What a wonderful time we had in South Australia last week!
Despite the packs of noisy bogans prowling the streets outside our hotel on the first night in Adelaide, we managed to get a couple of hours sleep (after changing hotel rooms at 4:30 in the morning!) and were able to start truly relaxing on Monday.
We were mightily impressed by the lush green landscape surrounding us on the drive to the Florieu Peninsula - through the rolling hills of the McLaren Vale wine and dairy district and on to the vast surf beaches fronting the Southern Ocean.
Our base at Beach Huts in Middleton was beautifully presented, perfectly located 5 minutes walk from the beach (providing a soothing background rumble of rolling surf to lull us into slumber at night), complete with a friendly (cheeky!) border collie who acted as concierge during our stay.
We spent 5 days strolling in the sunshine along the beach, walking around Granite Island (off Victor Harbour), exploring local wineries, restuarants and olive groves, as well as taking a boat tour in the Coorong National Park (Storm Boy country). What a life! It certainly had us thinking about moving to a rural coastal town some time in the future ...... Gus would be in heaven living near such wild and dramatic beaches!
Unfortunately we missed the last lot of migrating Southern Right Wales; seeing them in the Harbour nearby would have topped off a perfect week .....
On Saturday we took a different route back to Adelaide through Strathalbyn where we rummaged in various antique shops, before heading up to the Adelaide hills. The old sandstone buildings are beautifully nestled into billowing fields of new green wheat, lush grasses, or explosions of golden canola flowers.
We went to Hahndorf to hunt down some German pretzels, but spent very little time there - what a kitschy little tourist town!
Our final night in Adelaide was cool and rainy but we relished every moment of our holiday .... back to the real world for a while now.
Don't know what happened to the pics in this post - they're rather jumbled and overlapping. oh well ...
