Thursday 15 February: Wine Tasting in the Adelaide Hills

We'd booked a hop on, hop off bus day round the wineries - as they call them here - in the Adelaide Hills.  It's a 45-minute drive from the town.

We were picked up in a boneshaker of an old minibus with a very cheerful drive, Teresa, and off we went ....

That man gets everywhere!

He's raiding the bins for recyclable plastic bottles - 10 cents (almost 6p) redeemable on each one.  One of many examples where they've got on and done it here while we're still thinking about it! Some people were even more organised with very large supermarket trollies and large additional bags

A first glimpse of the Holy Land of wine - the home of Jacob's Creek and Hardy's wines - I'm hyperventilating already!

Our first stop was at The Lanes Winery and almost everyone got off the bus ...

Some people got started quite quickly!

We tasted these 10 wines for $5 per person (£2.90)!

Does this look say that this wine tasting lark is a serious business or does it say "Umm, it's rose"?!

The view outside - how on earth could anyone want to live in a place like this?!

Nest stop was Nepenthe Wines - netting stops birds enjoying the red grapes (they don't like white!)

At Nepenthe Wines we were the only ones who got off the bus.  Did the others know something we didn't?  Seems not.  Mine host was genial, realistic about the snobbery that surrounds the wine industry and the awards system within it.  He treated us to a considerable number of tastings - seemed a shame to spit any of it out, so we didn't!  He charged us nothing so we bought a block of Cheddar cheese they were selling to dilute the very slight effects that the alcohol was by now having on us and we boarded the bus once again .....

We could do 4 stops on this tour but (unlike some others in our party) had decided beforehand that 4 wineries might prove too much of a good thing, so we stopped off next at Woodside.  We got off the bus and I was reminded of that sequence in the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" when, on the run, they get off the train and Sundance says to Butch: "So this is Bolivia??!"  At first sight it was the nearest thing to Dodge City at siesta time until we found the cafe for our lunch stop of tea and carrot cake! It was lovely ....

Preparing for a rock concert at the Bird In Hand Winery  we didn't get off

View from the Petaluma Winery - again we didn't get off!

Looks like there's a garden party in progress at Barristers Block Winery.  We didn't get off