Barossa Valley (wikipedia) is a valley in South Australia located 60 km northeast of the Adelaide city centre and which is notable as a major wine-producing region and tourist destination. It is the valley formed by the North Para River, and the Barossa Valley Way is the main road through the valley, connecting the main towns on the valley floor of Nuriootpa, Tanunda, Rowland Flat and Lyndoch.

Clare Valley (wikipedia) is a valley located in South Australia about 100 kilometres (62 mi) north of the Adelaide city centre. It is located both within the South Australian Government region of Yorke and Mid North and the local government area of District Council of Clare and Gilbert Valleys. It contains the following towns (from north to south) – Clare, Penworthham, Sevenhill, Watervale and Auburn. It is notable for being the location of the wine region of the same name – the Clare Valley wine region.

The three major towns of the Barossa all have distinctive personalities. Tanunda is generally recognised as the most German of the three with long-standing traditions dating back to the 1840s when the first German settlers arrived in the area. Because many of them came from Prussian Silesia, they called the Barossa Neu-Schlesien, or “New Silesia“. The German influence survives to this day (see Barossa German). Angaston, in contrast, is considered the English town as it was settled predominantly by Cornish miners and others from Britain. The third (and largest) town, Nuriootpa, was influenced by both the German and British settlers, and today is the commercial hub of the Barossa where most of the larger stores are located. Tanunda and Angaston are considered ‘tourist towns’ in comparison to Nuriootpa because they have many more facilities to cater for tourists.

28^th January, Wednesday

We had a wonderful dinner last night at the old wool shed at Rawnsley Park station overlooking the beautiful Flinders ranges.  There weren’t many people there as it is low season. The local little farm boy was busy chasing a goat on his quad bike, apparently this goat was the 4^th that had escaped during the day and it was a comedy to watch because this goat was in the bush and the quad bike chasing him, next thing we hear is this almighty racket which sounded like someone being murdered, it was the goat on the handle bars of the quad bike screaming it’s head off while it was being brought home. We did get a very early getaway this morning, the weather was cool and very refreshing, perfect for travelling.  We had a few roos hop across the road in front of us and towing the van you don’t want to hit one.  They just come out from nowhere so you don’t get any warning no matter how carefully you watch the road.  That is the only drawback about leaving early because all the wildlife are out and about.  The drive was very pleasant, lots of different kinds of scenery, lots of farms, some forresty type areas, some harvested fields and lots of old charming little towns.  Sad that we can’t stop at all of them because they are all so different in character and have such wonderful things to see. We stopped for our usual coffee and sammies at a little park on the main road called “Murray town”. I was eating my sandwich and drinking my coffee and reading the blurb on the rock about the history of the town when a rubbish truck pulled in to empty the bins.  The guy got out and wandered over and started chatting as he saw our WA plates and he is was originally from Bunbury.  He lives in the next town “Wirrabara” about 13kms down the track and owns his own rubbish truck and has the contract to do the garbage collection for the 2 towns.  We were chatting away the he tells us that his wife makes the best pies this side of the world and she makes them for all the local shops and they also sell them at the local markets. He says that we should call in at his house which is in the next town and buy some as she is busy baking.  He gives us directions and says that he will call her to say that we are calling in, by this time we are committed and it would be rude not to call in besides the fact that we are intrigued. Off we go and pass him along the way as he stops to empty bins and we toot and he toots (our new mate).  We arrive at the house in this tiny little town and park outside and I knock on the door and the dogs start barking. I hear this loud voice from inside telling the dogs to shutup and I’m thinking “Oh lordy lordy, what have I let myself in for”, the door opens and there stands this tiny feisty filapino lady.  She invites me in and asks me what pies I want and goes to a huge chest freezer and digs out the 6 that I want.  She gets assessed by the health dept and her kitchen is squeeky clean, you could eat off the floor and there are pies everywhere. I pay her and she gives me a tray of a dozen mini frozen cornish pies, no charge as she just wants me to try them and see if we like them.  She was just one of the nicest ladies that I have met in a long time and as I was leaving she tells me that if I like her pies please to tell everyone on the road to call in and buy some. We eventually got back on the road and about 75kms before you get to Kapunda is all through the Clare Valley.  Vineyards and Cellar door sales and quant little towns all the way, it’s so pretty. The caravan park in Kapunda is little and very comfy and we can do the Clare and Barossa Valleys from here.  We had 2 of our chunky steak pies with some veggies for dinner and I have to tell you that they were to die for………. Best pies we have had in ages, lots of chunky meat, very tasty and good value for money. Tomorrow Hugo has to go to the vet for his monthly Cartrophen shot, it’s a bit overdue because there was no vet in the last place we stayed at. We are going to Maggie Beers place, can’t wait, she does cooking demos everyday and you she sells lots of her goodies, so I shall probably be bringing a full pantry home.

29^th January, Thursday

We had to take Hugo to the vet this morning for his monthly shot.  His appointment was only at 10 so we did the heritage trail of Kapunda seeing all the sights and old buildings. This town is a really old mining town and so many buildings and inhabited cottages are heritage listed.  The old cottages people live in have been so lovingly restored.  Most of them are right on the street so they don’t have any garden in front but that is most of their charm.  After the vet we hit the Barossa valley.  We visited a few vineyards, not too many as we still have quite a few days here. This region is huge with the Seppelt family and they have their own family mausoleum where all the family gets interned. I walked up to it and I think that the gradient up to the mausoleum was about 30 degrees. Ralph said that he didn’t want to see where dead people get put so old muggins here decided to walk up because I’m nosey and I nearly died.  It was a total waste of time, nice view and just a mausoleum so Ralph was the wise one.  My legs were shaking for about an hour. We went to Whistlers winery where we walked out with 2 bottles of wine. We visited another winery (Chatteu Dorrien) which is German in appearance but the owners are Italian and the family goes quite a long way back in their winemaking.  They do they most awesome white port and different flavoured meads, so folks we walked out of there stocked up and it’s going to be party time when we get home. The vats are all hand painted, all by the same artist, the building used to be owned by the Seppelt family.  It is a gorgeous place and the wine and mead tasting there was a lovely experience as the guy was so friendly. We went to Maggie Beers farm and spent a bit there. The shop is well stocked, not cheap but the stuff all looks so good.  We didn’t taste anything as there was a German family there with 3 boys and they were letting the kids taste all the tasters and they were sticking there licked off spoons into everything and the parents said nothing.  Of course Maggie wasn’t there.  There are cooking demonstrations there everyday at 2 but we were there in the morning and weren’t that fussed into going back for that.  The farm has it’s own fruit which is used for the preserves that are sold.  There is a vineyard close by which belong to her brothers (the wine is also sold at Maggies place), it’s called Beer brothers wine, quite a quirky name.  We didn’t try any because at $45 a bottle we weren’t that keen. From there off to lunch at Seppeltsfield winery.  We had lunch at the café which has lovely gardens and a picnic area.  The cellar door itself has a brasserie and gift shops and it’s all very swish and upmarket, the tasting area has various circular type counters with the person serving the wine standing in the middle, it reminded me a bit like a casino and quite sterile, not at all what we like a winery to be like so I think that the choice we made for lunch was the better one. I think that we will stay away from the big names and visit the family boutique vineyards as they are more rustic and have more character.  We had a bottle of wine and a lovely cheese platter, couldn’t ask for anything better. There are so many little towns in the Barossa, you drive out of one straight into the next but they are all different in character and are all very charming. Tomorrow we are taking a drive to Gawler to do some food shopping and will visit some more wineries further down the Barossa. This is going to take a while because we haven’t touched the Clare Valley yet.  The picture you see of the big miner is 7m tall.  His name is Map Kernow and is a tribute to the pioneers of mining in Kapunda. Map Kernow is Cornish for “Son of Cornwall” and represents a mid 1800’s Cornish miner.

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30^th January, Friday

We had to go to Gawler today because there is not much in the IGA in Kapunda and we needed to do a good food shop. We needed to first go to the Mt. Crawford Forest Info centre for Ralph to get a fossickers licence as guess what he is going to be doing? The area in which he will fossick is in the Warren Conservation Park and there are designated areas to fossick.  He got his license and we headed off through Williamstown and off the main drag to a lavender farm.  The lavendar farm closes for the season on the 1^st Feb so we just made it and unfortunately their kitchen is already closed until high season so no morning tea……..bugger. We stopped off at the Barossa Reservoir which feeds the Barossa Valley and Gawler with their water supply. The dam wall is called the whispering wall and we thought it was all a lot of nonsense standing one end and hearing what people are saying the other end as the wall is 140m long. We were standing on the wall and we could hear people talking and you could hear exactly what they were saying so we looked around and couldn’t see anyone but there were 3 people standing on the other side of the wall so Ralph says “G’day mate” and the bloke on the other end says “In England we don’t say G’day mate”, so he and Ralph start chatting from 140m away along the curve of the wall. We wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t experienced it, truly amazing.  We met them half way along the wall and they were tourists from England out here to see their daughter and visit the wineries as you do in this part of the world. We went into Gawler and did our groceries so did no wineries today peeps but we will make up for it tomorrow as we plan to visit some of the Clare valley.

31^st January, Saturday

Today we went to the Clare Valley.  There are lots of gorgeous towns (same as the Barossa) along the way and if we stopped and took pictures of them all we would never get anywhere besides the fact that you would all kill me because they all have such beautiful old quant buildings.  The camera would never do the towns justice anyway.  We had breakfast in Clare then went to a few wineries.  The Clare Valley leans more to the Riesling style of wine as the riesling grapes grow better here.  The main drag is called “The Riesling Trail”, we are not really riesling fans but today we were converted.  Some of the wines at some vineyards we weren’t that fussed on and some at other vineyards were to die for, so needless to say, more bottles in the van.  So many wineries and such little time…….. SIGH.  There are quite a few art galleries along the way so you can pack a lot into a day.  We really couldn’t stop at everything. Ralph would say that we have just passed “such and such winery” and I am thinking, WHY????  We went against our rule and stopped at one of the biggies “Taylors”. The Clare Valley has more small family boutique wineries unlike the Barossa which have the small family boutique wineries and a lot of the biggies. I think that Taylors would be the only biggie in the Clare Valley.  We do buy Taylors so thought that we would stop as it was on the way.  We got such a good bargain there with wines they were selling out at $5 a bottle, so, more wines into the van, hic hic and hic again.  Back to base and Ralph filled up his water tank in the back of the ute as he is going fossicking tomorrow and I really hope that he finds some nice shiny rocks.

1^st February, Sunday

Ralph went fossicking today and I finished off a master piece and stuffed another up. It’s cool today, the sun is warm but the wind chilly so I have been wearing a jersey most of the day.  Ralph didn’t find much of note so not much there I can tell you about so I will say goodnight folks. xx

2^nd February, Monday

We decided to do a tour of some of the little towns just North of Kapunda and part of the Clare Valley. We did a loop taking in the towns of Eudunda, Marrabel, Saddleworth, Riverton and Taree. The towns are all old mining towns but today serve the farming community.  The towns boast old hotels and little cottages some have been restored and some not but they are still occupied. Most of the towns around this area have grape vines growing over eaves in front of the shops and it looks gorgeous. We took a little gravel farm road from Eundunda to Marrabel, it’s all farm land along the way and looks to be mainly wheat, stock feed and some sheep with the odd sprinkling of cattle. There are so many old broken down stone built homesteads along the way. The stockfeed farmers have a great sense of humour as they have made rural art out of their hay bales. We found an outlook looked to be an old slate quarry.  The view from there is gorgeous and looking over farmland with gentle rolling hills. The Lutheran influences around The Clare and Barossa valleys is very prominent. Germans settlers settled here in the 1840’s, the old buildings that still remain, ie: churches, schools and some of the buildings in town are all Lutheran architecture. Some of the little towns on the farm road boast one house so I guess that gave them the right to have a town named.  Eudunda has a 100 year old German bakery so we stopped there and bought some bread. Next stop was Marrabel which is home to a giant statue of a bucking brumbie and rider.  Apparently this Brumbie couldn’t be ridden, the rider on the Brumbie had the record of staying on his back for 10 seconds. We stopped in Saddleworth at a pub for lunch and I don’t normally tell you about the food or the prices but I have to tell you about this one.  The view from the pub is overlooking a farmyard with some sheep and cattle, classic country and the patrons in the pub all say G’day and have a chat and the bar lady is chatty (I’m quite partial to chat as you all know), I just love the country people and the culture, everyone has the time of day to give you. Ralph had a huge T-Bone Steak, I had a fishermans platter which was probably the best I’ve had so far on this trip.  The meal came with a separate bowl of salad each and consisted of 4 different salads and also some hot bread rolls, the whole meal cost us $40, couldn’t believe it and believe me, it was superb. Back to the caravan.  We think that we will have a veg day tomorrow as we leave here for Adelaide on Wednesday.  We are slowly on our way home folks.

3^rd February, Tuesday

Nothing of note to report to you today peeps.  Spent the day cleaning and packing up to leave  for Adelaide tomorrow.