Vintage Parade

In the Barossa they had a Vintage Festival that happens every 2 years. It lasts for a week and there are just different events happening all around the small cities that make up the Barossa.

On the last day, the main event is the Vintage Festival Parade. It is a parade that lasts about 7k from Nuri to Tanunda. Every float has a different theme and St Hallett decided to do a play on words and go with a Halloween theme; St Hallettween. Because the parade is 7km long (about 2 hours), and there would be drinking, someone had a genius idea of putting a porta-potty on board and decorating it as a haunted house! Perfect!

The day started out early, 830am on a Saturday, it was really not that bad since we had been working so early the weeks prior. Everyone then met at the float at 930 for some breakfast (doughnuts, pasties, pies, quiches) and drinks (never started drinking that early before... so that was an experience in itself).   

We had people dress up as all kinds of scary zombies, the Adam’s family, skeletons, etc. and I was a devil.  We had a great time drinking St Hallett wine and dancing to thriller during the parade. Because I learned the dance in college, I was in the front row at the parade. Some of my fellow coworkers also had a good time scaring some of the people in the crowd. That gave us all a good laugh.

It was fun having the Halloween theme, especially because it is coming into fall here in the Barossa so it felt like naturally Halloween should be coming up. 

Easter Weekend at the Races

Every Easter weekend there are Horse Races up in Clare, a city about 40 min north. Kaitlyns housemates sister (Sophie) invited us to go up with here and she said it is her favorite day of the year, so we had to go!

At the races all the girls were their nicest dresses and the guys all dress up in suits. Therefore, we needed to go shopping ASAP because we were not prepared with the clothes we brought from home! The weekend prep began on Thursday, late night shopping in the Barossa (shops are open until 9 instead of 5).  We found great dresses and accessories for reasonable prices and in a short amount of time. It was a very successful night and all the stores were having massive 'end of summer' sales!

On Friday, Sophie picked us up to spend the night at her parents house out in the country. The house was an old fashioned farm house. It was really nice to get to go and see that side of Australia. We had an early night and got up early Saturday to start getting ready. It felt like homecoming but not as fancy.

We ended up at Spohie's friends house up in Clare for a pre races brunch and drinks. It was full of muffins, cookies, Mimosas, fruit, ect. All the girls looked great in their dresses and hair but we couldn't wait to get to the actual races.



So apparently at the races, no one actually watches the horses race. They just drink and socialize with the everyone they haven't seen since the year before at the races. I can see how this would be 'the best weekend of the year' for people who lived here and got to catch up with all of their friends. It was still a good time for Kaitlyn and I. As the races came to an end, a DJ came on and it turned into a dance sesh that later continued down at the bars in Clare.

It ended up being one of he best day/nights we had had in Australia to date and were really happy that we had Sunday and Monday off to hang out and relax after an action packed Saturday.

Easter here is a lot different. It is always a 4 day weekend with Good Friday and Easter Monday as the main holidays. Sunday the actual day of Easter isnt really a big deal here which seemed really odd to me. I guess thats part of traveling and living somewhere new, you get to experience holidays in a new way that has parts that are better (4 day weekend) and others that you miss (celebrating Easter).

Ango and Roaring 40's pizza

There is a farmers market every Saturday ( I think I talked about this before) in a neighboring town just outside of Angaston (another larger neighboring town).  Andrea and I decided to bike there and the only way we knew how was on some busy farm roads.  The roads are pretty narrow and there isnt much of a shoulder to bike on so that was a bit nerve racking. Anyways, we made it there no troubles and had a look. Luckily
 we ran into a coworker who told us about a bike path that goes straight in to Nuri, so we found that and took it home.

This brings me to my next adventure.... There is a pizza place that everyone talks about having the best pizza in the Barossa, so naturally Kaitlyn and I had to go. It is in Angaston so I also knew the way to get there via the bike path!

It is about 6 kilometers from Nuri to Ango, which isn't a too bad for a bike ride. We thought, this will be a good little work out and reward ourselves with some pizza and then ride back, no problem! But.... 2K into the ride, my back tire went completely flat. It was a nice day out and the bike path is very scenic, in between many different vineyards, so we decided to push our bikes and continue on.

We finally made it to the pizza place after about an hr of pushing the bikes along (it was worth it) and ordered our pizza. At this point we needed to find a way home. This was the first time we had done anything where Kaitlyn didnt bring her phone (usually we never use it!) and mine was out of credit and about to die. Luckily the manager of the place let us borrow his phone to call for a ride.

We ended up calling Bec, the lab manager, who came straight away to give us a helping hand. The only problem was that she brought her car which didnt fit 2 bikes..... so she drove all the way home to get a bigger car but couldnt find the keys, so she came back to get us. The restaurant manager again was extremely nice and helpful and allowed us to store our bikes in their back shed until the next day when Bec's boyfriend could go pick them up. Everyone is so so nice here and our disaster ended up being an adventure and just another Tuesday night in the Barossa.

Update!! Work, Cuddlee Creek and Adelaide

Work seemed like all I had done for the past 6 weeks. 60 hrs a week was a lot to handle, especially starting at 5... work, eat, sleep was the routine. The big harvest part of vintage is virtually over, so we are now working 7 hr days and have the weekends off!! It seems like I have so much free time I dont know what to do with my self sometimes.

One of the full time cellar hands has a really nice camera and he sets it up and has it take a picture every second and then makes it in to a video. So here is one of the videos he made of what happens in the cellar during harvest.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhk-4IUBsX8

Last weekend was the first weekend we had off since my birthday, so a group of us decided to get out of town and see what Adelaide night life had to offer.

Because we are in Australia, holding a koala and feeding a kangaroo seemed like a 'must do.' Some of my friends at work are locals and were able to tell us a place where we could do this, and it was on the way down to Adelaide, perfect! It was called Cuddlee Creek. What a perfect name! It was kind of hard to find, and with some detours in the beautiful Adelaide Hills, we finally found it.

The place was like a zoo, but sectioned off where kangaroos and wallabies could run around freely and people could pet them, like a petting zoo. It was really bazaar and intimidating at first. The kangaroos were so soft and friendly once I let down my guard.  Seeing so many movies and TV shows where the kangaroo kicks a person always stays with you...






There were also monkeys, dingos,  emus, bats, camels, panthers... (others that I cant remember).  Holding the koala was really special and something that I wasn't expecting to do. I've seen people take pictures with them while they are sitting on a tree right next to them, but holding it was pretty cool. It latches on to you like a child and then just sits there and eats the eucalypti leaves as you hold it and smile at the camera. Cute and cuddly thing.

Paul (English), Brooke (Australian), ME, Kaitlyn (Californian) and Kim (Danish)

That was pretty much the highlight of the weekend adventure. In Adelaide, we did a lot of walking around and some shopping. It is just like any other city with lots of people out and about.

This last Friday, Paul left us to start another harvest in New Zealand. The first of many good byes to come. They are still horrible, and this is the worst part of traveling. Everyone who knows me, knows that I am the worst at saying good bye. AHHH!!!

Adventures in the Braossa

Nuriootpa is the city I live in and Tanunda is a city that is about 8k away. Most of the time, Nuri closes down early so we head to Tanunda for exciting nights out.

A few weeks ago, we discovered the brewery there. There have an awesome cider for me and some good beer for the others. Anyways we had a good night out over there on a night that started out as, 'lets get a couple beers at the brewery and call it a night.'

At the end of the night Quentin (my roommate) and I were ready to go home. We had gotten a ride to Tanunda from Paul (he had to work the next day so he went home early) but needed to get a ride home. We thought about getting a taxi, but then remembered that it is pretty expensive for such a short ride. Quentin then had an idea, "lets hitch hike!" I told him, "no we cant my mom will kill me!" .... long story short, we ended up attempting to hitch hike in this small tourist town but no one picked us up and we ended up walking the whole way home, in flip flops. Our dogs were barkin!!!

We have come to the conclusion that we weren't picked up because we looked like hippies. It was a Friday, so I had by tie-dye Friday Modesto shirt on, and Quentin was wearing some flowy Aladdin pants with his crazy curly hair and bandanna on.



Last night, Andrea and I wanted to go out in Tanunda (Kaitlyn the other American girl lives there,and like I said before its a more lively place). Again we didn't want to have to pay for a taxi both ways so we decided to ride bikes there and cab it home! The bike laws in Australia are very strict (Robert Pattinson (Twilight) got a ticket for biking with out a helmet back in Jan, and you know they mean business when a celebrity cant get out of a ticket).

Andrea wanted to be an "Italian Stallion" and put gel in his hair, so he didn't want to wear his helmet. I explained to him we needed to but he still denied. It was dark out as well so we should have had some sort of light. But we didnt..... We rode for about 10 min when a cop finally stopped us. He asked Andrea where his helmet was and where our lights were. Andrea said sorry, the cop gave me some props for wearing my helmet and then told us to walk our bikes home. So we did. He also informed us that this stop could have been a $250 fine! In the famous words of Andrea. "Thats INCREDIBLE!"

The incident was much more dramatic and hilarious that it seems here, because of Andrea's lack of understanding/English isn't 100%.

Sky

The sky here is incredible. I just cant stop looking at it while working. At first I thought it was because of my sunglasses but its defiantly just because it is so beautiful.  The sky is ALWAYS so blue and the clouds are so fluffy looking. Maybe its because I'm living in such a small town with less pollution or maybe its just the Australian sky.

 Sure, the sun rises and sets are amazing, but during the day is beautiful as well.

This post is dedicated to Miss Katie and her love of clouds <3

Work

Harvest started to kick in full blast. After my birthday weekend (great timing) we started to work two 10 hr shifts between the crew, 6 days a week. Mine is the morning shift, 5am-3pm Monday thru Saturday, and the afternoon shift is 2:30pm-12:30am. It is long and hard hours, but will be rewarding to see our hard work in an actual product.

One of the first days of the two shifts, we had a bit of down time and one of the wine makers let us stomp grapes with our feet. It was a really cool experience, except when anyone walked past us they liked to say, "...remember what happened 3 years ago...." Three years ago, one of the wine makers did the same thing but to a ferment and he ended up in the hospital with a yeast infection on his leg!! Ours was grapes hadn't started fermenting, and had been in the cold room (good for freezing your feet, it was really cold) for a week, so I think we are in the clear!