Adelaide

Here’s my third and final post of tonight, whew! I’m not sure how they show up or what the notifications are like, so if you only see this one, make sure you check out the ones for The Great Ocean Road and Kangaroo Island too!

 

Back in Adelaide we ended up spending another night in a horrible hostel, but at least we had a little warning this time. All the high-rated hostels were full for the night, so we had to settle for 24% (out of 100, for anyone who didn’t pay attention in math) or something like that. It was about what you’d expect. It was a tossup whether it would have been cleaner and the same level of relaxing if we had slept on the street.

The next morning we moved on to Shakespeare’s Backpackers, which is where I’m writing this from now, and I’m glad to say it’s a huge improvement. It’s clean and comfortable, and aside from a socially awkward roommate who doesn’t seem to understand that reading isn’t an invitation to conversation about the Titanic (seriously, every time, it’s always about the Titanic) it’s been a really nice stay.

The hostel is close to downtown so we spent a couple of days shopping, exploring the city, doing laundry and generally regrouping after living in a car for the better part of a week. We found a really nice Sheesha (or hookah) bar nearby and spent a couple of nights hanging out there. They do the coolest thing, I’ve never seen it before, but instead of the traditional ceramic head they hollow out a piece of fruit and put the sheesha in it. It’s really nice, you can definitely taste a difference.

Before anyone gets all up in arms, it's not a bong, it's just tobacco and fruit, perfectly legal!

We were loving finally getting some warm weather, and on Wednesday it was supposed to be 36 degrees (somewhere in the 90s, as far as I can tell) so we made for the beach! There were no waves to speak of, but the water was swimmable and the sun was warm. Perfect day!

Glenelg Beach and pier

Thursday it was a little overcast, but we had booked a wine tasting tour so it turned out to be perfect. The Barossa Valley is similar to Sonoma and Napa, and it’s where a lot of Australia’s higher end wines come from. We had a blast being the youngest in the group for a change and drinking real actual good wine. We stopped at a few neat places along the way too.

This was our first stop, it's a dam called the Whispering Wall. It's shape reflects sound so well two people can stand at either end and talk in a regular voice and they can hear each other perfectly.

Our first stop, Chateau Yaldara

I'm pretty jealous of their cellars...

Peter Lehman Winery

 

Tasting at Peter Lehman

Grapevines and eucalyptus, is there any better sight to make a California girl feel at home in Australia?

 Date palms lining the drive to Murray Street Vineyards

Our private tasting room!

Today, Vanessa and I finally parted ways for a bit; she’s going to visit a friend in New Zealand for a few weeks, and I’m leaving tomorrow for a tour north through the outback up to Alice Springs and Uluru! I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I’ve wanted to see Uluru for as long as I can remember, and I’m finally going! The tour is supposed to be great, with some good stops in between to break up the drive, and we will be camping under the stars in the outback, which I’m also really excited about. Apparently they are like nowhere else in the world out there, and I’ve never properly seen the night sky in the southern hemisphere, since I’ve been mostly in cities since I’ve been here and we had so many cloudy nights in Tasmania. So many great experiences ahead I’m looking forward to, I’m sure I’ll have tons to write about and way too many pictures to post.

I don’t think I’ll have any internet access until I get to Darwin, though, which will be at least a week and a half, so don’t expect much until then!

Cheers!