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Day 180: 26 November – A wintry day in the Hills

Author: Mrs A

Location: Lobethal, Adelaide Hills

Distance walked: 7km

In total contrast to yesterday, this morning dawned cold and grey, temperatures struggling to top 17 degrees C. It was very hard to be motivated to do anything. Nevertheless, we forced ourselves out of bed and joined the Moylans for a fine breakfast of bacon and egg in a hole, mushrooms and tomatoes, and to Mr A’s delight, accompanied by chunks of black pudding, all cooked on the BBQ out on the deck. This is a household after our own hearts – it really feels like home!

Mr A and I tried to make plans for the coming few weeks to guide us back to Sydney, but are struggling with the weather forecast – up to 37 degrees in one of the locations we were planning to bush camp in – we can’t believe how temperatures in South Australia can vary by 20 degrees in a matter of a few days!

While Ali, Andy and the boys disappeared off to a Christmas party in a nearby town, we decided we ought to get some fresh air and set off on a walk with the dogs. Harry and Harvey were very well behaved and enjoyed substantial time sniffing lamp posts, bins and bushes along the way.We had just arrived back at the caravan when the party goers arrived back from their celebrations, the boys extremely happy with their ‘football on a string’ gifts from Santa. What a relief they both got the same gift! It wasn’t much later that the invitation went out to join Ali and Andy for espresso martinis…and so Sunday night began.Ali works as marketing manager at ‘Something Wild’, and their Australian Green Ant Gin is just the first of their products we were to be tasting this evening. I am suspecting most people have never tasted a green ant before. I have, while I was in the Northern Territory backpacking – we were invited to try a taste of this bright green delicacy as they trailed they way along tree branches. The idea is to bite them before they bite you back – they have a taste of lime with a hint of coriander and were a favourite of the local Aboriginal populations. It works well in gin!

Something Wild works closely with Aboriginal populations to bring various high quality meats, game and a range of Indigenous food to top chefs, restaurants and the discerning local public. Ali’s freezer is positively bursting with goodies from her workplace, and we were quite excited about the evening’s upcoming culinary delights.

First of all, another guest arrived, family friend Robert Johnson. Mr A was quite excited to be in the presence of a blues legend, and only slightly less excited to find out he didn’t play blues but does make a rather fine drop of Eden Valley wine. He brought along a bottle of his straight Viognier and a Merlot (sells for $24 a glass at the Sydney Opera House apparently). Delicious.

Dinner was some dry aged English longhorn steaks, expertly cooked by Andy on the BBQ and accompanied by vegetables. We felt very spoilt. It was a great evening with great company and many laughs had. We will definitely be back here one day!

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Day 178: 24 November – Being kind to our bodies!

Author: Mrs A

Location: Adelaide

Distance cycled: 24 km

After several days of excess – fabulous food and wine and not too much exercise – we decided to start the day early before the rain came across and jump on our bikes for a ride. We were out before 7am and cycling along the shared pathway along the seafront, heading for the port.We saw dolphins fishing in the shallows and a lot of coastal birdlife flitting around the dunes. There was not a breath of wind – the water on St Vincent Gulf was like a lake.As much as we enjoyed cycling the hills of the Coromandel Valley, it was exhilarating to whizz along on the flat pathways, giving a chance to look around and chat as we travelled. We reached the boat ramp to the dolphin sanctuary and watched a couple of kayakers launching for an explore before returning to camp.

The rain started late morning, by the time we’d showered, done a load of washing and consumed a couple of cups of tea.

Those that know us well may recall that in ‘real life’ we follow a 5:2 diet (two days a week we fast and consume no more than 500 calories). While we managed it occasionally in the early days of our travels, we have definitely let it slip the past few months (the last time I fasted was before my operation in September!). It’s all too easy to give ourselves excuses to not fast (‘we’re more active’, ‘we’re not eating bad stuff’ etc) but we (I!) have decided to try to get back in to the habit in the lead up to Christmas. It also forces us to be alcohol free for a couple of nights a week – something we haven’t been good at doing at all!

Mr A spent an afternoon chilling out and reading while I had a hair cut – not quite as successfully bouncy as Margaret River’s blow dry, but definitely feeling more human now!

We’re getting fairly packed up this evening in preparation for moving on tomorrow morning to our next region, friends and more wine in the Adelaide Hills! Tonight will be vegetarian and alcohol free…

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Day 177: 23 November – Friends new and old

Author: Mr A

Location: Adelaide

We’d hoped to burn off some of our excesses of last night with a bike ride, but the weather was wet and windy with a severe storm warning…fair weather cyclists indeed. For lunch we met up with friends made back in Margaret River. We’d shared some good food and wine and kept in touch. It was great to swap stories of our respective travels since then and reflect on what will come next. It’s easier to get enthusiastic about our experiences and plans with other travellers, compared to friends who are still in corporate life and don’t always want to be reminded of our footloose and fancy free lifestyle!

After an afternoon spent driving around Adelaide on various chores we were reminded what ‘city life’ is like. Traffic, congestion, noise, the anonymity of being just another driver on the road – no raising of the finger off the steering wheel in acknowledgment, as we had experienced whilst driving across the country. Sydney is going to be hard to adjust back to in a few weeks.

For dinner we were excited to be meeting up with the rest of the family and friends who Catherine has known since growing up next door to the in the UK in the 1980s (about 34 years!). Good food and conversation about our respective lives. Sad though to say good bye so quickly and not know when we will see them again. Life on the move.

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Day 176: 22 November – Farewell bush, return to the beach

Author: Mrs A

From: Coromandel Valley, Adelaide

To: Semaphore Park, Adelaide

Distance driven: 33km

As we emerged from our bed this morning Kim and Mike queried how we slept. ‘Fine, thank you’ we answered this typical morning question. But then it emerged why the question had been asked – right above our caravan last night, was a rather handsome male koala, who had apparently been doing his donkey-pig impression all night. We hadn’t noticed a thing, being completely shut up with our air conditioning on!

For a koala, he was a rather active male, as he moved positions three times throughout the morning, before climbing down the tree and strolling off down the valley to do more donkey-pig impressions up another tree. If you have never heard a male koala, click here for a link to YouTube – the sound is incredible, and so unexpected coming from a cuddly creature!

Below, Mr K senses another male koala in the air and plans his next move….

He begins to make a slow descent….All that work deserves a break, so it’s time for another rest and stretch out those hand muscles…Finally down to the bottom of that branch, another rest before making the rest of the journey to see the other male off…About 20 minutes after this photo was taken we once again heard the donkey-pig sounds in the valley – he’d made the final climb down and made it to a new tree to do some grunting from!

While I was taking wildlife photos, Mr A was doing a cooking demonstration for Kim and Mike, whipping up a fine breakfast on the Weber Baby Q accompanied by a delicious sourdough loaf he’d picked up from the local bakery.

After breakfast it was time for us to pack up, say our farewells and move on. Only a short journey today, down to the Adelaide coast. Our first choice of caravan park had refused us entry, stating they allow small dogs, but not small cats. We don’t really understand that decision, particularly given Tassie is indoors 90% of the time, but grudgingly accepted it. This means we are nearly 25km away from the friends we planned to see.

The positive thing about our current location is the wifi on the park – we have access to the NBN (National Broadband Network – a faster speed of internet) and unlimited usage. Very rare – most caravan parks have offered us 300MB – open a few emails and it’s all used up, and usually tortuously slow. We have learned to not rely on getting any coverage in most places.

We had been invited to catch up with Bob and Ann Gadd, friends we had last seen back in May in the Hunter Valley just as we were setting off on our adventure. We decided to Uber over to see them – driving would not really be an option – they are wine connoisseurs and we were taking one of our favourite prize winning wines from Amelia Park.

Lots of delicious food was eaten, amazing wines consumed and many travel stories and tips shared – Bob and Ann have been all over Australia and have plenty of ideas of locations to visit that are off the beaten track…we have a long way to go!

A surprise visitor arrived at the end of the evening, their son Mike over from the Margaret River for a wine judging course. It was the first time we had met Mike in person (see him in Cathy’s photos on Facebook occasionally) – though we talked about him and his wife Virginia a lot in the Margaret River!

We caught another Uber back home at the end of the evening – our latest night for a while at nearly 1am!

The below photo (as we were leaving Glenelg) is quite unflattering, but mostly taken for Cathy, Mike’s sister!

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Day 175: 21 November – Biking and financial planning – now thats a combo

Author: Mr A

Location: Coromandel Valley, Adelaide

Distance cycled: 18km

Today was going to be a corker – 35 degrees – so we set off reasonably early for a ride to beat the heat. Kim was tour leader taking us up and down the significantly undulating paths of the Coromandel Valley. It was a pleasure to have cars behave so respectfully towards us. A pleasant change from Sydney.

The girls were turning a few heads of course…

Kim had the advantage of skinny tyres I must add in my defence:

Catherine just powers along: And the most common view for me was from the rear: I finally got them ease up for a lakeside stop:

And with not a scrap of lycra to be seen we had a great ride!

After some food shopping (we seem to go every day!) we had a Skype call with our financial planner, Paul Brady. Now I am going to unashamedly plug this guy as he and the amazing team he has hired at Brady and Associates have just been life changing for us. In an industry with its fair share of charlatans, Paul has been a standout quality advisor, who we now call a friend, and has helped us making some smart choices with our finances. But much more than that, we feel we share some common values about living and loving life that have made him so easy to work with. Having a safe pair of hands to help you plan your wealth creation is one of the most important decisions to be made I reckon.

So we talked through our two year plan for how we ideally want to live our life, and yes we can make it happen. Oh what a feeling. I know luck always plays a part in how your life plans out, and we have had some very good fortune in our work lives, and some not so good in our health, but even that could be so much worse. We have taken some risks, both leaving family and friends and our comfort zones in the UK, and both pursued very different careers, but shared a value of trying to do the right thing by our respective customers, and that has been the key I think to how rewarded we have been by our jobs. Clients have turned into friends, friends into customers, it’s too connected a world to not do the right thing, and yet many businesses don’t seem to yet realise that.

The day ended with a lovely long birthday dinner for Mike, fresh seafood, salads from their garden, a beautiful aged Grenache, neighbours dropping in.

These last few days with our hosts have reinforced the importance of being part of a community. The way neighbours help each other out, as some age or lose their partners, this is how people are meant to live. Mutual respect and a sense of belonging.

We miss our friends and the identity that comes from being part of a team at work, travelling does bring some challenges in that regard, but the mobile community of grey nomads (in which we have made so many new friends) has helped offset some of the potential isolation.

We appreciate your efforts at reading this blog and sending us comments, keeping us connected. Thank you!

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Day 174: 20 November – Exploring the Coromandel Valley

Author: Mrs A

Location: Adelaide, Coromandel Valley

A warm day was promised with blue skies overhead as the morning dawned. We decided to pop on the air conditioning to ensure Tassie was kept comfortable as the temperature climbed to the early 30s…she of course responded by hiding behind the pillows on the bed and snuggling down – there’s no pleasing some people!

Mr A decided to do an early morning cycle to try and get a handle of our surroundings, returning at 7.30am with a face of shock at the number of and steep angle of the hills around here! After several months of pretty flat cycling we suddenly feel like we are in the foothills of the French Alps!

We joined Kim for some breakfast of bacon and freshly laid eggs, before bringing Tassie out to the garden for an explore, the dogs safely locked away. She had a good stroll around and came face to face with her first chicken, which she didn’t think much of, before returning to the safety of the mobile apartment for a nap.

Next it was the dogs turn for some exercise, so we joined Kim on a stroll around the neighbourhood with Cooper and Riki.

Mr A and I volunteered to pop down to the shops to buy a few supplies for tonight’s and tomorrow’s dinner, and Kim pointed us in the direction of her favourite supermarket. OMG. What initially was meant to be purchasing some fish, chicken thighs and a lime turned in to an almost $300 shop!!

What a fabulous supermarket – why there are not more of these (and why Adelaide deserves this one and not Sydney’s northern beaches, I don’t know!) in Australia, I have no idea, but Foodland Frewville really sets the bar. The fruit and vegetables are set out like art displays…

There is a breadbar instead of a bakery, with all sorts of goodies on sale – Mr A was like a kid in a sweet shop!He emerged with a caramel donut – to share with Kim over a cup of tea when we got back!The Cheese was from all around Australia and the world – Mr A collected some washed rind sheep cheese from France and a bitey Stilton from England…after our journey through small town Australia, this was paradise.

We returned to unload our wares and Kim advised us there was some local wildlife up the road – in fact we probably strolled right under him on our return walk this morning. Yes, a young Koala chilling out in a eucalyptus tree…

Kim and Mike’s garden is also a haven for birdlife, with parladotes nesting on their patio, honeyeaters in the bottlebrush flowers, and pink and grey galahs looking down on us. Just a little paradise.

Our day concluded with a fabulously decadent evening of oysters, followed by a delicious Thai green chicken curry and dessert – Mr A delighted to find Kim had baked a fresh lemon meringue pie, and me perfectly happy with the final scoop of my dairy-free ice cream from Bunbury in Western Australia, along with a selection of fresh berries from the garden. Oh and I almost forgot the wines – an excellent selection from our tastings in the Margaret River region…Fabulous!

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Day 173: 19 November – Farewell to the Clare – hello Adelaide

Author: Mr A

From: Clare Valley

To: Coromandel Valley

Distance: 152 km

After spending the morning cleaning the car and van, we reluctantly dragged ourselves away from the Clare. It was a slow drive down into Adelaide, I’m pretty cautious behind the wheel, knowing I have several tons behind me you don’t want to be trying to stop too quickly. Late afternoon saw us winding our way though the city streets and then climbing up a winding steep hill into a really scenic part of Adelaide we had never been before.

Catherine’s friends and neighbours from when she lived in Hastings moved out to Australia 30 years ago, and we have visited them a number of times over the years. A surrogate family really. We had been invited to stay with Kim and Mike for a couple of days, so first job was to park up on their drive, a proposect that at the beginning of our trip would have filled me with horror. Now…easy peasy.

They have a lovely home with a massive ‘market garden’ at the back, brimming with fruit and veggies, some of which were incorporated into a fantastic dinner.

Oh the potatoes fresh from the ground – the fresh berries and strawberries – so delicious. Local wines were produced, of course. A cracking night was had.

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Day 172: 18 November – Cycling the Riesling Trail

Author: Mrs A

Location: Clare Valley

Distance cycled: 28km

Finally the sun decided to show itself in the Clare Valley with the day promising to give us no wind, and temperatures in the early 20s – hurrah! We had decided to explore some of the Riesling Trail today. The total trail is 35km long, and follows part of an old railway which was closed in the late 1980s.

We jumped on the trail from our campground and headed south. It passes through some very picturesque scenery – rolling hills of grazing land for cattle and sheep as well as vineyards.

Our first stop, Sevenhill Cellars, was in fact the first vineyard in the area in 1851, set up by the Catholic Church to provide wine for holy communion. Other vines followed but it wasn’t until the 1950s that Riesling was finally planted here – the grape the area has built its reputation on.

Sevenhill encouraged visitors to explore its grounds, which had multiple historical buildings from the 1800s and under the tasting room, steps down to the old wine cellar.

We continued on, the trail gradually going uphill most of the way (but nowhere as steep as yesterday!), before reaching a peak and heading downhill towards Watervale. There we turned off the path and headed to Crabtree Wines for a tasting. What a fabulous selection of wine and a great tasting experience in amazing scenery.

We had lunch in Watervale before turning back to camp, enjoying the downhills when they came.

It was then the car’s turn for an explore as we returned to the Sussex Squire from yesterday and Crabtree Wine to pick up a few bottles. We are now fully loaded in the caravan and have had to extend our wine cellar to under the bed. Luckily we are heading into Adelaide next week where we will have several opportunities to share a drop or two with our surrogate family members…you know who you are!

Tonight we are celebrating the warm wind free evening with a BBQ – cooking up some sardines we purchased on our travels through WA with some roasted pumpkin and salad…which wine to pair with this fine dining…? Ah decisions…decisions…

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Day 170-171: 16-17 November – Let the wine tasting begin (again!)

Author: Mr A

From: Whyalla

To: Clare

Distance: 272 km Cycled: 22.5 km

Yesterday we drove into the Clare Valley, stopping to make a very important purchase at a ‘fine foods’ shed by the side of the Port Augusta road…

Yes…food of the Gods…pickled eggs. Thirteen years ago we had driven that same highway on our way to the Flinders Ranges and I had seen this sign from heaven by the roadside, advertising pickled eggs. I just had to swerve off the road and buy some. And here we are all these years later and I’m back…never having being able to buy any more in Australia in the intervening period…Criminal!

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We were soon set up on a cold dismal looking campsite just outside of the small town of Clare. Thoughts of cycling into town were abandoned as we shivered in the 13 degree late afternoon temperature. Instead we popped in the car and after a quick tour round the less than inspiring shops decided on a early (5.45pm!) Indian dinner, at Indii of Clare. When you walk into an Indian and its still light it feels all wrong.  Anyway the food was great – fabulously cooked ‘street food’ menu of entree size dishes. An excellent bottle of local straight Grenache from Vangaurdist Wines. A good start to the Clare.

We listened to the rain hammering down overnight, sounding like dried peas were being chucked at the caravan roof – a disturbed night. Morning dawned wet, cold and foggy. To perk us up I did my (now World famous) BBQ egg and bacon sarnies (much to Mrs A’s approval), unloaded the bikes and off we set for a ride.

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When will the iOS app for Google Maps show altitude? Mrs A had picked us a nice looking circuit shown on a wineries map, but no indication that we would be cycling up near vertical roads for the first 10km.

This picture does not do the gradient justice as Mrs A reached the peak of yet another 242 metre ascent.

We paused for a breather at the first winery we came to, Sussex Squire. Given Mrs A is from the old county of Sussex we felt it was worth climbing up their steep drive. And it was. What a great selection of wines – from their crisp Riesling, very unusual apple and pear notes Pinot Grigio, to a wonderful straight Malbec that was so elegant, their Metaro was silky smooth, and the dry grown Shiraz just gorgeous. The owner, Mark Bollen did a terrific job of explaining his philosophy of organic wine making in this small, family owned vineyard.

I can only contrast that experience with our next tasting (up more hills) at Skillogalee, which was dreadful. The young lady delivering the tasting either knew nothing about her wines, or if she did was very reluctant to share. She stood there with her arms folded, gazing out of the window and giving out an air of complete boredom. We’ve drunk a lot of their wines over the years, but my finger will carry on past them now on the wine list.

We wandered back up the hill (how come in a loop ride we only seem to be going up?) and back to the caravan park. Now what do you think could be under a down jacket when the temperature as shown is 20 degrees centigrade…? Yes, some of you know our Burmese cat is is born for more tropical climes than this!

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So the local Tourist Information centre next to the campsite does a wine tasting every Friday night, brilliant. We went along and it was heaving. What a great concept. Use these facilities not just 9-5, promoting local businesses, selling a wide range of food and wine,  not just have leaflets with content everyone can find on Google now anyway. As usual we got talking to Tim and Angie, a lovely couple from the Gold Coast who were traveling with their 9 and 10 year olds. They saw that we were in a Zone RV and said “We met some other Zone owners in Port Lincoln”  – John and Shelley – the same people we met the day before yesterday! Such a small world in such a big country – love it!

Cheers!
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Day 169: 15 November – A stormy farewell to the Eyre Peninsula

Author: Mrs A

From: Yeldulknie Weir near Cleve

To: Whyalla

Distance: 144 km

I’m almost ashamed to admit we slept in this morning, not getting up until 9.30am! We had such a peaceful and deep night’s sleep we awoke feeling quite refreshed. The day was refreshed too – a good 10 degrees colder than yesterday and reaching only 16 degrees by the time we left, wearing warm clothes that only a couple of days ago we thought we would never put on again!

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We drove to Whyalla, towards the north of the Spencer Gulf and our final location on the Eyre Peninsular. We had booked a water front site, which has fabulous views out of the window but you wouldn’t want to be outside. The 55km/hr winds gusting straight off the water are slightly off putting – perfect for the wind and kite surfers we have spotted whizzing around out there, but pretty unpleasant for the average person.

Brrr….windy as Mr A’s bottom after a spicy curry

According to the news, Whyalla has got off lightly on the weather front, as Port Pirie (we can practically see it on the opposite side of the gulf) has had car ports and trees down in addition to torrential rain. We’ve just had drizzle.

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On our drive over to Whyalla we spotted our first Zone on the move – this is pretty exciting as there are not many of us about. We own the 44th ZoneRV caravan and on chatting to the owners of this one, we found they are number 55! We drove up the highway in parallel for a bit and chatted on the radio as we went. Hopefully we will be able to catch up with John and Shelley in Adelaide for some more travel talk over a glass of Barossa red!

As we pulled into the caravan park we spotted our fellow Burmese cat travellers, (Simba’s staff members) Kim and Ian, who had been here a day already. We briefly said hello to them before setting up. The cool windy and showery afternoon did not really entice us into exploring the area, so we jumped in to the car and did a little supermarket shopping, before hibernating back in the caravan with a few episodes on Netflix and beef burritos for dinner.

Another camping cat! The lovely Simba

Back on the road tomorrow, heading to more wine in the Clare Valley – we’re hoping the weather will improve for us to cycle the Riesling Trail at the weekend…the forecast so far looks positive!

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