Australia day weekend 2019. We decided to take the long the weekend in a state we had not explored yet, South Australia. We left straight after work and caught our flight to Adelaide. We arrived very late and decided to just crash in a private hostel room.
We had a few hours in Adelaide the next morning before we drove to the Clare Valley. We checked out the famous Adelaide Central Markets. The market is open Tuesday – Saturday. There are lots of spots for you to grab food and eat there or if you want to do your weekly food shop you can get that done here as well. We decided to grab some nice deli items for our weekend in wine country. You could spend hours in there making your way around all the counters.
We picked up our rental car and drove out to the country. Our first stop was Jacob’s Creek. Both of us have drank this wine back home and it is a popular one so to go the winery was a lot of fun. The grounds are stunning as well as the tasting area. We did a tasting and then grabbed a glass of our favorite and went to sit outside. We did get stopped on the way out as someone was shaking the bean bags to ensure no snakes were hiding under them …. Welcome to South Australia. Snake free we sat and enjoyed our wine looking over the vineyards it was a beautiful pit stop before heading on to Clare Valley.
We arrived at our Airbnb. It had a tin roof and was beautifully decorated inside. One area was split level with our bedroom on the top level. We had a welcome bottle of wine waiting for us with a few treats. The heavens opened and it began to pour with rain. Luckily, we had wine and found a few board games for us to play to keep us entertained whilst it chucked it down all afternoon. We were thankful for the rain as it broke the heat for us and it had cleared up by the next morning. ( No links for the Airbnb as it is no longer listed but there are plenty in the area).
The next morning we were picked up in our pre-booked taxi and got dropped off at the Riesling Trail Bike shop. We had rented bikes for the day and we were going to do the Riesling trail. The Riesling Trail is an old rail way track with wineries all along it. It has been converted into a cycle path. We spent the day cycling around the wineries and even found a brewery. Below is a list of the wineries we went to and our lunch spot. Our lunch spot was a recommendation from a friend, and it did not disappoint. The food and wine were incredible, I did not look forward to getting back on the bike after all that great food. We also bumped into the owner of the winery on our way out and chatted to him he was lovely and full of stories.
List of the wineries we visited:
Skillogalee Winery ( lunch spot)
After we returned the bikes we got a taxi back to the Airbnb and spent another evening having a relaxing time watching movies and having some cheese and wine.
On our last day we left the Clare valley and headed back to Adelaide. On the drive back we stopped in a village called Hahndorf. The village was founded by German settlers and has a strong German theme still in the village. There are lots of beautiful shops which line the high street and a few places to grab some German food. We grabbed a huge lunch full of great German goodies at Hahndorf Inn. It is a fun spot to check out if you have a few hours spare as it is on route to the airport.
After a lot of German meat we were very full and off back to the airport as our long weekend had come to a end.
Yorkshire Rambler 