Monday, October 29, 2012

Mon 29 Oct - McLaren Vale, SA

We wake up to another beautiful day and to ducks wandering our campground from the nearby creek. Feeding of bread is required...

At the end of the camp, somebody had a sense of humor and created this piece of "art"...

Today we are walking the Shiraz Trail, an old rail line converted to a walking and cycling track from the coast to Wilunga (a little town at the south end of the Vale).

Sort of the same as the Riesling Trail in Clare although this one is much shorter and also surfaced. Horses are also allowed on the trail, although we didn't see any...
McLaren Vale is even lovelier than Clare, more compact as a valley and greener. Vines everywhere you look due to the small area. Amazing to find so many of our favourite wineries within a maximum of about a 5km radius area - ok, we like shiraz...a lot.
The walk is easy going, flat and paved and a few places with shade and benches to stop. What we don't understand is that on the way, near Wilunga, they promote the "Hans Christian Andersen Memorial Reading Seat" which is basically a chair made of bent pieces of tree limbs in a paddock! What the...
With plenty of photo breaks we make the 7km to Wilunga in just under 2 hours. Stop at the Rose Garden for an apple and water.
It's warm and on the way back we stop to eat our sandwich lunch and relax. Then on to the great visitors centre for free Wifi. You could not ask for better - no cost, quick downloads and uploads, a cafe that serves good iced coffee, comfortable couches, and a lovely aspect out to hills covered with vines. Aaahhh this is the life and well deserved after 15km of walking. Life's good :-)

The Visitors Centre has a series of signposts - not that we're really that interested in going back to Stockholm but we were surprised that it got a mention.

Here is a photo of Di for no other reason that we don't have a photo of her from today (OK, OK, she looks good here too...)

After a very relaxing 1.5 hour or so, we make our way back to Lakeside Camping Ground through the Main Street of McLaren Vale, stopping at Coles for food, at BWS for wine (yes, that's correct, 1 bottle only) and the lolly shop for licorice lollies (for Hans) and English toffee (for Di).


A dip in the pool is on the cards, which was very nice indeed. Solar temperature heating which was just right at perhaps 20 degrees or so.

Di is cooking dinner on the BBQ with steak, baked potatoes and grilled vegies. Yum. Very nice.

Later in the evening, a rowdy bunch of 60+ year old blokes were congregating around the BBQ. They seem to solve all the world's problem through loud voices and liberal use of the F word. You know... "... then I told the Mitsubishi guy what he's done wrong..." kind of thing (Yes, one of them yelled that...)

"Old Men gone wild" may possibly be A Current Affair's spin on it... (those of you who have seen Chaser's War on Everything in the last couple of years will get that).

Reading in the van for an hour or so, then it's goodnight...

 

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