March, 20th

Gawler

We had ourselves another lazy day. Ian and his wife showed us around the Barossa-Valley. Except for some trees unfamiliar to us we could have been in Harz or Sauerland! With one important difference: here they cultivate wine. Since the first settlers built their homes here 150 years ago - a great number of which actually came here from Germany - they started to grow some extraordinary vines.

Some of the vineyards resemble small French castles while others look more like modern office buildings with lots of tanks and machinery next to it - more of an oil-refinery than a wine-press. The small towns in the Barossa-Valley are different to what we saw so far. You can detect the history of the region by looking at the house facades, and some of the houses show German influences. Streetnames are - or at least sound - German and you find the inevitable restaurants serving "Schnitzel and Sauerkraut". It took only three wine-tastings to get us 'a little tired' and we were glad to get back to Gawler. Ian had already done our route-planning for the next day, he even found us a place to stay and had arranged for a pilot to accompany us. Everything is taken care of!