Week 530 · Adelaide · Barossa Valley · Adelaide Fringe
Adelaide wasn't originally on our list to visit, but when we found out that the best wineries were in South Australia (the state) — not southern Australia (the direction) — and got a positive recommendation from the mother of our future son-in-law who had lived here a couple of years, we decided to make a weekend trip for Sharon's birthday.
Our first stop was to obtain new sun hats — we had left ours in Melbourne. Sharon is very proud of her salmon-coloured hat (which didn't come from a salmon), while I got a Kangaroo-coloured hat that was made from a Kangaroo. We walked around Adelaide's central government and museum district before heading to Penfold's in the afternoon.
Penfold's is one of the most famous wines from Australia and the Magill Estate winery is located near Adelaide — about a 15-minute ride. We went and did a tasting and self-tour of the estate. It was smaller than you would expect but it was built before the city grew around it. We then went to the National Wine Center of Australia which had some tests on winemaking — I rated "appalling" — and it was also a great place to sample expensive wines. We noticed a festival was going on as well — the AF, which was either the Adelaide Festival or the Adelaide Fringe. But we decided to have a low-key steak dinner at the oldest cowboy restaurant in town and not investigate.
The next day we had a hop-on/hop-off bus to the Barossa Valley — one of the two main wine regions outside Adelaide, the other being McLaren Vale. Although we could have had 4 stops, we chose two to maximise time at Yalumba, one of the top wineries in Barossa Valley. We were glad we did — it was a great place with a lot of character. And we met someone from Oklahoma. It is true that we may not all know each other, but generally we know someone who does. She was a professor at OU and knew a high school classmate of mine.
We then stopped at another small tasting room and took our last visit in Tanunda — a nice historical German town. On the way back, some young ladies who had maximised intake at all four stops insisted we go to the AF. We were still confused about what AF meant. So leaving the hotel to walk towards signs for the AF, we ran into the crowd leaving an Australian Rules Football match — so a lot of people in town.
A quick Google search revealed that the Adelaide Festival has been around a long time, and consists of formal plays and musical performances in theatres — the Adelaide Fringe started as a rogue protest against the Adelaide Festival and was held in parks. But in the mid-2000s it became official. So we were headed to the "Fringe." Very eclectic — expecting a lot of fringe people but not many. A lot of families like a county fair. But the shows were not family friendly.
"We were still confused about what AF meant — so leaving the hotel to walk toward signs for the AF, we ran into the crowd leaving an Australian Rules Football match."
