Adelaide and Barossa Valley

Half asleep at 3:30am on March 11, we caught a cab to the SkyBus terminal to take us to the airport. The bus terminal is like any other bus terminal at 4am. Just think Port Authority at 4am…Oh, I forgot to mention that the 11th was a national holiday in Australia so folks were partying hard on Sunday night.

We arrived in Adelaide at 7am where it was already about 80 degrees. We couldn't check in since our room wasn't ready but we left our bags and headed towards the city center to explore. We were a bit delirious and very tired but we headed to Victoria Square via a free tram - Australia is good about their free trams! We sat on a bench while we planned our route around town. 

We ran into this guy - who Paul didn't like the looks of. 

He wasn't provoking Paul

But it didn't matter - Paul went in for the punch

Eventually, we grabbed some lunch - a really bad version of Chipotle - and then headed back to the hostel to check in. We were exhausted so took it easy the rest of the day since we had booked a wine tour for first thing the next morning! I forgot to mention that this hostel is an old building…I had high hopes until we sat on the bed. The springs were poking through and we had the worst night sleep! The other guests seem to think it's perfectly fine to talk super loud until 1am and yell "Hip, Hip, Hooray!"  

On March 12 (and still sleepy), we headed to Barossa Valley with a small tour - 17 adults and 2 kids. Yes, 2 kids. We were supposed to see the famous Whispering Wall but because of the extreme heat, the area was closed for fire risk. So, we went straight to the first vineyard at the historic Chateau Yaldara.

This is Chateau Yaldara, supposedly one of the most photographed buildings in South Australia

The next winery (Peter Lehmann winery) was also where we had lunch - the best winery of the tour by far! Not because they were super generous with their tastings but because their wine was the best…

After the tasting, I dared Paul to drink the large silver pitcher on the floor of all the rejected wine

This is the face he gave me and then proceeded to drink it

We walked over to the next winery, Langmeil.

The oldest Shiraz vines in the world

Love those windmills

Right outside the Langmeil tasting roome

And along the way to this vineyard, this happened:

I won't blame the wine for this but maybe it has something to do with it

I've dropped my phone plenty of times but for some reason, this time, it decided to land screen first onto the path we were walking on, which happened to be gravel.

Our last stop before heading back to Adelaide was Murray Street Vineyards.

Still smiling despite the broken iPhone screen

I really liked the building architecture and tasting room of this vineyard.

I started an obsession with doors

Outdoor seating area

Tasting room building

All in all, a great day. Of course, except for the iPhone incident. The next few days are spent trying to figure out how to get it replaced. Stay tuned!