the grape escape

After arriving in Adelaide the day before yesterday we went on a small wine tasting tour to the Barossa Valley.

The first winery was very small and since the day was really beautiful they set us up outside the cellar door in their nice yard under the gumtrees. Quite idyllic site for wine tasting right? The winery owner explained the process of wine making to us and we went on to taste some of their fine wines. Delicious food and excellent wine.

Throughout the whole day we went to three more wineries and tasted some really good wines accompanied by some yummy local nibbles. I always thought that I was more a Shiraz fan, but come to think of ... well... tasted some... I think I might favor more the Merlot. :-) One of the highlight definitely was tasting the Chocolate infused Port.... having already tried that last October from some English lads, expectations were pretty high... and it was beautiful.

After having tasted wine throughout the whole day you cold say that we were pretty tipsy in the end. LOL. Coming back to Adelaide we hit the night life and checked out some really nice acts at the on going Fringe Festival.



view more pics here

Goodbye Melbourne.... Hello Roadtrip...

From Melbourne to Adelaide. Kangaroo Island and all the way back via the Great Ocean Road in - truly backpacker style - a campervan along the coast with stunning scenery, wildlife, beaches and national parks to Melbourne. After a short stoppver taking in Mornington Peninsula and on the ferry to Devonport, Tasmania. Through Tassie on the road to Hobart and another week filled with nature and wildlife around the beautiful island under down under. There's more to come, so stay tuned....

Sooo excited....

cheers to the rain

This week in Adeldaid has been ... well, rainy and quite chilly, so what´s better to excape this misery than to go wine tasting. At least the bad weather won´t bother you then any more. And afterall isn´t that what South Australia is all about.. the fabulous wine. Indeed it is.... great wine. But honestly after having been to 5 wineries in one day, I lost count which wine was the best or where we went in the end. But no worries, it was fun times.

After spending the afteroon drinking I met up with one of my old work mates from home, who migrated to Australia last year. To celebrate the reunion down under, we all drank to it... oh, how I missed the Pimm´s! :-) Cheers to that and a fun night at the pub.

Visualize Adelaide here

Last but not least, I will be back in spring, but for now, goodbye rainy, chilly days and hello sunshine and summertime....

Fantastic Four to Adelaide

And then there were just four of us plus the driver heading further down to Adelaide. That was like a private tour. We all had two or even more seats on the bus, a private guide, enterainer and cook. What more do you want? That was like a family roadtrip.

That´s what we did in a nutshell: the first day we got on the bus at 4 am and spent itdriving, driving and driving... oh and not to miss out on the highlight of the day... the crossing of the state border to South Australia. whoo hoo, what an exciting day. In the early evening we arrived in Cobber Peedy - the underground opal mining town. After a mine tour, some noodeling for opals and some beers at the underground bar there, we hit the beds in our underground bunkhouse. A neat little place all to ourselves.

The next day we drove on to Lake Hart - a salt lake, which had water in it. That was pretty rare. We should have had our tequila with the slat out of the lake, but the bottle was ... oh surprise... empty... who dared?!

The next two days we spent at the Flinder´s Ranges - a mountain range in South Australia. We did some hikes during the day and watched the slasher backpacker horror movie "Wolf Creek" (Blair Witch Project meets Backpacker touring Oz) at night. Scary! The next day we actually came across a bloody disasterous movie set on the side of the road. They were shooting the horror movie "Road train"... what a coincidence... do every horror movie take place in SA?!

We also creeped upon the very rare Yellow Footed Rock Wallabi and actually spotted 8 of them right next to us. We really can be quiet when we have to!

Unluckily by the end of the tour, our big bro´ handed us down a cold and we all kept coughing and sneezing all the way to Adelaide. But hey, we all did the big mountain climb on our last day. Successfully.

What I also learned on that trip is that you can play silly games with the driver to kill some of the long hours on the bus. The wave game should not be played in South Australia but rather in the Northern Territory, never underestimate JD with coke, Strepsils true help you get rid of your cold and Coldplay for more than 3 hours in the early morning hours bad idea, it is truly autumn down under and no worries mates, it´ll be alright! :-)






we are family

more impressions from the trip are here

The Red Center

Tomorrow I am off on a redeye 24 hrs. train ride on The Ghan to Alice Springs. What a ride! ipod is charged and my book is pretty good as well, so it should be fun... or at least not that boring for some time. After one night in Alice Springs I will start a trip to the famous Uluru... finally... theDevil' s Marbles, Cooper Peeddy (an underground mining town, famous for the opal mining there) and then Flinder's Range Nationalpark and then finally arriving in Adelaide, South Australia. I am really excited about it. It' s gonna be a fun journey.

We are sleeping under the stars to catch the sunrise over Uluru and although it is still pretty hot during the day, the nights get freezing there. But hey, we already froze our butts off in Karijini, so we are trained.

I will be in the Outback for the next 10 days so no internet and no mobile reception until Adelaide, but nothing than the great wide open of the Australian bushland.