Day.10. & 11 Barossa Valley.

You got it, another 2 for 1 blog entry. Yesterday was a little boring being just a drive from Mildura to Nuriootpa, but today was much better, a very full day exploring Barossa townships & numerous wineries & Maggie Beers Kitchen from the cook & the chef. The weather was oppressive yesterday with the temperature at 38 degrees, hot & sunny. Today was wonderful, rainy & overcast with temperature under 20 degrees, I even had a jumper on having evening drinks in the sun, when the clouds had finally cleared. We are quite a long way south & west from home now (only 70k from Adelaide), consequently it is now 8 pm & the sun is still shining brightly outside & even after the sun finally sets there is quite a long twilight.Off to Adelaide in the morning & for the first day of the Tour Down Under. Anyway no more to say I'll let the pictures tell the story, quite a few today...................

 

Lunch time yesterday we found a tree to have lunch under, the only one from one horizon to the next & very welcome at 38 degrees. Greg & Wendy were 3 or 4 hours ahead of us as we had the car serviced that morning.

 

Some more evidence of recent floods, but very dry now.

 

Crossing another unusual bridge over the Murray. The road either side of the central Walk/Bikeway, which i think used to be the rail line.

 

Once again hitching with Wendy & Greg around the Barossa on a lovely cool & rainy day. 

 

Grape vines, grape vines, grape vines, a town in the Barossa whose name I don't remember & couldn't be bothered researching. Lovely rain.

 

Same town, more grape vines.

 

Its very German around here, in fact the country side & buildings reminded us a lot of Southern Germany.

 

The entry to one of at least 5 wineries we visited today. I really enjoyed them, I was quite surprised.

 

Another winery, you'll never guess what the vines are......

 

Wine barrels at winery XXX??.

 

 

Distillery shed at Yallumba. 

 

Manufacturing oak barrels from imported oak slats,  at Yallumba cooperage.

He is just about to submerge the barrel in boiling water to soften up the oak so they can be curved.

 

A pano shot of the cooperage.

 

A very trendy shot of the garden & if you look closely between the petals on the right side of the white flower, you can see Yvonne peeping through. These are REALLY BIG flowers.....

 

A beaut picture window in the wine tasting room, not sure about the horse painting.

 

 

I spotted this snail about to end it all over the edge, but after a long talk & a shoulder to cry on he changed his mind. Lucky I was there.

 

Greg next to a big carved stone Eagle. This hillside had many large stone carvings & overlooked surrounding vineyards, glimpsed occasionally through cloud.

 

Another pretty cool stone carved bench.

 

A colourful gum in the mist, I named this a reaching gum cause that was what it was doing.

 

A break in the cloud, for a few moments.

 

Up the driveway of another winery.

 

A spectacular flowering gum, I don't think I have ever seen one of these before.

 

Winery.

 Chateau Tanunda, winery

 

I took this pictograph to prove it was raining.

Great new word I invented.

 

Some of the gazillion oak barrels of booze.

 

A few more.

 

A big chimney.

 

Pavement cam 'pictograph'

 

A severe infestation..

 

Bloody grape vines!!

 

Greg said this was interesting.

 

Another huge field of the pesky plants.

 

The original Wolf Blass eagle at the winery.

 

Home base at Nuriootpa.