14/3/2015
Before I met Stefan at his
hotel, I had a nice 350g Grass Fed Rump steak and walked to the city
to take some photos during the night. Just great what you can do with
the right equipment, even without a tripod ;-)
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| Playing an arty cartoon movie on a building at North Terrace |
After a long evening with
Stefan at the wine bar called Apothecary 1873 (and drinking many
outstanding local wines, and one Gruener Veltliner from the Kamptal
in Austria) we moved on and subsequently had a bottle of wine (Pikes
Riesling from Clare Valley – awesome!) in Bank Street Social, quite
a stylish looking bar. I took a taxi home to the caravan park as I've
already done probably 20km of walking this day.
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| Top end - won many awards in South Australia for their great wine list |
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| I'm not a soup person in this case... |
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| Bank Street Social - a good place to enjoy produce from Clare Valley late in the evening |
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| As per usual, we present until the end... leaving a bar ain't easy |
The long walk in the late
morning to Stef's hotel along the beautiful parks at the Torrens
river cured my body and hangover a bit. We walked to a great coffee
place that does excellent weekend breakfasts/brunches.
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| Adelaide is a beautiful city full of parks |
Walking through Rundle
Mall (visiting Haig's Chocolate shop and enjoying some street art and music), Stef treated himself to a
bit of 'retail therapy' at Calibre and a shop selling Icebreaker
merino clothing. I bought one merino t-shirt as well as I really
liked it and it fit perfectly.
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| Haigh's Chocolates |
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| Easter bunnies are out in Australia - may I present duck, chicken and bilby |
The next stop was the
National Wine Centre of Australia – one of the largest wine cellars
in the southern hemisphere and home to an interesting exhibition and
Enomatics for up to 120 bottles of wine. Same system as we had it at
our 2013 Vive la France tour in the wine bar in Bordeaux: you get a
chip card and depending on the wine's price and sample size, you get
charged for it. It was quite awesome, my favorites there were the
2010 Henschke Tappa Pass Shiraz and Jim Barry's 2013 The Florita
Clare Valley Riesling.
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| I love the architecture of the National Wine Center of Australia |
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| Feels like walking in a half finished barrel |
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| I wouldn't mind having such a cellar at home |
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| Discovering different tastes |
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| Galileo was a smart and philosophical man: "Wine is sunshine held together by water" |
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| Total immersion at the National Wine Centre of Australia |
After a huge pizza but
slightly disappointing pizza at Amalfi Pizza, an institution in
Adelaide according to some food blogs, and another bottle of Clare
Valley Riesling, we dropped our purchases at the hotel and went to
the
Adelaide Fringe Festival.
The
Adelaide FringeFestival is famous and many people suggest it is
the best after the one in Edinburgh and the largest arts festival in
the Southern Hemisphere. Its a festival of arts, stand up comedy,
cabaret, circus, dance, music and a lot more.
We saw two shows this
evening, which I both enjoyed:
Paul Currie – Release
the Baboons
Paul, a chap from the UK,
was absolutely bursting of energy and life. Very outrageous show,
pushing the limits in every direction. Silly and ridiculous at times,
bizarre and full of mayham. I even ended up on stage to assist,
together with three other guys, for on part of the show. Very
entertaining, including a Never Ending story magic luck dragon ride –
childhood dreams come true! Definitely a show that will polarise the
audience, either you will love it, or you will hate it.
Bryony was sensational,
very talented, hilarious, funny and emotional. Telling her own story
and development, bad relationships and sex in many words, songs,
dance and displays. Outstanding!
For me, the key take away
point from both artists was that we shouldn't take everything in life
so seriously. If you're relaxed and chilled and more focused on the
process and not on the outcome, life is so much more richer and
enjoyable.
Distance traveled: 0km
15/3/2015
After picking Stef up with
the stylish campervan (using the driveway for limousines at the
Playford, one of the top hotels in Adelaide) we had amazing breakfast
at URCaffe in North Adelaide. Great food, smoothies and coffee.
That's the right start into a good Sunday!
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| Breakfast at URCaffe in Melbourne Street, North Adelaide - simply amazing food |
Driving south towards
McLaren Vale, we stopped at a few beaches and enjoyed to landscape.
In McLaren Stef picked some great wineries to visit: Alpha, Box &
Dice, Chapel Hill, Samuel's Gorge and Beach Road Wines & Pizza
where we had lunch. I was again positively surprised by the quality
of the wines in this region, simply great stuff! The wide range of
different wineries is just amazing, and the styles are so different.
I only sampled very few wines as I had to drive, but tomorrow I'll
target some more of the wineries, especially the ones that were
recommended to me by Graham, the presenter of great wines at Wolf
Blass.
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| Cliffs at the beach |
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| Just because its Sunday doesn't mean Stef won't do some pull ups |
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Alpha, Box & Dice's philosophical wine glass
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Alpha, Box & Dice
|
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Alpha, Box & Dice - they have a different designer for each of their wines
|
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| This place had such a great vibe, it was fantastic! |
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| Chapel Hill - the other end of the spectrum |
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| A winery in the former Chapel - awesome too, but very different |
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| Me at Samuel's Gorge winery |
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| Luckily I don't need to take the train |
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| Just a bit of arty photography |
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| Starters from the wood fired pizza oven at Beach Road |
McLaren Vale is another
wonderful wine region. As indicated by the name 'Vale' it is a rather
smallish valley but produces incredibly great wines. Here we go again
;-)
After dropping Stef off at
the Adelaide airport and driving back to McLaren Vale, I checked in
at the local camp site and went for a nice, medium paced 10.5km
evening run on the Shiraz Trail from McLaren Vale towards the coast
(but not the full way as it would have been almost a half marathon to
return back to base) to redeem myself from the hard, high calorie
week-end.
Distance traveled: 143km
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