February - South Australia, wineries, Adelaide and more wineries

Here we are in South Australia. First stop was the Coonawarra wine region, near Penola. It was quite a surprise to find that the area was completely flat and consisted of a strip of red dirt (terra rossa) 15kms long by 2kms wide. It was very easy to get around but we only managed 15 of the 26 wineries, which is still good going J

Just north of Penola are the world heritage listed fossil caves at Narracoorte. It’s quite amazing what has been found, including a leaf eating kangaroo and giant wombat!

Back to the coast and a bit of free camping at Kingston, home of the rock lobster industry and Larry, the big Lobster

We continued up the coast and through the Coorong National Park to McLaren Vale and more wine tasting before we hit Adelaide. We saw the sign below and had to include it for Clive :-) 

  

We only spent a few days in Adelaide before heading for the hills, through Stirling, and Hahndorf (in the pouring rain) and on into the Barossa Valley. We met a retired couple at one of the wineries in McLaren Vale who also happened to be staying at the same caravan park as us, so over a few nights of reminiscing (we have a lot in common) and bottles of wine, they invited us to stay on their block in the vineyards in the Barossa, so that's where we are now.

We did the historic tour of Penfold’s and saw their top notch wine (Grange) in barrels. The cellar below is valued at AUS$35m!

So far we've visited some of the big names such as Wolf Blass, Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek, Peter Lehman, Langmeil (beautiful wines – all to our taste!) just to name a few as well as some of the smaller wineries that don’t have a cellar door and sell through larger outlets such as Chateau Tanunda and Artisan. So many wines and so little time!

We also visited the Barossa Brewing Company today and covered about 17kms on foot, as it was a nice but windy day and neither of us wanted to drive!

We’re heading off through the Clare Valley tomorrow, and more wineries, before we start our trek inland to Coober Pedy next week.