  I've had some of their chocolate in Melbourne and I must say it's very tasty.  From there I made my was onto Rundle Mall.  It's the main CBD shopping district.  I had no desire to shop though so I headed to the tourist information booth.  I spoke with someone for a while.  I was hoping to get to a Haigh's chocolate factory tour but the last one of the day was already booked.  The lady suggested I do a walking tour of the public art and buildings around town.  She also suggested I hop the tram and head to Glenelg a suburb on the water. Since I had already run past many of the buildings she mentioned I hoped the tram down to Glenelg.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't great (think WET) but I enjoyed seeing a bit more of Adelaide by tram and I liked walking around Glenelg.  The tram that was in Glenelg when I was ready to go back to Adelaide was an old fashion tram and it was pretty cool to ride on it.

Looking back at Glenelg from the jetty.

Inside the old tram that I rode back to Adelaide in.

The old tram from the outside.

Sunday morning I was up early for my day tour to the Borassa Valley.  The problem with being on your own is that you can really only do wine tasting with a tour because you can't drive and taste at the same time.  I looked at a few tours but when it came time to book there was only one that had space for me.  Unfortunately it was my third choice.  

I was picked up at 7:50 am and after all the pick ups we (the 12 of us plus the driver) headed through the Adelaide hills to our first stop in Gumeracha, the home of  largest rocking house in the world.  I felt like a total tourist stopping here but it was also a chance to get some breakfast for those that hadn't eaten yet.  (Food in the stomach was a prerequisite for wine tasting).

The world's largest rocking house 

(If you look carefully you can see a regular sized rocking horse in the background.)

This sign was at the rocking horse.  See how far away from home I was!

My view from the FRONT window of the mini bus.

Our next stop was at the Borassa Dam which is also known as the whispering wall.  It was pretty cool actually.  Half the group stayed on one end of the wall while the rest of us walked across the dam.  We then whispered into the wall and we heard one another even though we were over 100 m apart.  It sounded like we were using microphones but we weren't. It was pretty cool, and the views around the dam weren't too bad either.

Borassa Dam 

(A.K.A. Whispering Wall)

From the whispering wall we were off to the wineries.  Our first stop was at Jacob's Creek.  What I learned is that Jacob's Creek is just a label name for a winery called Orlando (and it like many of the wineries in Australia isn't owned by an Australian).  It's a huge company shipping wine all over the world.  I can't say that I love their wine (which is one of the reason's why this wine tour wasn't my first pick) but the man that gave us our tour was very informative.  

The wines tasted at Jacob's Creek

A small glimps of  Jacob's Creek's Vineyard.

Our next stop was at VineCrest a boutique winery.  I really enjoyed their wine and ended up buying a bottle of their Merlot (the middle bottle in the photo below).  The lady who did the wine tasting for us here was excellent too.

Wines sampled at VineCrest

From VineCrest we headed to Richmond Grove for more tasting.  At Richmond Grove we were treated to a behind the scenes tour.  We learned about the barrels, the underground storage of wine, the huge vats , the press and many other things.  The wine was quite nice too but one of the people in the group told me that it's available at Dan Murphy's so I didn't buy any.  It was good wine though so I'll have to look for it here in Melbourne.  

The wine I sampled at Richmond Grove

From Richmond Grove the agenda said that we would be having a bar-b-q lunch but the weather was so lousy so a restaurant lunch instead.  Lunch was uneventful but I think everyone was happy with what they had.

After lunch we headed to our final winery of the day - Seppeltsfield.  Seppeltsfield is a very very old winery and so we were told a lot of history.  They also have some very old tawny (Port but since they are not in portugal it is called tawny instead).  We saw a bottle that was bottled in 1909 and was for sale for $1000!  For $50 we could have had a sample but no one took up the offer.  We did try some 20 year old tawny though.

Seppeltfield Wines

Seppeltfield Winery

Seppeltfield Wine Barrels

Seppeltfield was our last winery of the day.  We then headed to a pub in the small local town.  it was a bit funny actually as I would have much preferred to try more wine but on tour you do as the group does.  After the pub visit we headed back to Adelaide.  Below is a picture I took of the region from the front of the bus.  I wish I had more time to explore the area.

A snap shot of the Borassa Valley in winter 

(taken from a moving mini van)

On Monday I had a few hours to explore Adelaide again before I caught my mid day flight back to Melbourne.  I went walking again but this time I took the time to walk along the Torrens River checking out some of the public art and through Elder park.

The view of the river from Montefiore Road Bridge

A dog water bowl along the path. 

It made me think of my sister Debbie's dog Robbie.

Looking towards Adelaide's CBD from Elder park

I then crossed back into the CBD just as the free local bus came by.  I hoped the bus and did the full route.  It didn't pass by any where I hadn't already seen so once I got back to East Terrace I jumped off and took myself for brunch/lunch.  Once my stomach was full I wandered through Rundle Mall (all the stores were closed) and took a couple of pictures of the public art.

Spheres

One of three pigs. 

The last photo I took was the Haigh's Chocolate store on the corner of Rundel Street and King William.  From there I made my way to the bus stop and headed to the airport.

Overall it was a pretty good weekend away.  There was a fair bit of rain on Saturday and Sunday but it is winter after all so I shouldn't complain.  The worst part of all is that when I walked out of the airport this afternoon it was so cold in Melbourne that I could see my breath.  I guess winter has arrived.

Oh, and how could I forget.  I finally got some EXCELLENT news.  My strata council finally decided that our building maintenance budget will be paying for the damage caused by my toilet that cracked and flooded the unit below me back in Vancouver.  So I DON'T HAVE to pay over $2500 in repairs!  I can't tell you how happy I am with this news.  It's time to book more FLIGHTS!!