Day 48 - Tuesday 14 February - A day in the hills

DAY 48

TUESDAY

14 February 2017 –

Adelaide Hills

8am arrived again before I realised it was daytime. Paul yet again got out and organised while I continued to lounge, reading my book. Once he returned I figured it was best to get up as well.  We fiddled around and were finally ready to make the most of the day by 10.

We had decided that we would head out into the Adelaide hills for a bit of a tour around and our first stop was Mount Lofty National Park. The peak is located in the middle of the botanical gardens. We found a parking area and then entered the tourist centre before popping out the other side to take in the views overlooking Adelaide and on to the Gulf of St Vincent as well as the Flinders Column that stands in the middle of the viewing area. It was a lovely and clear day, so we had great views., we just had to battle the tour groups and the school groups.

We then followed the Mount Lofty scenic drive back to the Mount Lofty house and stopped to check out the old residence, now a hotel and the views looking over the valley. It was quite lovely wandering around.

We returned to the car and made our way on to the town of Stirling, opting not to stop but to drive on through admiring the place as we went. Our next destination was the town of Hahndorf. The German inspired centre and we couldn’t help but notice the influence as we walked the streets.

Many of the old buildings reflect German architecture. Plenty of them were brew houses. We meandered the street clogged with tourists mainly from Asia arriving on mass in big white tour busses. We took in the sights on offer walking up and back along the main drag. Paul was attempting to locate Gulf Brewery, which we did, only to be disappointed that it was closed despite their website stating otherwise. Actually we were quite surprised that there were a few places shut considering how busy the place was it just didn’t make sense.

Not being able to get a brew, we returned to the car and grabbed our lunch things and sat in the park enjoying our rolls. It seemed kind of odd to be eating our own things with so much on offer, mostly sausages, potato and sauerkraut.

We returned to the car and drove on 5km out of town to the Prancing Pony Brewery. As it turns out this establishment is in a light industrial area, so it was almost like visiting a tavern in Balcatta. Paul knew of this brewery, as it was one on offer at the Beer Garden in Port Lincoln. As usual he ordered a six-glass tasting paddle and sat down to compare, reading the notes as he went. He then went back for the four-glass paddle and scored a couple of extras that weren’t on the list. It helps sweet-talking the bar man.  

With the beers tasted, the bottles bought and the keys now in my hands, we made our way on to Morialta Falls. The GPS lead us down some very twisty, turny, banked, roller coaster like roads and Paul was salivating. He could already visualise being on the bike and turned to me to say he would be back to ride the roads tomorrow, he just needed to memorise where they were!

Driving the car was a workout for the arms and a strain on the brain as concentration was key. The views were spectacular, I would loved to have stopped but had a car on my tail so couldn’t.

We made a wrong turn at one stage when the GPS shut down and we had to wait for its signal to return only to be told to go back up the winding steep hill, ok. We eventually made it to the falls, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. There was a sign and a map at the entrance to the park but no “You are here” sticker so we were a bit perplexed as to where to head. In the end we just went for a walk following different trail paths. When we eventually returned to the map we were able to work out where we were and where we actually wanted to be, close but not close enough. Oh Well.

We set for home, Paul had taken the keys from me determined to be driving part of the twisty road we had gone down earlier. He was noting the streets and landmarks as I wrote them down in prep for his run tomorrow. Traffic was starting to build up with the homeward rush.  We eventually pulled in at 4pm, happy to spend some time relaxing.

At 5pm I was on my phone buying tickets for the Adelaide v Illawarra game. Once purchased, I went to the form kiosk to pay for an extra couple of days and to have the tickets printed. I also asked about accessing internet and was given a heap of passes to use. You beauty, with them in hand it was back to the van to get on. Finally happy to have decent internet access.

We decided to head out for a walk before dinner, this time heading in the opposite direction towards the bus or Oban port. It was only a short walk, so I think we will use it to get into to Adelaide later in the week. We followed the river back up on the opposite bank. You could see where it had had a major flow of water through. We were surprised that a lot of large debris was still in the river and had not been pulled clear to prevent further major flooding. It all seemed a bit strange.

On returning to the van, we made dinner and ate before Paul began reading again and I happily loaded pics to the blog and facebook. Still feeling a bit restless we decided to head out for another walk at 8.30pm completing our usual loop, spying only large bats, not koalas.  Once we had returned we were off to bed.