Wednesday, 13 May, 2015. 09:33

We have woken up to a fine and sunny morning in Hahndorf, but very cold. We walked out to Cafe Assiette for breakfast. They had muesli on the menu, served with fresh banana, yogurt, and local honey. M. asked if she could have something substituted for her banana, and they said would strawberries be okay. M. said yes, and the other serving (mine) would be fine with banana. Then the lady said they didn’t have banana this morning! The fruit choices were strawberry or fig. M. asked for strawberry on both, but when they came they both had both strawberries and figs. Which was good, because I preferred the figs, and we did a swap. The muesli was really good, and the honey was a bit spicy which went well with it when mixed in with the yoghurt.

Muesli at Cafe Assiette.

On the way back we popped into a chemist to buy some sunglasses for me, after I lost my pair somewhere yesterday. I got a cheap pair, which M. says looks almost the same as my other pair.

Read more: We check out the jam factory at a berry farm, the home of one of Australia’s most famous landscape painters, and travel to the McLaren Vale wine region for more good food and wine.

Tuesday, 12 May, 2015. 17:36

We are in Hahndorf after a day on the road from Nuriootpa.

We got up and went out for breakfast, driving the 2 km from our motel into Angaston. We went to the Soul with Zest cafe and both got the muesli, which was untoasted and unsweetened, and came with a small bowl of chopped fresh fruit on the side and milk. M. swapped her banana slices for my apple slices. I noticed the cafe had an interesting looking vanilla slice, with a cream layer and brown icing, and tried that, but was disappointed with the coffee flavour and overwhelming sweetness.

Bottles of Grange Hermitage at Penfolds Winery.

After breakfast we checked out of our motel and drove into Nuriootpa. Just out the other side we stopped at the Penfolds winery to taste some wines, getting there right after they opened at 10:00. It was a bit early in the morning for M. but I tasted some starting with a Pinot Gris, which was very nice. The red wines started quite heavy with a Shiraz Cabernet blend, and only got richer and weightier from there. They had several bottles of the famous Penfolds Grange there, for sale from around $800 a bottle and upwards. They did offer tastings of Grange, but unlike the complimentary tastings of other wines, they charged $50 for a tasting amount of Grange, not even a full glass. They had a range of other Shiraz and Shiraz blends to try, and I tried several of them, before settling on a selection for a case of six bottles to be shipped home for us.

Read more: We leave the Barossa Valley, travel through scenic countryside hills, and find a Bavarian village!

Monday 11 May, 2015. 16:30

We’ve checked into a motel in Angaston in the Barossa Valley as we wind our way south again, having said goodbye to the Clare Valley today.

We got up and headed into Clare to have breakfast at Wild Saffron, a cafe that M. wanted to try. We got there just as the doors were opened at 08:30. We took a table near the front window, next to a wall where various celebrities had signed and left messages. We identified messages from Catriona Rowntree and Stuart MacGill among some other less familiar names. To eat, we both had the “healthy trio” muesli, with fruit salad and yoghurt. The muesli was slightly toasted but not sweet, and had macadamia nuts in it. The fruit salad was watermelon, rockmelon, pineapple, and grapes.

Breakfast coffee at Wild Saffron.

After breakfast we returned to our motel to check out and then drove out to Mintaro to see the Mintaro Maze and Martindale Hall. The maze is a classic hedge maze, the goal being to navigate to the hidden circular pond in the centre, and then find your way to the exit. We arrived right after it opened at 10:00 and entered the small gift shop at the front of the property. It looked like the maze had been grown by someone on their own private property and was just run as a family business. The lady who took our entrance fee of $12 each gave us a sheet of paper with some quest questions on it and a pencil. Some of the questions were: “What team does the lost football fan in the maze support?” “One hump or two?” “Who is lost in the maze (it’s someone you may recognise)?” “How many sisters are there?” “How many gnomes are in the maze?” “Who in the maze is associated with love?” And “How many gnomes in the gnome village have red hats?”

Read more: We get lost in the maze, visit a Georgian mansion, have lunch at a winery, and eat the Best Pizza in Australia (2009) for dinner!

Sunday 10 May, 2015. 16:56

We got up this morning and drove south to Sevenhill, the next town along the road from Clare. Here we went to The Little Red Grape Bakery, which was open from 07:00, to get some breakfast. We had the idea that they would have a sit down breakfast menu, but it was simply a bakery cafe with the bakery wares that were on display. Since nothing else opened until 09:00 on Sunday, we made do, M. getting an apricot danish and a coffee, and me getting a sausage roll and vanilla slice.

St Aloysius’ Church, Sevenhill.

After eating, we took the short drive to the nearby Sevenhill Cellars winery. This was the first winery established in this region, and was founded by Jesuit monks, to make sacramental wine. They still make authorised sacramental wine, but have diversified into a range of table wines similar to other wineries in the area. The grounds of the winery include a marvellous old church, St Aloysius, which we drove past in pouring rain to get to the cellar door and wine tasting room. The weather today began dismally, grey and dreary with driving rain.

Read more: A day of visiting wineries and watching spectacular weather

Saturday 9 May, 2015. 12:12

We are sitting in D&M’s Bakery Cafe in Angaston, having a slow and relaxing lunch.

Our day began with a drive from our motel into the heart of Nuriootpa to find a cafe for breakfast. We passed one open one before reaching the far end of the town and turning around at the shopping mall there, where nothing was open yet. We headed back to the only open place we’d seen, a place called Linke’s Bakery and Tearooms. This turned out to have a large area of cafe seating and a hot breakfast menu, so we sat at a table by a window looking out on the street.

M. got the muesli with yoghurt, while I decided to start my Snot Block & Roll reviews first thing in the morning by trying a sausage roll and a vanilla slice. Several people came and went ordering coffees as we ate, and a few people came in for breakfast as well.

Barossa Valley Farmer’s Market.

After eating, we went back to the motel to pack the car and check out. Then we drove towards Angaston for the Barossa Valley Farmer’s Market, which operates every Saturday morning. This was evidently very popular, as the street was lined with parked cars for about 100 metres back from the entrance to the site. We managed to get a spot right near the driveway and walked in, where there was a bustling car park full of cars. The market was mostly inside a huge tin shed, called the Vintner’s Shed, with some stalls of fresh vegetables and fruits spilling outside. Inside the shed were four aisles of market stalls, selling everything from fresh carrots to jams, sauces, condiments, as well as bakery goods, meats, fish, honey, cakes, nuts, and so on. There was one large stall selling hot food including egg and bacon rolls, strawberry pancakes, and a few other things. Saskia Beer had a stall there and she was there cooking various stuff wi her mother Maggie helping briefly. We managed to get a photo of M. and Maggie together in one discreet shot before Maggie left and we didn’t see her again.

Read more: A day of driving from the Barossa Valley to the Clare Valley; some beautiful scenery

Friday, 8 May, 2015. 17:27

We are sitting in the Barossa Valley Brewery, having a drink before dinner. The brewery bar and restaurant is in an old house and we are in a small room off the side, sitting in comfy armchair in front of a fireplace which is nice and warming. The weather today was cold and showery, and occasionally windy as well, so it’s good to warm up a bit.

We began the day by walking from our cottage accommodation out to the main street of Tanunda in search of a cafe for breakfast. It was about 08:30, and the first two cafes we passed didn’t open until 9, but we found a place called Keil’s which was open. It looked good, and we ordered some home made granola with roasted strawberry yoghurt for M., while I had fried mushrooms on toast with ricotta and caramelised balsamic vinegar. The toast was thick slices of a Vienna loaf baked by a local bakery. It was all good and M. said the granola and yoghurt were good too.

Mushrooms on toast at Keil’s.

We walked back to our cottage and packed before leaving the key in the key cabinet thingy outside, then hopped in the car for a day of exploring the area. We began however by driving up through Nuriootpa to find the Barossa Gateway Motel, where we planned to spend tonight. I tried calling earlier but nobody answered, so we stopped in to see if the had a room free, and secured one for just a bit more than half what we paid for a night in the cottage.

That done, our next stop was Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop, which we arrived at just as it opened at 10:30. Despite this there were dozens of people there already, browsing the shop and tasting the products. There were tasting dishes of maybe thirty different products out, with lots of clean wooden sticks and plastic spoons for people to use. We tried jams, chutneys, sauces, preserved fruit in verjuice, some mustard pears, and olive oil and dukkah with bread cubes. They also had a salted caramel sauce and a chocolate vino cotto sauce. The variety was amazing and we could have potentially had a meal just by tasting everything a couple of times. There were plenty of cafe tables too for people to sit and eat the various snacks and cakes on sale. The building overlooked a picturesque lake which would have been nice to sit outside and look at while eating, but a heavy rain began falling while we were inside. We bought four jars of jam and a jar of the chocolate sauce for M.’s dad, then raced out to the car.

Read the rest of this day: it’s a bit of a food day!

Thursday, 7 May, 2015. 17:00

Our plane landed in Adelaide right on time at 11:45, after a flight of two hours and ten minutes from Sydney. It barely felt like we’d left Sydney before our flight began descending again. We’d organised to pick up our hire car at 12:30, so we stopped in a cafe in the airport where M. had a mocha coffee before heading out. We signed for the Toyota Corolla at the Hertz rental pickup in the car park and drove off towards Adelaide.

Traffic was light compared to Sydney, and we threaded right through the heart of the city, turning at the cathedral square in the middle to head north to Northern Terrace. We couldn’t turn right there, so continued north to the zoo where we turned around in the car park to head back south to Northern Terrace, where we turned left past the University of Adelaide and then out into the suburbs on Payneham Road.

We stopped at a cluster of shops near the intersection with Montecute Road in the suburb of Felixstow to get some lunch. We found an Italian place called, oddly enough, The Italian Place. It was a delicatessen and cafe sort of place, with lots of cool Italian goodies. I had a calzone with bolognese sauce and M. had the special soup of the day: minestrone with garlic bread. Both were really good and hearty, filling us up nicely for the drive up to the Barossa Valley.

Minestrone at The Italian Place.

Read more: We hit the Barossa Valley and find an unexpected gem for dinner