Saturday was the end of the east coast for Sophie and Simon, as they went their separate ways. For Simon it was off to work in NZ while I took in the sights and sounds of South Australia.
I haven't had much sleep in the past few days so I can't guarantee this entry being any good...
After a long flight to Adelaide I was whisked off to dinner by my Mum's sort of cousin and friends. The next day I was up early to go wine tasting and driving (note to police friends - I wasn't driving, just admiring the view). I met up with other friends and relatives, discovered its very strange (but good) to meet people you haven't had much contact with for 17 years, and was so well pampered I forgot I was backpacking.
And then it was back to the hostel life and lugging my backpack around, which, although having cleared some weight from it since Simon's no longer around to help me lift it, it still weighs a ton.
I checked into the YHA cos Simon recommended it, and its nice but at $28.50 a night is pretty extortionate!
When I got into my room there was a really strange woman interrogating this poor Spanish girl about why she wasn't going to Western Australia so I left pretty quick!
South Australia is famous for its wine so what else was I to do but go on a tour of Barossa Valley - home of Jacobs Creek (yuck) and other not so famous wines which taste a lot better. So I began my tour with Groovy Grape with about 12 other fairly quiet people who were all a bit shocked at having to get up so early to go wine tasting. First stop was the world's biggest rocking horse which I had to climb cos I wanted the certificate with the pretty sticker. Most people had been put off climbing it after the guide had told us that a German guy had nearly died 5 years ago when he climbed onto the head to pose for a picture and lost his footing. Luckily he landed in a bush and only broke his arm but the horse was closed for the next 4 years and up until a month ago, German's weren't allowed to climb it.
Our tour guide was probably one of the best I've had so far and told us numerous funny stories as well as a lot of lies. One of his colleagues is apparently the most wanted man in Tasmania after he cut down an oak tree the day after the locals had held a festival celebrating its 200th birthday. But the tree used to be used to hang Aborignals, so this guy understandably didn't like the fact people were celebrating it. But the extradition laws are such that if he's in Australia, the police can't arrest him. We were also told about 'Dirty Harry' - a guy who they usually see on their desert tours who lives in Cooper Pedy, who does tours round his house, where he hangs the underwear of all the women he's slept with. Nice.
Other stories included 9 Irish guys and 1 Swedish girl getting arrested on the tour for flashing the police, an American guy who fell out of the back of the bus but no one realised until the next stop. When they went back to find him he said he'd been trying to roof-surf. A Californian girl who was kept yawning and when asked by the tour guide if he was boring her, stated: "Sometime I forget to breathe". The same girl also pointed out of the window to an Echinda (spiny anteater) and shouted "It's an enchilada!".
The best lie which we all believed was that the big pipe we saw running down the hillside carried 4 different types of wines from the valley into the city.
We started off at Jacobs Creek where we were taught how to properly taste wine. Shame the wine was Jacobs Creek. Next was Rosemount which wasn't bad, and we had kangaroo steak for lunch to wash it down with. Bethany wines was a winner as we had 20 different wines to sample as well as 2 ports. By the time we reached the last one (I can't even remember what it was called now) we were somewhat tipsy and I don't think the guy in charge was all that impressed that we were just guzzling down his award winning wine without really appreciating the citrus aromas and ripe flavours.
Suddenly the Austrian girl who had been so shy at the beginning and refused to yodel as a forfeit for being the last back to the bus, was grabbing the microphone at every opportunity and wailing into it, even swiping it from the Italian girl when she was in the middle of singing.
I felt a bit rough by the time I got back in the evening, and the strange woman in my dorm was still there, this time harrassing a girl for using her laptop when this woman was trying to sleep. I quickly jumped into bed avoiding her eyesight in case she put some curse on me. A few minutes later I saw her get up, take a bottle of whisky or something from her cupboard and down a lot of it before she climbed back into bed talking to herself, first in English and then something else, saying she couldn't take it anymore. I hid under my duvet until the noises stopped, but I slept pretty uneasy that night.
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