Adelaide

Monday

We did visit a wildlife park on Kangaroo Island before we left. It was 40.5C (104F) – very hot! Tara fed some kangaroos and saw an echidna, which she thought was cuter than the koalas. We weren't the only ones drinking a lot of water…

We went to catch our 5pm ferry and arrived at 3pm. No one was serving lunch or dinner, so we had takeout from the only place open in town. After the ferry ride, we drove up the coast to Adelaide, had a quick dinner, then drove on to Adelaide Hills. Driving in the city (on the left) is much more stressful than Kangaroo Island!

We didn’t get to Adelaide Hills until dark. Google Maps directions failed completely in Adelaide, as it directed us onto a freeway that switches directions morning and evening to favor the commuters. I bought a map and with Kate’s navigation and a lot of luck, we found our accommodations at about 9pm. We stayed in Lofty Station, a railway station converted to a bed and breakfast. Yes, six trains went by that night, three of those after we had gone to bed.

Tuesday
Our plan was to visit some wineries. What I didn’t know is that they have restricted the number of wineries in Adelaide hills, so there aren’t very many, and only two that we could find were open for visitors. We could see that many vineyards were in the process of being harvested. We tasted a bunch of wines at Petaluma, one of the largest Adelaide Hills wineries. They even have distribution in the US. The second place we visited was a very small winery that only has 14 acres of grapes. They practice Biodynamics, which happens to be what the winery I sell to also prefers to use. The new owners were formerly the winemakers at Argyle Winery in Oregon. I saw them removing bird netting (widely used in Australia), but the owners were too busy with harvest to chat.

We also went to the Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary. This is 35 hectacres that was formerly a dairy farm, now protected with a predator fence and terraformed with water features and plants. The animals inside are free to go where they like. They have kangaroos, wallabies, emus and other birds, bandicoots, bilby’s, potoroos, possoms, quolls, etc. The highlight was the platypus guided tour that night.