Thursday 23rd April 2009

We are rain gods! We are in Wilpena Pound, South Australia; on the edge of the Outback and it is pouring down! This is the first significant rainfall that SA has had for a year. It must be us - rain follows us everywhere. Incredible weather driving up here, through arid, toasted plains, with the wind whipping up dust storms that turned the sky the colour of the earth. Empty, lonely country. Fortunately, our visit to the Barossa Valley coincided with warm, sunny weather. From the scenery you could be in the Marlborough region of NZ or Rioja in Spain, with rows and rows of vines stretching out to every horizon framed by dusty brown hills. Our accommodation was lovely; a cottage annexe to a house set amongst the vines (Penfolds was next door), warm and cosy with a big brass bed that Kate Bush, in her most chintz and lace moments, would have been proud to drape herself across. We sat on our small patio, watching the sun go down across the valley and cooked for ourselves using all the wonderful fresh produce the region has to offer. And of course, in probably the most famous wine region of the world, we reluctantly felt compelled to visit a few wineries. amongst the big names - Jacobs Creek, Penfolds, Peter Lehman, Wolf Blass- are loads of smaller producers and we got round a good range (being thorough) on hired bicycles. We visited the Jacobs Creek Visitor Centre, an impressive glass structure with a long polished tasting counter and great views of the countryside (photo). One million glasses of a Jacobs Creek wine are consumed daily (and not all by us!) so, if you are a wine drinker, you've probably knocked back a few JC wines in your drinking career. We also enjoyed the small winery of Kabminye, one of the German heritage growers in the region; they grow an unusual range of grape varieties for the area (no Chardonnay in sight!), we especially liked a white Frontignac which tasted far more sophisticated than you expected from the nose and a stonking great Shiraz (at 19%!) which nearly blew your socks off. We lunched there, they sell traditional German dishes in the restaurant, Paul had Chook (an old bird but, he said, very tender & plump!). Contentedly, we wobbled back to our accommodation.....