I have been in Australia for almost 2 months now and I haven’t yet visited one single vineyard so I’m keen to get a visit in. I was denied the opportunity up on the east coast as we were apparently ‘in a little hurry to get to Sydney’ but now that we had officially slowed down our schedule, I wasn’t going to let Adelaide and it’s nearby wineries pass me by.
I have to admit, I’m really not a wine connoisseur (I even had to let the Spellcheck correct that for me). I used to drink the cheapest wine when I lived in France plus a few of those cardboard boxes with the silver pouch snuck in to the fridge in England on several occasions. So here we are and I need to learn about it. Continue Reading »
No-one can really decide where the Great Ocean Road starts and stops, but they say it runs from Torquay to Warrnambool. This is nearly 300 km which seems a long way so we were looking forward to our long coast-hugging journey. You can’t help but get excited by the name, it conjures up something majestic and heroic. And you’re going to drive it! Whilst I don’t want to do it an injustice, much of this drive is in fact inland and 300 km isn’t really that far in open-country Australia, so it’s more like just ‘The Road’ really. However, whilst you are on it, it’s probably one of THE best and most distracting drives in the world; for the times when you do find yourself by the sea you can’t take your eyes off it and you let the road take you like a roller-coaster as it winds, turns and sweeps it’s way. Continue Reading »
With the bright trees of Bright behind us we were a little high as we took on a pretty monstrous 500 km drive down to see the sea again. But, before we made it down to the “second” major city in Australia we had time to pop in to relive the infamous tale of legendary outlaw, Ned Kelly. In true Australian custom a whopping 15 ft high statue of Ned stood proud outside the local shop in Glenrowan, guns in hand, helmet on and legs astride facing off the 10 or so police that eventually brought him and his gang to a bloody end in 1880.
It has never ceased to amaze me how imaginative Australians are with creating history out pretty much anything they can. This tiny town is dominated by the story and the top tourist attractions show off his legend and cash in. The first ever full length movie was said to have been made about the Kelly gang legend here however it was destroyed in a fire and only scraps found to prove it. Yawn! What was far more interesting was the fact we were heading for Melbourne! Continue Reading »
A few people along the way had told us, “Oh, you should go and visit a place called Bright in the autumn, it’s just divine”. Well, there’s no question, it is, and we made a special detour to get there.
Given that we’d missed the good old British frigid winter for 07/08 we were, kind of, looking forward to the upcoming Australian chilly winter, though it’s not really that chilly is it to be honest? I mean this IS Australia and it mostly doesn’t get below Continue Reading »
