A place called Barossa

Adelaide really is an interesting place to arrange to visit. Pretty much everyone who does a brief, or not even that brief, visit to Australia usually ignores the place. Now to be truthful I can, at first, understand this. You see at first glance it doesn't have a lot to offer tourists. It doesn't have Sydney's harbour, Opera House, glamerous bridges, huge CBD or a range of other things for that matter.

Rather Adelaide is a city you have to discover. The attractions are not at all obvious to visitors at first glance and are rather below the surface. In fact you often need a car to be able to go to a lot of the places. So if you want beaches, there's Glenelg and Brighton, for wineries there is Barossa and Clare Valleys, parks well they are everywhere. It's one of the most green cities I have ever seen, especially from the air.

Green Adelaide
When the city was first founded the builders were revolutionary in their approach as they laid the centre of the city out in a grid-like pattern and then surrounded it with parks as well as five central squares in the city. Victoria Square in the centre is the largest Square with the Glenelg Tram line running from it to the beach.

Now the layout of the parks may not seem to be the most interesting or unusual pattern but it does mean that the city is extremely green and very liveable. When you are in Adelaide you never feel like you are far away from parks to relax in which makes it a really rather plesant place to visit.

Barossa Valley
About an hour or so north of the city lies the Barossa Valley which is the main wine producing area of the country. Driving through the valley you pass through many household names, most notably Orlando Wines and Jacobs Creek. Now after all these years of drinking Jacobs Creek in the UK I expected the place to be significant or at least worth a visit. Instead its a very small, almost dry, waterbed which is barely noticable from the road were it not for the big Jacobs Creek sign!

One of the best things one can do when you visit the area is to get together with a few mates and go on a wine tasting trip. Essentially five people jump in a car, with a designated non drinking driver, and tour the wineries with each person taking it in turn to buy a bottle of wine. So provided you are prepared to buy two bottles of wine in total you can sample 8 or so wineries which should leave you nicely merry or even more. I have vague memories of entering the Wolf Blass winery the last time I visited a few years back as my final port of call although I have no recollection of how I got home that day nor the rest of the day.

One thing that I quickly noticed about being in the countrywas is how different the countryside is to the city. Now I know that isn't exactly a profound comment, is somewhat stupid perhaps, but in Australia the different is profoundly clear. The further one gets from the urban areas the more yellow everything becomes and the more bloody flies you see. They are everywhere, the little pests seem to take immense satisfaction is annoying you tot he point where you start to wave your hands around in the air like a mad-man. The Barossa is actually quite a green colourful place because of the wineries but one never feels that the harsh yellow landscape is that far away.