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Posted inAustralia Travel

Haber Travel Report – Adelaide and the Barossa Valley

Posted By irene Posted on March 25, 2008
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Dear Loyal Readers:
Are you tired yet from all this traveling/reading?
On Friday morning we flew from Ayers Rock to Adelaide so that we could go to the Barossa Valley on Saturday which is the prime wine growing area of Australia; (although there is wine grown all over Australia as there is in the USA).


This time Sarah gave me a “kinnehora”; seems I’m getting around to each of you one by one; well, maybe not each of you.  She wondered if I had taken Good Friday and Easter Sunday into account in my travel plans.  I told her “of course I had”.  I knew that I was spending Easter Sunday with my family in Melbourne so clearly that was not an issue.  While we had a restaurant cancel a reservation which we had originally made for Good Friday, I neglected to consider that things like museums as well as other restaurants might also be closed on Good Friday.  It turns out that in Australia, Good Friday and Christmas are the 2 days a year when many things are closed.  Not to worry; the experienced traveler made do.
We arrived at our hotel in Adelaide late in the afternoon.  As I mentioned earlier, our real goal here was to visit the wineries on Saturday so we didn’t have a lot of time to explore Adelaide itself.  Turns out that while it’s the fifth largest city in Australia, it is relatively small and set out in a grid fashion (one of the first cities in the world to be planned in such a fashion), so easy to explore.  Since the museums were closed (or so we were told), I figured we’d just walk around and look at the outside of the buildings.  We saw the usual suspects:  Victoria Square, Town Hall, Parliament.  And then as we walked by the Art Gallery of Australia (many of the museums in this part of the world are called art galleries), it turned out it was open.  So in we went.  From there we went to the Botanical Gardens. 
In terms of dinner we figured we’d go to Adelaide’s Chinatown; always a good bet for a Christian holiday.  The concierge gave us a recommendation which turned out to be terrific.  It was called Concubine and we had a fabulous meal.  We actually had an early evening which was a good thing since Marty had gotten an umpire’s questionnaire to fill out; need to pay for this trip somehow!


The next day turned into an exciting one indeed.  Marty had selected the 2 wineries he considers to be Australia’s best.  We drove out to the Barossa Valley which is about an hour away from Adelaide.  Our first stop was Wolf Blass.  We spent about an hour there tasting their wines; again, I swallowed, Marty spit (which turned out to be a good thing).  From there we had a 1 PM appointment at Penfold’s which is actually in Adelaide Hills.  (As an aside, Penfold’s has a restaurant which is where we tried to dine.  They had a private event on the Saturday so we had made a reservation for the Friday.  You all know how that ended!)
Anyway, there were 2 ways to get from Wolf Blass to Penfold’s.  One was the quick way we had come and the other was a scenic route through all the vineyards.  Of course, I opted for the scenic route.  It took longer than anticipated.  Once we got through the scenic road portion and were on a larger road, the driver (yes, that would be Marty!) sped up.  Can you see where this is going?  Yup, speeding ticket ensued.  Marty says he’s now had the full Australian experience; he is now a criminal!!  The cop was really funny.  He basically told Marty that they wouldn’t be sending him to NY to extradite Marty, so we should disregard it.  The ticket is $300; kinda hefty; he was only going about 10 miles over the speed limit; for 5 miles, the cop said he would have ignored it. 
We got to Penfield’s late and had to play catch up in the tour part of the event but we did have the entire tasting.  This was a sit-down event (photos attached) including crackers and cheese.  Marty wound up being happy.  Thank goodness or I never would have heard the end of the scenic route!
On the way to Penfold’s (close to it), I had noticed another sign about a scenic route to a gorge.  We, of course, investigated that as well after leaving Penfold’s.  I’ve attached a photo from there.


Dinner that evening was a restaurant called the Grange.  After I made that reservation, I found it mentioned in several publications as one of the best restaurants in Australia.  It was definitely a unique experience.  It was a tasting menu.  There were 8 courses with matching wine pairings for each one.  The meal was heavily fish oriented and thus heavy on the white wines; I do prefer red wines.  The cheese course had a sauterne type of wine and the dessert course had a rose sparkling wine.  While the dishes were all unique (and clearly the chef is extremely talented), I thought they were a little too esoteric for my taste.  They were all beautifully presented though.  I thought the tasting menus we had in Spain several years ago were more to my liking.  My favorite course was the cheese one which was warmed soft blue cheese  between two thin strips of pastry.  While we tried not to eat too much during the day in anticipation of this meal, the tasting at Penfold’s with the cheese and crackers definitely impacted on us.  The meal lasted 3 hours and we were having a problem getting through it.
The next morning we flew to Melbourne and my cousin Ben.  I will tell you all about him, etc. in the next edition of The Haber Report.  Hoping all is going well with all of you.  Keep those comments coming.
Much love,
The Adventurer and Writer
Irene
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