Barossa Valley

Saturday 12^th November and onwards for a few days.

On the way up to the Barossa Valley, we called in at a Caravan Yard on the northern outskirts of Adelaide.  We had previously phoned them, and they said they were interested in looking at our van and giving us a price.  After a quick look over the van, they offered us a price which we felt we could accept, if nothing better came along.

The famous Wine Region of the Barossa Valley is about 60km north of Adelaide City.  It is situated in gentle rolling hill country, and the whole country side is very picturesque with the dark green lines of the grape vines growing in the low lying valley areas, contrasting with the golden brown of the wheat growing on the surrounding hills.

Combined at this time of the year with temperatures in the early thirties, makes it a very pleasant place to spend a few days. With the end of the trip rapidly drawing near, we are going to spend a few days here while we sort out the sale of the caravan, and get a few minor repairs done to the Pajero.

While this is all happening, we are having a few lazy days chilling out, and making the most of the campground’s swimming pool and its water temperature of anything between 29 and 32 degrees.

About 30 km south east of us is the small town of Birdwood, home to the National Motor Museum, and we spent a very interesting day taking a scenic drive down to it, and after viewing the museum, taking another route back to camp.

The museum itself was extremely interesting with hundreds of cars and motorbikes on display, some of them the only examples in the world still in existence. 

Almost every museum or place of interest we have visited has a visitors’ book for you to sign and make any comments.  Christel went over to sign this one, and there about a week earlier was the name B. Buckthought, Inglewood, N.Z.  How’s that for a small world?  Brian Buckthought used to farm on the Durham Road.  He obviously still lives in the Inglewood area.

On another day we took a tour through the Barossa Valley itself and visited a few of the wineries.  One winery, called Winter Creek, had accommodation set up beside it, consisting of old Railway Carriages set up on tracks.  They also had a Car and Motorcycle Museum, (another one), specialising in Chevrolet Cars and Ariel Motorbikes.  We didn’t taste their wines, but enjoyed their museum.

Further down the valley we came to the Jacob Creek Winery, which I’m sure you have all heard of, and probably tried their product.  This was a must stop, and after trying three or four different varieties, came away with a few bottles to tide us over for the next couple of days.

Our next stop was the Kellermeister Winery which had been recommended to us by some other travellers at the motorcamp. They had a beautiful white bubbly, so that too was added to our collection.  Unfortunately Kellermeister don’t export to New Zealand. We would have loved to bring some back with us, but as it is we are going to be struggling to bring back everything we have accumulated and want to bring home.

We need to get a few minor repairs done to the Pajero to make it ready for sale when we get to Melbourne, including a new windscreen, and a replacement hinge for the spare wheel.  There are about 4 panel beaters in nearby Gawler, but trying to get a car fixed by any one of them before Christmas is virtually impossible.  They are all up to their elbows in work, as all the locals want their repairs done before Christmas, and they aren’t very interested in helping out a Kiwi family who want a job done within the next few days.

We finally managed to bribe one with a cash job, and spent the morning wandering around the shops of Gawler.  It’s amazing how many dresses a woman can try on and still find nothing that’s right.

We had two perspective buyers for the caravan lined up in Queensland, but after much negotiation, and many emails they both pulled out. Luckily we had the dealer in Adelaide to fall back on, and after some more phone calls, we agreed on a price and settlement date. With the arrangements for the sale of the caravan all in place, it is time to seriously look at the end of this great adventure.  Our next move will be to get on the computer and check out the availability of flights back to New Zealand.  We’ll keep you posted.



Adelaide 2

Wednesday 9^th November

We had read that Adelaide Zoo was home to the only Giant Panda Bears in the Southern Hemisphere, and naturally we were keen to pay them a visit.  So after the School work was completed, we packed up a lunch and headed for the zoo, which is close to the centre of Adelaide City.

It took us half an hour to drive from our motorcamp into the central city.  We drove along the main street past lots of buildings all connected with the University of South Australia.  In fact half of Adelaide’s central city area seemed to be taken up with University Buildings.  We also went past the Adelaide Town Hall, Parliament buildings and the Adelaide Casino.

We spent a whole afternoon at the zoo, including two visits to the panda enclosure.  On our first visit they were both sleeping, so there wasn’t much to see.  We decided to tour the rest of the zoo and call back again to the pandas again as we were leaving.  The zoo was good, but we felt some of the enclosures were a bit small, not a patch on Auckland Zoo.

When we got back to the panda enclosure they had just been fed, so there was plenty of activity.  Cameron got some brilliant video footage on his camera, of them walking around and then sitting down to eat their bamboo.  We also got some good still shots of them.  There was something very special about seeing these highly endangered species quietly going about their business.  They were a lot bigger than what we had expected.

Thursday 10^th November

I mentioned earlier that Port Adelaide was host to the National Railway Museum, the South Australian Aviation Museum, and a Maritime Museum.  We had done the Railway and Aviation Museums, so now it was time to check out the Maritime Museum.  It was housed in a huge old 3 storied, stone warehouse. Again a brilliant display of South Australia’s Maritime History.

Part of the Museum included a reconstruction of the living accommodation used by the early settlers coming from England to Australia. The particular accommodation they had reconstructed was from a boat that sailed to Australia in 1840, which is about the same time as the first Broadmore’s emigrated to New Zealand, so we were able to get an idea of the sort of conditions they had to endure during their voyage.  A far cry from today’s cruise liners.

Another part of the museum was an old lighthouse, which we climbed to great some great views over Port Adelaide.

After the Maritime Museum we headed back into Adelaide City to visit the Adelaide Oval, one of the great cricketing grounds of the world, and home of the Museum dedicated to Australia’s most famous Australian Cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman. 

We didn’t get to have a look around the museum, but walked down to the edge of the grounds, and went up into the grandstand.  One of the grandstands is called the Sir Donald Bradman Stand, and two other smaller stands are named, would you believe it, the Chappell Stands.  Shame on you Aussie.  All us Kiwis know that the only cricket the Chappell Brothers could play was underarm bowling.

From the Oval we walked across the Torrens River which flows through the centre of the city, and into the centre of town for a look around.

We walked along the main central shopping complex, called The Rundle Mall, with its hundreds of fancy shops selling tons of overpriced useless rubbish.  Much more interesting were the buskers doing their thing in the street.  Of all the bigger cities we’ve visited in Aussie, Adelaide would be our favourite by far.

Friday 11^th November.

Interesting date for today, 11/11/11.  After the usual morning’s school work, we decided to have a look at some of Adelaide’s beachside suburbs and beaches.  Adelaide City and its suburbs stretch along some 50 km of beautiful sandy beaches.  One of the best known beachside suburbs is called Glenelg and this is where we headed for first. We sat on the seawall in front of the huge Stamford Hotel watching the locals and had our lunch.

From there we continued south, ending up at Maslin Beach at the very southern end where we spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun. Then we made the long drive back through the city to our motorcamp.

Tomorrow we head up towards the Barossa Valley area where we will stay for a few days while we make further arrangements about selling the car and caravan.  We have now got 3 different people interested in the van, including 1 from Queensland.  If the Queensland buyers come through, we may deliver the van up to them.  On the other hand, if we sell it here in Adelaide, we will continue on to Melbourne with just the Pajero.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Adelaide 1

Monday 7^th November

The day started with the usual school work. We have been discussing the various options we have to sell our van and the Pajero.  We have advertised in an Aussie Caravan magazine and also on Trade Me.  We have also emailed several caravan dealers here in Adelaide. We decided to visit some of the dealers to try and judge interest and get some prices.

There are at least a dozen caravan yards in Adelaide, spread out all over the city.  We visited 2 or 3 in one general area and a couple of them are interested, so that is good. One option they all offer is to sell on consignment; basically they sell on our behalf, but we only want to go down that line if we have to.

As a result of our visits we are going to call in at a couple of them on the way up to Gawler and the Barossa Valley on Saturday, to get a firm price.   After doing the rounds of the caravan yards we headed into Port Adelaide shopping centre for a look around and a bit of essential shopping.

Port Adelaide is a suburb of Adelaide itself, and is based around naturally enough, the Port area.  It has a lot of character with lots of old stone ware house buildings and of course an old stone pub on almost every corner.

Tuesday 8^th November

Port Adelaide is the home for among other things, the Australian National Railway Museum, An Aviation Museum, and a Maritime Museum.   After school work was finished we decided to visit first of all the Railway Museum, and then because it was right next door, we would also take in the Aviation Museum.

The Railway Museum was absolutely amazing. It was all displayed in a huge shed, with about a dozen beautifully restored old steam engines on display, as well as 3 or 4 diesels.  Each one of them had played a significant part in the history of the Australian Railways, like the first Ghan, to go from Adelaide to Darwin, and the first train to cross the Nullabor Plain.  Some of the steam engines were huge.

As well as the engines, there were also several carriages, like the dining car used on the Old Ghan line, and sleeper carriages from the same time. Besides the trains and carriages there was also a lot of the associated paraphernalia that goes with trains, including signal boxes stations and platforms. There was also a miniature train which took us for a ride right around the entire complex.

One of the interesting facts about the history of Australian Railways, is that in the early years, each state had its own gauge.   For the less informed, that is the width between the tracks, so when the lines gradually extended out and met at the various state borders, oops, they didn’t match up.  Bugger. 

To overcome this they had to establish special railway stations near the borders where the trains would stop, and everything had to be off loaded from one train and then on loaded on to the next. This of course meant that moving freight by railway was not very efficient. There were three different gauges in existence, and after a few years they finally managed to agree on a standard gauge.  I’ll bet there were a few interesting discussions on which states were going to have to change.

From the Railway Museum, we wandered a short distance along the street to the Aviation Museum. This was not a big museum compared to some of the others we had seen, but did have some classic planes on display. 

Among them a Canberra Bomber, a Spitfire, and a small home built aeroplane that an Adelaide man by the name of Jon Johanson, had built and then flown around the world three times,

as well as flying to and landing at Antarctica, and flying over the North Pole.

They also had a couple of interactive displays, and a full size Aerocommander aeroplane that you could sit in and play with all the controls. They also had lots of scale models to admire.