A Jesuit's Retreat

So, a leisurely morning....partially because we were woken by some rude guests late last night, and partially because it was raining reasonably heavily when we woke up. That meant that I checked out the news for the first time......OMG. NK exploding H bombs and snow in Melbourne! We were consumed with worry.

What do we do? We asked ourselves. Let's go to a winery and at least have enough plonk to die happy we answered. So the decision that had been long delayed: a route from Adelaide to Port Augusta was finally made: The road through the Clare Valley.

So off we set with fear and trepidation in our hearts and the sonnets of William S sung by Paul K on our stereo.

The road out was quite busy and it took us an hour to break free of the last of the Adelaide traffic. That is the last we will see of traffic till we skirt Adelaide on the way back.

When we finally got away from Adelaide we were in South Australian wheat country. Beautiful gently undulating plain a patchwork of bright green (wheat) , dark green (field peas?) and yellow (canola). With the rain cleared sky, it was beautiful.

It is interesting how you suddenly lose th plains as you enter the Clare Valley and the crops give way to cattle, sheep and vineyards.

At any rate we stopped off at Seven Hills Winery. It is a Jesuit establishment, the first winery in the Clare, I believe. We figured if we drank and prayed we would be OK when the nuclear winter came. They have quite an amazing church up in the hills and some lovely ruins. Apart from the cold wind and the odd shower we had a lovely time and brought away some of their Riesling.

We then headed to Kilikanoon. We missed this the last time through as we arrived too early. Today we arrived just a hail storm hit. We could barely see the vines as we drove in, so no piccies of the very pretty vineyard. Though I did see the signs of Spring. We bought some more Riesling, but they also did nice things with Grenache so we also had a couple of Roses and a plain Grenache red.

Lunch at Clare...can you believe at the same place we ate last time around......we are boring.  We decided the Riseling sophistication required some jazzier music so Dave Brubeck was enlisted. Nice. Is Take Five not the most NY lounge song ever?

Then the, we were warned, boring drive to Port Augusta.....where we are booked in to the same place as last time........incorrigible.

Not much to look at. The towns were pretty but very quiet. We liked the Yacka Institute.

We had a slight scare on the way when the wine and sun saw me veering towards an oncoming road train on A1. Not close enough for real danger but enough to decide to pep up the NY jazz with a little more energy......Dolly Parton was Marjan's choice. I had to put up with it as she had OKed the jazz.

So this will be the last you read for a while. I will continue writing, but we are into outback country tomorrow. Mt Ive Station does not offer wifi for it's guests, and I am not too sure about the next couple of places either. In fact it will be patchy for the remaining part of the trip.