Adelaide and its hills

On our trip to Australia in October 2019, Michael and I enjoyed a trip with the Golden Gate Wine Society up into the hills of Adelaide but we didn’t stop at this lofty point called Mt Lofty. It reminded me of the view of Boulder and the Colorado plains from Flagstaff House sans the water view of St. Vincent Gulf.

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After berthing on the Adelaide Cup Monday holiday weekend, Larkin and I walked the pier at Port Adelaide and headed down to the beach for our sand. We had to walk through all these unique little balls which Larkin researched and found out were called algae balls. Very interesting. Worth researching. Not at all bad things.

We also woke up the next morning to the Queen Mary 2 pulling in front us. We heard they sailed from Sri Lanka to Sydney – but it may have been Fremantle – in one fell swoop over 14 days, but not sure if that was true. If they did and no one got sick then they definitely had no issues entering Australia. We have a feeling we’ll have quite a few more sea days than we expect and we look forward to it!

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Adelaide is a beautiful city with lots of parks and green areas. Of course wineries are in valleys on all three sides of the city. These areas include the Barossa and Clare Valley the to the north, McClaren Vale to the south and the Adelaide Hills to the east. Fifty percent of Australian wines come from South Australia.

As we walked back to our bus at Mt Lofty this little koala was up a tree snoozing in his native local. The koala photo was taken by a fellow excursionist. The little Koala turned away right as I was taking the photo…I have his back side – thank you very much.

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After Mt. Lofty we headed to O’Leary Walker Cellar Door. It is near the town of Handorf and was not far from The Lane which we visited in October. We tasted their wines and actually bought their Syrah. The others were so so. Our tour guide on the bus had run on of the mouth and just didn’t stop talking. We heard from folks that took a city tour the night before that he must have been their guide too. Nice enough but incessant chatting. We all were in need of a bathroom and lunch the minute we pulled up to the ship. Egads I could have used a drink but I waited until dinner…

Port Fairy’s Basalt winery, our previous stop, had limoncello gin. So I bought some for the family and Shane the owner told us to mix it with Mint and Prosecco. We had it on the ship in Adelaide prior to dinner as a cocktail before our Indian food. It was actually quite delicious if you ever run across Mt. Gambia gin it is one of the Great Ocean Road distilleries in Australia. The piece de resistance was the 1955 Cabernet Sauvignon which we were saving for friends when they joined us in Rome. Well Rome is not happening and many cruisers are canceling. The wine went very well with the Indian food. It was our third Indian meal by the chefs and maybe the best. These dishes were stunning.

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We left late last night after dinner. Larkin and I spent time seeing the southern cross on the Observation deck. We embarked Adelaide at 11 pm to only drift across the Back Stairs Passage to Kangaroo Island, our next stop and my next blog!