Did I really think it was a good idea to consume a fairly
large amount of alcohol the night before doing a tour of the Barossa? Oh and
before I give my response did I mention that the temperatures were going to
reach the 40s? The answer is obvious and came to mind as I attempted to peel my
eyelids apart at about 7:30.....”what was I thinking” that answer to both
preceding questions: I wasn’t! Ah the joys.
We slowly got our stuff together ready to go on a day trip
to the Barossa. Ron was very kindly going to baby sit The Gator, which was
great as now I was the passenger for the day and De was in charge of Izzy. The
boys had fallen in love with Ron’s two horses Jack and Malachi so we had to
wait for them to be fed, watered and have a good roll before we were permitted
to leave.
I was hoping that the can of coke I inhaled as we entered the
Barossa Markets was going to help. While there was a small change it was
automatically negated by the temperature inside the iron roof shed the markets
are held in. A number of stall holders didn’t turn up or had given up early due
to the heat. Another family travelling with kids, who was originally from SA,
we have run into a number of times told us about ‘Fritz’ that is supposed to be
another SA tradition (I am trying to think of what QLD traditions we have and
am struggling with any). He couldn’t quite describe it but at the markets a ‘famous’
butcher from the valley had a stand so we got some of their even more famous
Fritz and tucked it in the fridge for lunch.
We peeled ourselves out of the market and went to Penfolds,
that I found to be pretty hopeless. I am not sure if it was the blandness of
their wines, the terrible acoustics of the tasting room or the ultra bright
fluros that made me want to get out of there...or maybe i was just a little
edgy!
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| I was keen to try this one but at $3500/bottle they said no... |
De had called Maggie Beers yesterday to find out about the
cooking demo that is on at 2pm everyday and was told that it was every week
day, and that as today was Sunday it was not on. As a result we toddled into
Maggie’s shop and restaurant around 11. We had a great time tasting every
single one of Maggie’s, relishes, pates, oils, vino cottos, etc etc and after
about an hour of gorging ourselves a half a teaspoon at a time we were told
that the cooking show was on at 2!! Not wanting to miss it we headed back into
Nuriootpa to get a loaf of bread and headed to the park for our Fritz
sandwiches. Well this exotic SA delicacy Fritz ends up to be a roll of devon,
similar to what I used to make ham stakes out of when I was at Uni in Gatton as
you didn’t care what it tasted like! Thankfully this was butcher made fritz so
it at least had some flavour!
The sun was now searing down relentlessly as we headed to
Peter Lehman. You know it’s hot when the air conditioning in the car struggles
to keep it cool and you can feel the heat of the footpath through your thongs.
Again I thought the wine was less than average and unlike McLarenvale where we
were generally the only person tasting, there were about 50 people lined up
like cattle at a feedlot and the staff were about as attentive as McDonalds employees.
We headed back to Maggie’s where they demonstrated verjuice
and vino cotto in cooking followed by some sampling which I excelled at!
Jacko
had popped the front plugger of his thong and had fixed it up using a doubled
over rubber band which was quite amusing! We finished off the tour at Seppelt
where I had the deluxe liqueur tasting with the 21yr old one winning the prize,
but at $85 a bottle it stayed on the shelf!
 |
| A new version of beer goggles....liqueur goggles |
On the way back to pick up the gator we visited the Barossa Reservoir
whose dam wall has been nick named the whispering wall. We sent De and Sam the
140m to the other side of the wall and it was quite incredible as when Sam
whispered (and yes it is possible for a Perrier to whisper) you could hear it
as clear as if he was standing beside you. I am not joking you that I looked
around trying to find a microphone and speakers as it was that clear. Amazing
acoustics!
From there it was a long way to go back via Gawler so I
found a short cut through the hills. Now I know lesson #1 was ‘no short cuts’
but as I was in the navigators seat I could now clearly guide the driver
through to our destination, almost halving our travel time. As a result I have
changed lesson #1 to No short cuts when De is navigating!
We grabbed the Gator and headed for Port Parham a small
village on the eastern edge of the Gulf of St Vincent famous for its crabbing.
It was already pretty late soon as we arrived we scouted around to borrow a
rake to go crabbing with and headed to the water. It was high tide so the beach
was only about 15m wide. We walked out about 300m and ran into Dave, who had
told me about Fritz, and we crabbed for a while. He had given up on the rakes
and instead was using a fish landing net and herding them into the net. I
managed to get one with my rake but it was more as a tool to pin it down than
as a rake....dinner was ready so we headed back.
While we were crabbing I had noticed some very strange ‘things’
a few hundred meters down the beach. Initially I thought they were platforms
for the locals to fish from but then they started moving. So after the boys
were in bed I went to investigate. They ended up to be a vehicle, called a
Tinker, that can only be found in Parham that they use to tow their boats, on
their trailers, out to where they can be launched. As the water stays shallow
for about 500m a bloke about 35yrs ago made one of these and now every shack in
the town has one. They leave them there until they come back from fishing and then
do it in reverse. An awesome bit in ingenuity! The best part was that there was
about 15 or 20 of them out there most of the afternoon, sitting about 400m of
shore and they were just out there having beers!
I headed home and went to sleep happy that I would be waking
up feeling better in the morning!
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