This is Part TWO of the Australia travels.....
.To see photos from the first half of this trip, go back and click on the link for February.......That's when this journey began.
It is Wednesday, March 9th, and We are at THE LOUISE hotel in The Barossa Valley in South Australia, just North of Adelaide.
We visited two of the most prominent wineries down here, although there are many great producers.
They call Tasting Rooms here the "Cellar Door" , which is pretty charming. Today we visited Peter
Lehmann Winery and had a formal tasting with 4 whites, four reds and bread and cheese. The wines were wonderful and quite a range in style and price. We stopped for coffee at a wine country institution... Maggie Beer started out making sandwiches and preserves and is now a famous purveyor of all sorts of food related items. She was in the shop promoting her latest cookbook as we arrived. Lunch was at The Vintners restaurant and was yummy! Our afternoon stop was the famous Penfolds winery.... they are famous for their fine reds... "Grange" at the top. We had a class on blending our own wines using 3 varietals. It was like Chemistry class.... Photos of this day are in the previous section of the blog ( The Feb. Link).....
Tomorrow morning we will make a 2 hour drive to another wine region south of Adelaide called McLaren Vale. The climate here is very Mediterranean, and perfect for growing grapes. It is Early Fall here, but they are still getting some very hot dry days. Yesterday afternoon it was about 102 degrees F. Beastly..... But today is cloudy and much cooler. Like 85 or so.
It is now Thursday afternoon and we did our McLaren Vale Tour today. It's located about an hour South of Adelaide, and is a lovely region with rolling hills and the ocean to the West. Those sea breezes provide a cooler climate for the rieslings and pinot noir varietals. We visited Oliver's Taranga
Which is a small Family winery. Loved the M53 2010 Shiraz! Next was D'Arenberg, then lunch at
Coriole, which had beautiful flower gardens and an outdoor restaurant. Fresh salads from their gardens and cheeses from their sheep. Last stop was a place called Samuels Gorge for a quick taste but we were tired by then.
 |
| More fruit than we've ever seen on the vine. This is ready to pick! and delicious stuff! This vineyard is at the Oliver's Taranga winery, our first stop of the morning in McLaren Vale. |
 |
| 11 am among those vines...... |
 |
| Oliver's Taranga is a 6th generation family winery, started in the mid 1800s. This is their original home, updated. |
 |
| In a completely different style, the "Cellar Door" tasting room at d'Arenberg Winery |
 |
The gardens at Coriole Family estate and winery. This one is similar in Philosophy to Preston, where Dan works.
They are self sustaining and grow or raise everything they sell in the shop and restaurant. They also host weddings on the lovely patio. |
 |
| Looking up the hill from Coriole's cellar door |
 |
| Ray's beautiful shot of the vineyards with farmland in the distance. They don't grow a lot of crops here, but rather raise cattle and sheep. |
 |
| Adelaide was our destination on Thursday evening. We Liked this town of about 1.2 Million residents. The downtown goes all the way to a beach neighborhood and all is accessible by trams. Dinner at a fun place called Press..... |
 |
Adelaide downtown with the old Parliament building in the foreground.
Friday morning we departed Adelaide and flew way up North East to the town of CAIRNS.....It is the closest access to the famous tropical DAINTREE RAINFOREST. Our hotel there is the SILKY OAKS LODGE, and it is set right in a rainforest world with a spring fed river, the Mossman, flowing by outside our cabin. The nighttime critter sounds are amazing, and the restaurant is opener overlooking the river valley. A very special spot. |
 |
| The balcony outside our bedroom looking into the rainforest. Just outside is the Mossman River...... |
 |
| The cabins of the Silky Oaks are just barely visible through the forest.... this is seen from the Mossman River. |
 |
| A Boat ride on the Daintree River on Saturday morning |
 |
| Rays shot of the rainforest that falls right into the river. We spotted a small crocodile along the bank. |
 |
Cyn along the rainforest boardwalk. This is a happy solution to protect the floor of the rainforest from our feet, and to keep us from the critters that bite. We walked for an hour with our naturalist guide, Rick Hall, who told us all about
the living flora and fauna.... it turned out to be a beautiful day and we did not need the "brellies".... It had rained hard most of the night before. |
 |
| A very tall fern tree. |
 |
| Australian Green Ants..... if you squeeze the green sac, you get medicine..... |
 |
| Before lunch, we took a walk along the beach. The rainforest runs right up to the shore, and the water is heavenly warm! |
 |
| Our lunch place was a cafe / zoo and this guy oversaw the lunch crowd. |
 |
| His buddy.... gorgeous colors! |
 |
| Rick, our guide, put his hand behind the web to show the size of this spider...... |
 |
| This was fun.... they had a collection of wallabies and small Kangaroos in captivity there. We went inside the "paddock" and fed them slices of sweet potato. they came right up and took it from our hands. |
 |
| Ray and the wallabies . |
 |
| This flower is called a "Backscratcher" because of it's spines. |
 |
| Our last stop on Saturday afternoon was this lookout point.... We see the rainforest, the sea, and the mouth of the Daintree River. |
 |
| Sunday was our day to check out of the Silky Oaks Lodge and begin our journey to the town of Cairns. Enrollee to Cairns, we stopped and took a delightful hour to take the "Skylift ride" on a big cable so we could look over the top of the rainforest and eventually arrive in the outskirts of Cairns. This is the view of from the ride, looking out over Cairns and the Coral Sea. |
 |
| We flew Sunday afternoon from the Cairns airport in a tiny Cessna plane ( just us and the pilot) to the island resort in the great Barrier Reef at a place in the North Reef called LIZARD ISLAND...... THIS IS THE BEACH IN FRONT OF THE MAIN LODGE. |
 |
| Here is the resort from the water. The only things on this small island are the resort and a marine research station. |
 |
| Snorkeling at Eagle's Island with our guide, Cassie. The water, the coral and the fish were a brilliant combination for a delightful morning. They gave us full length black suits to wear to protect us from the sun. Very helpful. |
 |
| We saw a turtle similar to this one. Our guy was a green turtle and he was nibbling on small sea grasses. |
 |
| We saw many beautiful fish.... all sizes and colors. this guy is a gorgeous specimen! |
 |
Inside the Concert Hall at the Sydney opera house. SYDNEY is the last stop on our 3 week journey in This great country.
We arrived on Wednesday afternoon, the 16th March. They were setting up the stage for a "Pet Sounds" concert by Brian Wilson of the Beachboys. |
 |
| A city pose with the Sydney Opera House and the bridge behind us. |
 |
| The 2 shells on the right are the Exterior of the opera house. There is an opera theater, a concert Hall...and 3 other smaller theaters in this complex. The shell to the left is the exterior of a restaurant. What a good idea! |
 |
| Here's a beautiful shot of the Opera House and Bridge. |
 |
This shot gives perspective on the grandeur of the Sydney Harbor. We had a few great meals here . One at Tetsuya's,
a famous Japanese seafood restaurant, and a dinner at EST right on George street, the Main drag. Also a very fun Chinese lunch at Orchid Dumpling near our Hotel, the Park Hyatt. |
 |
| The day we toured the Opera House we had lunch at this wonderful Italian place in the Paddington neighborhood. The art is from the owner's personal collection. |
 |
| The building in front of the bridge is the hotel we were in... The PARK HYATT. It was a great location. |
 |
| Manly Beach on Saturday afternoon. A beautiful thing...... We walked the shore and along the coast. |
 |
| One of Sydney's harbor areas. We went by on our fast ferry to Manly. |
 |
| Another opera house shot from our little balcony. |
We finished our trip on Saturday night with a stroll around the harbor area and up to a historic neighborhood called "The Rocks". Dinner was at " Fish at the Rocks", a much more casual place
with lively vibe and good food.
Sunday morning at 11 am we departed Sydney and flew for 12 hours over the date line. So we arrived in LA at 6am the same morning. By the time we get to JFK, it will be Sunday evening. A very long day, but Australia is worth the journey. We want to thank our travel agent, Leah Reilley at Artisans of Leisure in NYC for finding us great things to do and wonderful places to stay.....
 |
This is your BONUS photo and belongs in the Melbourne section ( sorry)....... These little guys are the "Fairy Penguins"
on the beach at Philip's Island, off the coast of Melbourne. Every evening after dusk, groups of them return from their feeding expedition in the sea and make their way across the beach to their nests in the sand dunes. As usual, this event has become a tourist attraction. Large groups of people buy tickets to watch their little parade. But since it happens at night, it is very magical, as we can't make noise or take any photos. I borrowed this photo from the web.
SO GO BACK TO THE FEBRUARY LINK AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG AND VIEW THE PHOTOS FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE TRIP. I had to divide it up between 2 entries, and can't reverse the order at this point. But YOU will figure it out! |
