Long drive from Port Fairy to the Adelaide Hills with Coonawarra wine tasting on the way.
We get a very late start after administrative chores and shopping for sandwiches to take on the road, so we’re on the road to Mt. Gambier, a few hours northwest, by noon. There, we have lunch, fend off the magpies, other large yellow-speckled birds, and some chickadees that have violently blue head stripes that gather around, begging for crumbs. We take photos of the famous blue lake in a crater at the the top of the hill overlooking the town. We are late in the lake’s “season” — the particles that precipitate in the water need heat — but it’s still a lovely blue.
We motor on because we have a looong way to go. But we pass through Coonawarra on our way to the Adelaide Hills, our final destination about 600 kilometers distant. Coonawarra is known for its vineyards of Cabernet and Shiraz — deep reds with some bite or a peppery finish — and we go to three, which are clustered around a town called Penola: Balnaves, Majella, and Rymill. The first two are lovely places and all the tasting is free, but we don’t find anything that transports us.
We get to Rymill just before closing and find a 100 percent Cabernet from a single vineyard that is sold only on-site to be very much to our liking. $60 a bottle, but with the exchange rates …. Blah, blah, blah … we rationalize two bottles to take to friends with whom we’ll stay after we return to Melbourne from Queensland.
We drive on. And on. And on. And on. This is a long hall and it’s dark for the last two hours when we reach Hahndorf, a little German town in the Adelaide Hills. We open the lockbox where keys have been left for us and immediately go to a German restaurant across the street from our hotel (owned by the hotel’s owner).
Big place, jumpin’ joint. A Brit named Harriette who’s lived in Australia for six years is our server. She pays $10,000 a year to renew her visa in the hopes of getting her permanent residency. She’s got advanced honors degrees in biomedicine and neuroscience. She knows ALL about the wines and beers the restaurant serves and brings us samples of anything we want. David teaches the bartender how to make a great Negroni. The drive is forgotten in a blur of barbecued ribs and beer and a Sauvignon Blanc that Cynthia falls in love with.
Another day of many miles in Oz.
Two Tramps 