Barossa to Adelaide

11/03/2015

Quick breakkie at the campground, then off to Barista Sista, a coffee shop that convinced me to stay for a second round of coffee and a carrot cake. It's great to finally find a good coffee shop and they even have WiFi where I can do some blogging while enjoying a double dose of coffee.

A quick link that Lisa sent me today that I'd like to share:

Apparently Perth and Rottnest are now going crazy with Quokka selfies, self-portrait photos taken with wild quokkas in them, http://pulptastic.com/quokkas-selfie/ Attention, overly cute photos when you open the link.

What was on the cards today? First off I drove to Angaston, a little town on the eastern side of the Barossa and visited the Yalumba winery. Yalumba are a very old, still family owned wine producer that have been founded in 1849. It is a beautiful estate and the young lady at the counter was heaps of fun. As I was driving, we shortened the list of wines to try. I decided not to try their Rieslings, despite that they are very well known and awarded for them. Instead after a surprisingly delicious 2012 The Strapper GSM, I tried their seriously nice Shirazes (2010 Paradox ($43), 2009 Steeple Vineyard ($70)) and one Cab Sav Shiraz called The Signature ($50) and, due to good luck as they had a bottle open, I got the amazing 2009 The Octavius Barossa Old Vine Shiraz ($100). Great stuff!

Yalumba - their historic main building, also displayed on the label of their 'Signature' wine

All the goodness - tasting order from left to right. Great stuff!

The founder, I like his variety of jobs and interests: Master brewer, gardener, gold miner, viticulturist and wine maker. There is still hope for me! ;-)

The tasting room - I like the barrels over the counter

The Octave - a 100 liter barrel (the one to the right) is used for their "The Octavius - Barossa Old Vine Shiraz"

Coming over from Perth, I just like some more historical buidlings

Yalumba are producing their own barrels in the cooperage – I just came in when one of their staff finished a barrel. Smells really nice in there!

Work from their own Cooperage

He ave the upper rim a good hammering!

Early stage in making a barrel

Raw oak for barrel making

Next stop was at JacobsCreek Visitor Center. They are a huge producer of wine and have a very nice visitor center where they entertain probably quite a lot of people. What stood out was that they have everything translated to Chinese as well and have the French flag up – as they are owned by French Pernod Ricard.

the huge Jacobs Creek Visitor Center

Tasting room in the front, restaurant in the background

The cork - the bark of the cork oak - Quercus suber

The displays are great, but even their upper price range of wines were (comparably to all the amazing wines that I tried over the last week) nothing special from my taste buds. I skipped most of them but as I've never seen their St. Hugo range, I tried their 2012 Barossa GSM and the 2012 Barossa Shiraz. As they were one of the main sponsors of this years Australian Open they released a reserve wine, the 2003 Shiraz Cabernet ($65). Was by far not my favourite to be honest.

They were sponsoring the Australian Open

The bottle for export to China - 'WAH' would not go down too well in the Austrian market I suppose, background: the older Orlando winery logo

I remember seeing them driving this vehicle earlier - when I was fueling up somewhere in the Barossa

The 'St Hugo' range - Reini would probably say: "Die san fuer'n Hugo"

Displaying the different grape varieties in the outdoor part of the information center

Clearly not tailored for the European consumers...

After a snack and a walk in their show vineyard, I took the scenic route through Torrens Valley (crazy corners!) and drove to Adelaide. I've selected the caravan park that is closest to the city, its mainly just outside the parkland that surround the inner part of Adelaide.

I walked through the park where part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival is on, passed the Zoo, University of South Australia and followed the North Terrace to King William Road. I came across Haiges, Adelaide famous chocolate shop and enjoyed some live music and comedy in Rundle Mall before I walked back to the caravan park.

Some random shots from my walk through Adelaide:

SCNR

Torrens River with parks along side - in the center of Adelaide!

Heard today that I'll get a visitor from Perth for the weekend. How exciting!

Distance traveled today: 96km

12/03/2015

A quick 5km run in the morning before breakfast – the caravan park is ideally located along the Torrens river and there are nice cycling/running paths on both sides of it, with bridges every now end then. I'm quite happy with the time I ran today for the 5km, was sort of a time trial, but still a lot slower than my record for this distance from one and a half years ago.

After a healthy breakfast, I got my my bike out and went for the first bike ride in South Australia – following the river upstream towards the Hills. Very nice scenery, but I struggled to find the correct path at times – the signage is distinctly different and I had to turn around and take another path quite often. Had a cappuccino at a deli, very close to the caravan park after the 41 km ride.

The mean machine - Specialized Roubaix Comp... lovely to ride!

I'm discovering North Adelaide in the afternoon – checking out the highest rated coffee shops from Beanhunter and found a new favourite coffee shop that is easy to walk to UR Caffe (unfortunately their WiFi didn't like me), so I'm blogging from The Lion Hotel and enjoying a glass of Skillogalee Clare Valley Riesling 2014. Very tasty!