Mom, Dad and I have been back in Dubbo for a few weeks now and have been enjoying the slower pace of Dubbo. Well, let's face it, I'm still keeping them busy but there's less driving!
We arrived back in Dubbo after a very long last stretch of driving, 760km and 8.5 hours, from Broken Hill. Thank God we could share the driving between Dad and I, as we took turns every couple of hours.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.... let me go back to where the last blog post ended - arriving in Adelaide.
Leaving the ferry at Victor Harbor, we cruised our way through windy roads up to the McLaren Vale wine region. Poor Mom ended up being sick (from the ferry, the windy roads and my driving - oops!) and spent most of the day in the car. We did mange to pop into the Almond Train and make a stop at the Black Sheep winery of Hugh Hamilton. I was driving so couldn't enjoy too much, but Dad quite enjoyed their reds and we got some great photos of what is a beautiful winery.
The drive into Adelaide was quite easy and I grew to quickly love the ease of navigating Adelaide. Sydney is much bigger of course and Melbourne too, but driving in both cause me a fair amount of stress. Adelaide was a breeze! The townhouse we had rented was in a great location and allowed us to easily navigate into the city and out to the beach!
Adelaide is a beautiful city... slow paced, teaming with cool shops, great shopping and wonderful food. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven while in the central market - dolmades, samosas!!! Both were homemade and are a treat I haven't had in a long time. We only had 1 full day in Adelaide, which is really unfortunate, but with such a huge trip planned and so many miles to cover, we had to sacrifice in some areas. I will definitely put Adelaide on my list of places to visit on my next visit to Australia though, for sure!
We were able to make it out to one of the nearby beaches, to a place called Glenelg. The sunsets here were recommended as one of the most amazing places in all of South Australia. So, we made our way down to the beach and enjoyed a spectacular sunset! We also then went to enjoy a sangria on a nearby patio and then some tacos at a much cheaper fast food restaurant.
The cost of eating out in Australia is really something unbelievable. I know people say that we tip in Canada and so it would work out to the same cost. This is so not true! Eating out is at least double what we pay in Canada. Now, drinking with your meal is more expensive in Canada as places here have BYO (Bring Your Own Bottle and then just pay a corkage fee), but overall, the eating out costs are just too much for most people to afford. Mom and Dad and I did our best to plan the trip so we would have a fridge and a BBQ or a kitchen at every place we stayed. If we wouldn't have done this, and we would have had to eat out, there is no way we could have afforded to do the same kind of trip. I'm not whinging, I'm just expressing our opinion on it :)
Anyways, back to the grand adventure....
We left Adelaide the following morning, bound for the Clare Valley wine region (see a theme?) and beyond to Broken Hill. South Australia is known as one of the famous wine regions in Australia, especially the Barossa Valley. However, the Clare Valley, is becoming much better known and is producing some incredible, award winning wines... and it's less busy than the Barossa :) We chose Annie's Lane winery as this has become one of my favorite wines while I've been over here. Their red wines are incredible and I'm grateful to Bridget for telling me about it. Annie's Lane is one of the oldest wineries in the Clare Valley, second only to the Jesuit winery, Sevenhill, which we also visited for a historic walk but not the wine. The valley, the wine... everything, was spectacular and beautiful.
From there to Broken Hill, I honestly can't tell you a whole lot as I was sleeping in the back seat for a lot of the time. I woke up in a place called Mannahill and seriously felt like I was on another planet. The dust was blowing, it was HOT and the flies were swarming. There was hardly anything around - an old train station, a corner shop, and the public toilets was about the extent of it. Dad told me about all of the emus he had seen and I couldn't believe it, so from that point on, I stayed awake and was on wildlife lookout :)
The drive was very interesting for a totally different reason than what you would think. It was flat, really flat, like Saskatchewan flat (ha ha - that one is for the rellies!), but with lots of bush/scrum. Emus and wild goats were everywhere you looked but there was truly nothing else to see - no houses, no buildings, nothing. From Adelaide to Broken Hill, it's about 520km, but that's about 6 hours of driving. It was one of our bigger stretches of driving, but we couldn't get over all of the animals. This was just the start of our Outback adventure!
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