Wednesday 11 July 2012

Friends, Food, Wine and Antiques.......

It was good to stop for a few days and enjoy the pace of Adelaide. It is a really easy city to negotiate, not too hectic and the shops and restaurants are familiar and well priced. We decided to just walk the city the first day as we had been in the car so much. Adelaide's Chinatown and markets were just a block from our hotel so that was the first place we headed......did we make it.....Ooooooooh Noooooo.
Top Gear spotted a Lotus Elise Sport car, went to have a look, started chatting to the owner and before you knew it we were in the suburbs having coffee with our new friends. Carol and Wayne turned out to be lovely company and took us to have " the best coffee" to be found in Adelaide. It was a lovely morning and a new friendship was cemented.
We did manage to walk for the rest of the day, shopped and visited the museum. As the sun set, we found our way to a great little wine bar, called The Apothecary, named for the old shelving that now serves as counters and wine storage. Top Gear was in his element! Two wines and a Thai meal later we walked back across Adelaide city to our hotel.



The next day we were collected from our hotel by Adelaide friends we had met on some of our previous car club trips. They took us for a drive south of Adelaide to McLaren Vale. After winding through some lovely countryside dotted with small towns we eventually arrived at our lunch destination, Woodstock Vineyard. A long lunch was washed down by one of the best bottles of wine we have ever had. It was then back to our friend's spectacular home in the Adelaide hills for afternoon coffee and a chance to enjoy the sweeping views across the city to Glenelg and the sea.
The next day we had decided to head to the Barossa but we found an antique shop that required a visit. Uhhhhhh ooooooooh!
This little treasure had my name all over it!!!!



With this safely stowed in the car, we then headed for wine country!
We drove out through Hahndorf and Woodside heading for an overnight stop somewhere near Tanunda. On the way we stopped at Melba's chocolate factory. I'm not posting a picture of the purchases from there on the grounds it may incriminate me!!!!!!!
Next day we woke to our first misty, rainy day. It was eerie!



No dampening of the spirits though......we headed to Maggie Beer's farm for lunch. It was awesome, so much produce, so pretty, and YUM! We opted for a simple picnic style fare for lunch.




I ended up with a recipe book and a bag full of quince paste, verjuice, olive oil, dukkah, etc etc......and I think I sampled everything along the way.


Of course, I found every patchwork shop along the way as well. This one being the most obvious and just along the road from our lunchstop.




We then decided we should do some wine tasting, given that we were in wine country. We headed for Clare Valley as this is where a couple of our favourite wines originate but being mid week some of the cellar doors we wanted to visit were closed. We did manage to pick up some nice reds and rose' here.



Even though it is winter the Barossa/ Clare valley is still a pretty place to visit.








Next stop was Renmark on the Murray River.
We arrived at sunset and the river was gorgeous.



More adventures to come!
Happy Stitching!

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2 comments:

  1. Can see you are having a great holiday!!!!

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  2. Mmm good to know I now have a new way to keep tabs on you and Top Gear! Hopefully see u at home soon. Princess x x

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