Australia #10 - The Barossa, South Australia

It's just a short run from Adelaide to Tanunda, the centre of the Barossa.

The last 15 kilometers or so on the Barossa Highway is wonderful, many vineyards green and lush with arid hills in the background, and a large above ground pipeline used to bring in the vast quantities of water needed for irrigation.

We get real heat again, the first time since Alice Springs and Uluru, very sunny and hot, 31 Celsius. Later on TV we learn that the month just past was the fourth hottest February on record, and this heat will continue with us throughout the rest of our time in Oz! On average in Feb. and March 2016 it's 5 degrees hotter than when I did my planning 'rehearsal' the year before!

We get our first caravan park Jayco 'box', essentially a caravan (Oz-speak)/RV trailer (Canada-speak) without the wheels! They are generally fine, like this one, but one or two occasions we have to take a smaller unit, or get one that needs a bit of maintenance!

This is also the first time we adopt 'road trip rules'. After our unsuccessful experiment with a sedan in Perth I upgraded our rental to a SUV (actually lucked in this time to a free upgrade when I re-booked!), and got a brand-new fully loaded Hyundai Tuscon - we have a Santa Fe in Canada so there was no learning curve. Rule #1 - rolling duffles in the back, food and freezer bag between them, for a 1 or 2 night stop everything stays in the vehicle except for food, toiletries and a change of clothes. And that's the laundry bag on the left, lying in wait for our once-a-week chill day (Rule #2)!

At one point during our trip I reveal to brightonbonnie that we are actually on a wine tour disguised as a 90-day Tahiti-Australia-New Zealand roadtrip! We enjoy wines from Oz and NZ, so this is our first visit to a famous wine area, but it will not be our last. This winery is Seppeltsfield, one of the oldest Barossa wineries, which like many in the Barossa do not export to Canada and often only sell from the storefront at the winery. We taste (and eventually buy) two wonderful whites, a riesling which is much dryer than the German or Canadian varieties and a Vermentino, which is a variety from Sardinia which does well here because of the climate. The rep suggests we try the Moscato, a sparkling rose, which is normally not our taste, but she persists in a kind way and we succumb – glad we did! We buy a bottle of it as well.

The next day we take the scenic route to Angaston, which is supposed to have lots of nice restaurants and cafes, but find nothing to our liking. It is a pleasant town, well-kept, with stone buildings and verandahs typical of South Australia. We do buy some nice halloumi at the Barossa Cheese Factory before heading out on another scenic route back to Tanunda. Along the way the Mengler Hill lookout gives us a panoramic view of the entire Barossa Valley.

So we have lunch a second time at POD (Plate Of the Day) in Tanunda, a very funky find with an interesting menu, like Malaysian Fish Curry for me and Zucchini, Pomegranate, Egg and Ham Salad for less-adventurous brightonbonnie.

And so we leave the Barossa after a very pleasant couple of days. Join me for my next post - we head for the Great Ocean Road, but first have a few stops along the way!

Thanks to @benfenson for watching over my Oz posts!

!steemitworldmap -34.525225 lat 138.965010 long Barossa Valley Australia d3scr