Adelaide, South Australia

February 24, 2009

So let’s say that you are in Australia and you suddenly have an urge for real German strudel. You could ask the multitude of German tourists to make you some but that is assuming they can. You could have some shipped from Bonn or Berlin or somewhere or you could visit the town of Hahndorf which is a German town in the Adelaide Hills.

It was founded by German immigrants in the 1800’s and they still have an Oktoberfest, a variety of German taverns and several German bakeries that serve, you guessed it, authentic German strudel. Try Otto’s on the one end of town and get the cherry strudel.

Toured the Barossa Valley, which is the biggest of the wine regions, and saw thousands of hectares of vines. (According to one figure I saw it was over 7000 hectares – that is over 15,000 acres). Makes the Okanagan look pretty small.

Stopped at the Wolf Blass vineyard and, considering how much of their wine we have drunk over the years, I expected some kind of brass band. Instead we got stuck behind a bus tour group and had to wait but we still got to sample a variety of wines. The band must have had the day off.

Went to another small winery for lunch. There signature wine is from vines that are over 100 years old. It doesn’t make a very big batch but what they do make sells for $160/bottle. Its called “Old Bastard” and is all sold before its bottled. Oddly enough they didn’t include it in the free wine tasting.

Stopped for the night at the Levi caravan park just 5 km from the Adelaide City centre. Had a nice site overlooking a ravine with walking paths through it – much like the ones in Toronto – complete with ducks and birds coming up out of the ravine to clean up after the campers.