Judy & Brian Tour Oz: Nuriootpa SA Barossa Valley wineries Jacobs Creek Chateau Tanunda Maggie Beer City of Adelaide Cutty Sark Clipper Ship

Today was Barossa Valley Day. The centre of the wine industry here is Nuriootpa and we drove up there along a brand new freeway though miles and miles of verdant rolling countryside. They seem to grow just about anything here: tomatoes, fruit trees, vegetables. They also have these enormous glass houses that seam to spread out over the land for acres on end. The vineyards start abruptly though, it's as if some one drew a line in the dirt and said 'veggies here, vines here'.

Nuriootpa has expanded somewhat since our last visit some 12 years ago. We found the info centre down in Tanunda, then went for our first wine tasting at Jacobs Creek Winery, also a revisit after 12 years. This s a very modern visitors centre, there's no pretence of being a 'cellar door', and it's so commercialised, sterile and unfriendly it borders on being 'orrible. We had a coffee in the cafe while waiting for the two tours to leave the bar area before fronting up ourselves. We were ignored and ignored. Finally a woman turned up and was so abrupt and brusque I felt like walking there and then. Judy stuck it out however and they traded cold civilities until it dawned on the frozen woman that we might just actually buy something. Then it was all smiles and charm and chat and how's your day been etc etc. We bought a bunch of stuff, going to be needing volunteers to help drink it I'd reckon.

Then it was on to Chateau Tanunda. Even the name evokes old world charm. The two places couldn't have been more different. Chateau Tanunda cellar door is at least in the downstairs part of an old winery and has a lovely display of wines and produce and a nice big story board display of the 150 year history of the place. To top it off, they had a few spare bottles of the Shiraz recently voted the Best in the World, so a couple of them to go, please.

Having filled in our time well, it was indeed time to head to Maggie Beer's Farmshop for lunch and possible a cooking demonstration. Lunch was really nice, Judy had the Terrine with sour cream pastry and cabernet sauce. I chose the Pheasant Farm Pate Plate (actually, it comes in a little wicker basket, but the alliteration was too hard to refuse). Judy finished hers just in time for the 2 o'clock cooking show and I elected to have a coffee and chocolate hit while I waited. These people know a thing or two about their clients: They have a whole shop of their products, all open and there to be sampled, as many and often as you might want. Then, when you're ready, they give you a nice little shopping basket and let you go wandering and select whatever your heart desires. some sort of foodie shoppers heaven. The look on Judy's face says it all.

On our way out this morning we had driven right up to a set of lights at Port Adelaide before we turned east onto the freeway. Right in front of us at the lights was a big old lighthouse, a bit of info we had stored away, to be checked out on the return journey. As we were approaching the area on that return journey, something off to the north caught our eye; it looked like a huge ship sitting out on the ground. Odd, it just begged to be checked out. We drove around until we got as close as possible, then I got out and walked. It looked like a huge timber hull. As i got closer, it appeared to get even larger and was sitting not on the ground but on a steel barge even bigger than itself. I had no idea what it was, and then as I approached the security fence I saw the sign, City of Adelaide, Clipper Ship.

You could have knocked me down with a feather. This was IT. This is the hulk of the oldest clipper ship in the world. Built in 1864 and designed specifically for passengers, it is the sister chip of the Cutty Sark, which is far better known in history and which is in Greenwich outside of London. When we went to the UK in 2008, I researched both of these and put them on my must see list, sadly the Cutty Sark had been badly damaged by fire and was under wraps and the City of Adelaide was a rotting hulk with no rigging, masts or anything much sitting on a leased slipway that no one could afford any more. There were very serious moves afoot to break it up and rid the world of this burdensome craft. That was the last I had heard of it. Can you imaging my surprise to finally come face to face with it through sheer chance, right here in Adelaide? Blow me down and shiver me timbers, as the old salts might once of said.

Here is an excerpt from the web site cityofadelaide.org.au:

For 23 years the City of Adelaide brought large numbers of British and German migrants to the fledgling colony of South Australia. It is calculated that today approximately a quarter of a million Australians can trace an ancestor that migrated, or was a passenger, on the City of Adelaide.

Some snaps for your entertainment and enlightenment: