Barossa and Adelaide Hills
And here what we have done on our second day with the rented car…
Today was Verena’s driving day. As she loves driving so much 😉 we started on a really nice and small serpentine road through the Adelaide Hills and along the river Torrens. We first stopped at a little car park at the Kangaroo Creek Reservoir to have a look at it. As we looked around we found our first Koala hanging around in the tree!
A Koala at the River Torrens
We then drove further to the Para Wirra Recreation Park. Just 2 minutes in there we had to stop because of 2 Emus walking across the street … We had a nice little walk to The Knob Lookout in that park before we headed to the Whispering Wall at the Barossa Reservoir. The wall is a 140 meters long dam, nothing special, but if one person says something on one end, the other person can hear it loud and clear on the other side.
Whispering Wall
From there we had a nice drive through the Barossa, the second very famous wine area around Adelaide. We had a look at lots of nice little villages/towns such as Gawler, Lyndoch or Tanunda. We spent a couple of minutes in the sculpture park at Mengler Hill (from there we had a really good view onto the Barossa). On our way back to Adelaide we drove through the Eden Valley and past the Herbig Family Tree, a nearly hollow tree which once was home for a whole family. We also stopped at the toy factory and their Big Rocking Horse in Gumeracha. The Big Rocking Horse is a “Schaukelpferd” which is nearly 13m high!
The Big Rocking Horse
After this we made our way through Hahndorf, the ‘German Village’, to the Mount Lofty Summit. From there you have a really good view over Adelaide and its suburbs. After sunset we spend a few more minutes up there to see Adelaide with its amazing lights by night. But it was only 7°C so that we were happy to get back in the car and drive home!
Adelaide from Mt Lofty
Cheers,
Verena & Johannes
McLaren Vale & Fleurieu Peninsula
Hello everyone,
This Sunday has been great. We rented a car for Sunday and Monday (which happens to be Labor Day this year 🙂 ) We got up very early to hit the road fast which we did at around 9 am.
First thing we did was Port Noarlunga where we wanted to see the coast with its cliffs. They are not very big, but very colorful. Sadly enough we had a cloudy morning.
The next stop was McLaren Vale which is a pretty famous wine region down here. Winegrowing is somewhat different here than at the Mosel. It's not done on the side of hills, but within the flat land. The way they do it is to tie the wine up making it look like little trees with two branches. Seems to work very well. We didn't do a whine tasting though. Got to stay sober for the road 🙁 We actually found the wineyard Verena went to last year though. Very nice place ...
From there we went down to Port Elliot. For some reason it's so much less kown than Victor Harbor, but it's more beautiful. It has a little, historic train station and a well-known bakery. We bought a bun, a pie and donuts, of course.
The very specialty came up at Port Elliot though. Well, rather at Basham Beach. We got to see 7 or 8 Southern Right Whales. Isn't that cool? We actually thought we wouldn't see any, because it's somewhat late in the season, but there they were. And not only were they there, about 4 of them were about 50m away from us, just off the shore! The others were pretty close too, but that may well have been some hundred meters. So just in case someone wants to watch whales own here, do not go to Victor Harbor ... go to Port Elliot and Basham Beach 😉
After about 3 hrs of whale watching it became more cloudy and we went through Victor Harbor right to Waitpinga Beach that's part of the Newland Head Conservation Park. As it wasn't exactly sunny and all that anymore we stayed only for a few moments and went back to Victor Harbor.
After having some pizza we went to Granite Island in the dark. You have to cross a long bridge (400 m or so) where a horse tram goes which kind of makes it interesting 🙂 On the small island there are living Little Penguins that really deserve the name as the reach about 35 cm in height. We managed to find one that was sitting in its tiny "cave". Pretty cute ...
Later we headed home directly as it was dark and still more than an hour to drive from Victor Harbor. We were tired, but happy. This has definitely been a great day!
Cheers, Johannes & Verena
And here a few pictures of the day...
3 Southern Right Whales
Tail fin of a Southern Right Whale
Verena and the Southern Right Whales
Moonlight from Granite Island
OzAsia Festival
Hello everyone,
Tonight we've been to the OzAsia Festival. It started out with the Moon Lantern Festival today as this is a big festival for Asian families. They had a parade of about 30 lanterns that were built by schools, companies and other organizations. That tiger was really great 🙂
The tiger lantern at the OzAsia Moon Lantern Festival 2009
Cheers and so long ... We'll be off to Victor Harbor and surroundings 🙂
Verena’s new hat
Hi again,
We went shopping today. It's really nice walking down the mall with its variety of shops. There are several underground shops as well. Pretty cool 🙂
And Verena got a little something for herself 🙂 Check out that great new hat Verena got ...
Verena's new hat
See ya, Johannes and Verena
Marion Shopping Centre, etc.
Hi,
today we slept in and went to Marion Shopping Centre in the Southern part of Adelaide. The weather is not especially good over here, so we decided to take the bus. The shopping centre didn't turn out to be as nice as expected. We actually left after about 2 hrs. We bought a new tire for Verena's bike, though. The old one wouldn't have made it very long ... Anyway, afterwards we had a lazy afternoon - of course, chaging the tire in between - and a nice dinner at home 😉
Marion Shopping Centre
Cheers, Johannes
A nice Saturday
We didn’t do anything special today. At noon we drove to the city to do some shopping (food). We then spent around tree hours at Uni before we took the bus to visit Jessica, my landlord from last year, in Kilburn. It is amazing what can happen in less than one year. The house is still the same, but she is now married (since Monday) and 4 months pregnant (it is a boy!). It was nice to see her again and we spent 2 hours at her place. She then gave us a lift to the Adelaide Aquatic Centre in North Adelaide. We had a really nice evening there, enjoying the spa, sauna and the steam room. Regenerated we walked back to the city to get our bikes and closed the day with a dinner at Hungry Jack’s.
See ya
Verena
Ps.: The weather is still bad. Only 15 degrees and a lot of rain!
Visitor from Germany
Hey everyone,
even in Australia you sometimes meet people you know from Germany 🙂 This Friday Christoph arrived from Perth (Western Australia). He is currently traveling around Australia before he goes to study in New Zealand for one semester. Pretty funny to meet him here in Adelaide. He didn't get a bed at the chosen hostel, so we let him stay at our place for one night. Of course, we went to the Central Markets' food courts to get some dinner that night ... $ 6.50 for a plate of the food that you want ...
Christoph at our place
Cheers everyone
Port Adelaide
We say „Hello“ to everybody!
Today we took the train from the Adelaide railway station to go to Port Adelaide. After our arrival we walked around the city a little bit and took a boat for a 2 hour port cruise. The landscape differs while driving through the port. On the one hand you have lots and lots of factories and on the other hand you can see lots of seagull, pelicans and dolphins. We also went to the Fisherman’s Wharf Market located next to the Lighthouse.
dolphins
Lighthouse & Fisherman’s Wharf
Back at home we had a nice evening walk and “Strammer Max” for dinner. Now we will probably watch a session “How I met your mother” and then go to bed before the week starts again tomorrow!
See you all.
Verena & Johannes
Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens
G'day, G'day 😉
Today we met with Sunny, a friend of Verena, and went to the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. It takes about a 20-minute drive from the city to get there. There's little bit of walking involved as the bus stop is about 1.5 km away from the entry, though. Anyway, it's pretty nice featuring different "regions" like a Japanese cherry trees or an American section.
The Adelaide Hills as seen from the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens
From some places you can also look accross the Adelaide Hills (see above) that actually seem to be bigger in terms of covered area than we thought. Afterwards we went to a Chinese restaurant. That's been tasty 🙂 All in all it's been a nice day.
See ya, Johannes & Verena
Progress for me as well …
Hey everyone,
seems like my research plans for my thesis will work out nicer than expected as the survey approval won't have to go through all of the management, but only through one person. That's great as it'll save lots of time (lots refering to about 6 weeks). Cool, isn't it?
Now I'll try to push that survey ...
Johannes