World Cruise: Barossa County Wine District (Adelaide)

On our first day in Adelaide, we took a full day tour to the Barossa County wine district. We drink Barossa County wines at home so we were excited to take this tour. Our favorite is the Shiraz grape from this region. The noted cellars in this region are Peter Lehman, Penfolds and Jacob's Creek. Much like Napa Valley in California, Barossa County is set in rolling hills outside of the City. The area has a rich history having been settled by English, German, Polish and other European settlers in the 1800's. There is a lot of German influence in this area. The small towns in the wine district have German names and all seem to have German bakeries which are very popular. We visited 3 wineries (Saltram, McGuigan and Jacob's Creek) and a couple of other scenic sites for the day. This was our very first winery tour and it was a perfect weather day (not that there ever is a bad day for wine tasting).

On our second day in Adelaide we toured the City on our own. It's a bustling City with lots of good shopping and some interesting architecture consisting of old historic buildings mixed in with more modern office buildings. We finished up our Adelaide visit having lunch with friends downtown. We all agreed that Adelaide is the first Australian city we have visited that did not seem to have the British vibe of the other places we have visited perhaps because of its multi-cultural background.

We now have a 3 day sail along the coastline to our next stop. We are traveling across the Australian Bight, a stretch of sea along the southern coast of Australia. We will round the southwest corner of Australia and enter the Indian Ocean heading to our next port, Bunbury. The seas are a little rough so we are feeling the rolling and watching the sea spray come up to our balcony on the 5th deck. The temperatures are in the 60s and 70s, a little cooler than we expected, but we know hot weather is ahead so we're enjoying the moderate temperatures.