Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Easy sort of run across from Mildura, but we were both surprised by the Quarantine Station on the South Australian border, we had both become so focussed on the stations as you cross into Western Australia, that we had completely forgotten about this one! I looked up our previous crossing and it seems we had the same brain fade in 2012! The noticeable difference this year was that vegetables such as potato and sweet potato were given the all clear, yet strawberries, apples, pears and bananas all got the chop and were all confiscated. Rats. Still, we made it into Nuriootpa early enough to have time to take a late lunch at Maggie Beers, but too late to take Devonshire Tea at Colligrove House over in Angaston. So out to Maggie's we went just in time to be told lunch was off in the main shop, but if we hurried we might get a feed in the brand-new restaurant just outside. Last time we were here it was still being built, but inside is an nice restaurant and a large cooking school. ...

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 w...