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.