…but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Friday Morning we arrived to zero degree temperatures and frost thick on the grass next to the runway. The flight on Virgin Blue was typical Low cost Airline tacky “upbeat” service (“good morning ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…”) and rip-off inflight catering ($3.00 for instant coffee anyone or $5.00 to watch crap american telly??). The irony is that while i got my flight for free as part of a mobile phone promotion, baba could have flown for less on Qantas and got breakfast, coffee and the paper without having to put up with circus performers for flight attendants…not to mention the bogans in the seat in front!!!
We picked up the car and drove confidently to Adelaide street in north adelaide hoping to find somewhere nice and a bit funky for breakfast. No such luck…I’m sure it’s as hip and happening in the evening as the tourist brochures proudly proclaim, but the only place open for breakfast was a little coffee shop which was far more reminiscent of a CWA tearoom than sophisticated urban chic.
We managed to navigate our way to Norwood (no thanks to Baba’s inept, upside down map reading). If we were in Sydney we would have been in snooty Mosman…there were cafes full of ladies all of a certain age, wearing sensible and cleraly expensive clothes and perfect hair dos. We found a great shrine to all things Italian in a place called Bravo. They did an excellent breakfast and also had an interesting tapas-style menu and serious drinks in the evening.
Feeling well fed and caffined up we hot the road for McLaren vale. Adelaide is a very sensibly laid out city and her drivers are awfully courteous and law abiding so it was easy to get on to the main road going south. In no time we were checking into our digs for the night Claddagh Cottage.
It was a really cute Hobbit house of a cottage and a lovely base for our McLaren Vale explorations. If I was writing a review for Claddagh Cottage, the things I would nitpick upon include the fairly unimaginitive breakfast provisions left in the fridge, the lack of real coffee despite there being one of those ’80s drip machine thingys, and the typical cast-off utensils and blunt knives one always finds in such places. The location barely on the edge of town, just up the road from the public school which is in turn next door to the cemetary isn’t really “rural” but with such tiny windows in the historical cottage, it wouldn’t matter if it was next to a nuclear power plant.
To wine:McLaren Vale is a very picturesque region. Recent rain meant that the rolling hills were very green. The vines in the foreground and sea in the background conjured up immages of somewhere vaguely “European” (I was going to say Tuscan, but I doubt that there is much sea to be seen in Tuscany).
Our first vineyard was Coriole. The bloke at the cellar door was a bit standoffish and didn’t go out of his way to talk up the wines or to make any recommendations. Walked out with a bottle of shiraz and a sticky riesling. The bloke was also the first of many many men in that part of the world with very verdant chin growth. Perhaps someone can shed some light on why so many South Austrlaians go in for grey beards…
Next was D’Arenberg where the men and women at the cellar door weren’t sporting bushy cornflake catchers and were far more friendly and interesting to chat to. D’Arenberg’s wines were also a notch up. Yummy Yummy. Particularly impressive was their Viognier. It had me giggling it tasted so good. Had a mixed half dozen sent home.
Baba’s penguin fixation was indulged when we went down to Victor Harbour at sunset to watch the little penguins come ashore. They were a bit shy that night and we only saw a dozen or so, but they were cute waddling along.
After freezing half to death watching smelly birds (and getting fed up with drunk, noisy Brits on the penguin tour) we had dinner in a local organic restaurant (think pleasant brasserie surroundings and good food rather than hippies and brown rice) before retiring to a hot bath and crackling fire as the frost settled outside.
On Saturday morning, the nearby town of Willunga hosts a farmers market. There was lots of fresh fruit and veg, honey, flowers, essential oils, cakes, jams and dairy products. We bought a litre of organic milk and some yoghurt. They were both magnificent and sooooo much more delicious than what we normally get at the supermarket. I’m rather fond of milk. While living in Japan I despaired at how awful the milk tasted – even the expensive stuff which is pasturised in the more typical western style was still somehow bitter and just not very nice. Probably something to do with poor old cows cooped up and being fed chemicals rather than roaming free on green pastures. Coming baack to Australia and drinking the local milk again has been a great relief; this McLarenVale Organic milk took cow juice to a whole new dimension!!
We then took the scenic route back to Adelaide – or rather I enjoyed driving along deserted, winding country roads while baba slept. Once we’d checked into the hotel (Holiday Inn, corner room with a good view, drab decor, too much advertising in the room, personalised message and greeting from manager a nice touch) we took a stroll through the Botanic gardens and down by the River. It’s very nice to be right in the middle of a big city and able to breath clean air and see and hear birds everywhere. However apart from Rundle Mall in the middle of town which could easily be Sydney’s Pitt St or Melbourne’s Bourke St or Brisbane’s Queen(??) Street, the city was dead. What do Adelaide people do on a Saturday afternoon??? There was simply no one about.
After a little R&R (rest and romance) back at the Hotel, we frocked up to go to the Symphony. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra were playing Elgar, Wagner and Tchaikovsky which was very enjoyable – especially Elgar’s violin concerto. We were then right on time for our dinner reservation at The Brasserie, Simon Bryant’s (ABC TV the cook and the chef – BRILLIANT cooking show) restaurant. South Australian chefs and restaurants are proud of sourcing local, good quality ingredients and much less concerened about the sceney showyness of much of the Sydney dining scene. I loved simon’s Kangroo with bush food salad, native berries and quince. Baba accidentally ordered fish and chips – but made from delicius SA whiting and organic potatoes served with balsamic vinegar (from TV co-host’s Maggie Beer’s range perhaps???) My fig pudding dessert was 2007’s best dessert to date by far. In fact the whole meal or me shot straight to the top of the 2007 dining charts.
On Sunday, after again being unsuccessful in finding anywhere decent for breakfast in Adelaide, we gave up and headed straight up to the Barossa. Long story short, the Barossa was a bit of a let down after the natural beauty of McLaren Vale. We made the foodie’s pilgrimage to Maggie Beer’s shop, but realised it was silly to actually buy anything seeing as we can get her full range of condiments, vinegars and the famous ver juice (google it…) down the road at David Jones. The only other good bit about the Barossa was Peter Lehmann wines. I bought just 3 bottles as the credit card is very close to maxed out. With all this fine wine in the house now, I’m just waiting for the dinner party invitations to roll in. It’s a waste to drink it at home by myself.
All in all, Adelaide and surrounds impressed me. It’s such a nice sized city and easy to get around. McLaren Vale, the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa are all very close – one could even “do” all three in a day if you didn’t tarry. The main problem with Adelaide is that it seemed to be a city of old John Howard voters and dissaffected Emo teenagers with nowhere for 20 and 30 somethings to go. It could just be though that we didn’t know where to look. I hope to go back again some day, maybe even retire there…John Howard wil probably still be the bloody Prime Minister then, and I daresay his ability to brainwash the population will be such that maybe even I will be coaxed into voting for him (God forbid).
A far happier thought than ever voting for the Liberal Party is the decidedly pinko left wing McLaren vale vista below, shot while drinking my organic milk and eating my biodynamic yoghurt…
The highlight was a live performance by Sneaky Sound System. We saw them a few months ago as the support act at the Scissor Sisters concert. Seeing them in a small venue where we had plenty of room to dance was just fab!!