OK so it was only a 3 week trip away but there are things you simply forget about living in the third world tropics after a luxury trip to the gourmet world of Oz. To top that when we arrived in Singapore on our return home we discovered our flight to SL had been cancelled - due to the antics of the LTTE and SL government the airport in Colombo now only operates in day light. So we were put up in one of the stunning Shangri-La hotels – big comfy firm bed with soft white sheets and duvet, and an endless buffet of foods from everywhere including a chocolate fountain to have on your ice cream. So we weren’t complaining about an extra night in somewhere still nice and hot but oh so organised and different! Then it was back to swollen feet, sweatiness and heat, and living in the 1950s!
Wednesday
Board our flight to Colombo, a packed plane full of smiling Sri Lankan faces (I suspect they had also all been put up in luxury hotels for the night). Endure a not so great plane meal, and a fast and furious landing at Colombo airport. I think they were probably more scared of the sporadic anti aircraft fire from the less well trained trigger-happy SL army as much as any attack from the LTTE.
After a strangely efficient journey through immigration and customs we were greeted by the grinning face of our driver Udara, looking well and wearing one of his navy blue England tops. As we packed our bags into the van we agreed we had obviously got used to the cold in Oz as we were sweating away in the ever so humid air, lungs finding it hard to breath. Our journey home was easier than usual as today was a SL holiday so very little traffic on the road and a lovely sunny day to appreciate the beauty and chaos of the island – rough blue sea, groups of people dotting the road enjoying their rare day off.
The holiday is Vesak Poya – 2 days off work and drink to mark the birth, enlightenment and passing away of Buddha (though the SL government had gone a little too far this time and ordered the hotels, bars and wine shops (off licences or bottle shops to you and I) to serve no booze for a whole week!). Vesak Poya is celebrated as a festival of light with beautiful lanterns suspended from porches, trees, telegraph poles, tuktuk mirrors, and the like, plus lovely simple strings of bulbs lining streets and houses. There are also other odd contraptions of light, strange shapes like synthetic tumbleweeds on sticks - lights with white stems and red tips lining the road of one village we zoomed through.
Back at the ranch with no idea what to expect (we’d had visions of squirrels multiplying and fighting the spiders, ants, cockroaches and frogs for best position in the house) we peeked through the door opening it a crack, getting prepared for shock, but all seemed fine. Our landlord had been in and given the place a sweep; sadly he’d also removed the knicker-clad squirrel nest to reveal a half eaten Buddha statue – oops! The only addition to the wildlife seemed to be lots of black baby frogs hopping around the front and back doors no bigger than a baby’s shoe lace knot. After a 2 hour clean, an early dinner at the spaghetti place, and bumping into a lot of people we knew we felt back at home.
Thursday
3.14am and I awake to flashes of lightening outside the window and dash next door to unplug our recharging laptops, it’s amazing the things you forget – living in the tropics you should never leave anything plugged in that is likely to get zapped. The storm continues for the rest of the night rumbling on until I give in and get up at 7am to work on my (battery powered) laptop and finish writing my CV. As I sit the sky gets darker and darker as though someone is pulling a blackout curtain over the house, and the rain increases so heavily that we have little streams and waterfalls running through the garden. In true monsoon style the lightening is most spectacular continually flashing in the sky and the deafening claps of thunder send me scurrying back to the safety of the bed. Imagine a car driving through an empty underground car park and the noise of it driving over rattling grids and manholes, multiply this noise by about 1000 and that’s how the thunder sounds – incredible crashes which shake the house and shake my nerves.
By 9am the garden is so flooded it’s not possible to walk across, the bank at the back is having mini mud slides, and the paddy field we overlook has become a lake – suddenly we have luxury accommodation overlooking a lake! However, not so luxurious is the drive, now a river which we have to wade through to get out – it comes up over our ankles as we paddle through trying to avoid any floating snakes on our way. There was no point trying to swim to work so this was a good day for unpacking and getting sorted. A lot of the day was spent marvelling at our 8 bottles of Aussie wine all safely brought back wrapped in skirts, jeans and jackets in our luggage, now taking top spot in the fridge. This is all pretty much done in the dark as we have no power until 3.30pm and the storm continues ALL DAY!
At night we get our friendly local tuktuk driver – Kosala – to take us to Asanka’s family’s house in a beautiful little village called Berutuduwa 4km inland from Seenigama, not that we could see much travelling through villages in total blackness as all the power had gone. Asanka’s house is lit with candles and we are the first to arrive – quite a few people are lost due to the lack of lights anywhere, the Aussie volunteers are awaiting a flat tyre repair with their tuktuk, and others can’t get here because there is no power at the petrol station for them to get fuel. Sri Lanka!! We had a lovely evening with delicious food and a chance to catch up on work and life in Seenigama/Hikkaduwa.
The biggest bombshell is that I discover I’ve written myself out of my job – oops! Last December I wrote 4 proposals for volunteer assignments to the Foundation one of them covering most of my job. This was to give myself a push to move on. The aussies that applied found my job one of the most interesting so we have a new girl starting here in July to do sports. Now I need a job, preferably in an NGO in SL but I’m open to ideas and options!
Friday
3am I awake to a huge bang and forks of lightening filling the sky, another spectacular and scary storm outside and another sleepless night! I get up at 7 to complete darkness and flooding in the garden again. As I sit on the loo I look to the left of me and there is our resident frog in his spot on the loo-brush looking up at me. The bathroom is his territory and he wasn’t terribly fazed when I cleaned the room on Wednesday, just hopped out of the way of the mop. I wonder what he thinks of us coming and going, he’s had 3 weeks of not having the door opened for him and I guess now we are back there will be plenty more insects for him to munch as we seem to attract the mossies to the house.
At 9.30 Priyantha arrives to take me to work, his tuktuk in tact after almost floating us back to the house last night. The road outside work is completely flooded and there is no power. Everyone is a little disheartened about everything from the work they are being made to do to the weather and I wonder what I’m doing back and also how I can help them move out of it all. Depressed by my lack of ability to offer them fruit picking jobs in the UK I decide to leave early and head home at 3 to get some writing done and chat to Bron about my lack of job after July and what we should do. No conclusions made.
The rain stops to allow us to head to Harmony for dinner, we decide we will cook at home tomorrow night! Hikkaduwa out of season can be a little dead; there are apparently 10 tourists in town and only a few of us whities still working as volunteers. We head home for an early night, wade through the drive and flop into bed still on Australia time hoping for no storms and a good night’s sleep.
Saturday
I awake at 7am, no storms, no rain, and sunshine! The birds are happy, back in the garden making a racket and picking at all the things brought about by the rain. This includes endless mangoes - our trees are raining mangoes as steady thumps land on the ground ready for a delicious mango smoothy in a few days time. Bron is happy as he’s back to photographing all the birds (ones with wings) and is pleased with the electric blue kingfisher posing outside the window for endless shots to be taken of it. We discover our squirrel has returned – at night it had obviously been checking out the now vacant space where its nest once was feeling miffed with our landlord and wondering if it could build again. The floor below the Buddha shrine was scattered with statue debris - small white bits of plaster, and the drying sheet (draped over the chair by the book case leading up to the statue) had tell tale little squirrel footprints on it.
Clearly a day of wildlife, and not all nice – getting back into my toy washing machine routine I take the powder box down from the kitchen shelf and as I pull the bag of powder out of the box a weighty black spider emerges, crawls across my hand and over the table cloth which is bright yellow further highlighting the ugliness of the creature. My screams bring Bron running with the broom and the landlord running to the house looking very pale and concerned. Sri Lankans rightfully will never understand the western phobia of spiders, he walks away head in hands wondering just who he lets his house to!! He thought I’d electrocuted myself!
The day improved after that, we went to our luxury retreat of the Lighthouse Hotel to start our fitness campaign which is basically to get fit again and stop walking around like old people. Feeling energised after 2½ hours there we braved a trek around Galle town to get food for the house and a blind tuktuk driver to take us home. We had a text from Bron’s friend Colin, currently in Thailand but lives in Scotland, to say he’s arriving tomorrow morning. So after organising Udara to pick him up at 5am we tucked into a delicious meal and one of our sacred bottles of aussie red wine – a delicious Pikes Eastern Shiraz. Wonderful….
Sunday
I get up at 7am to get the house a little more ship-shape for Colin’s arrival including cleaning his room, ridding it of the dead cockroach we killed last night, and making up the beds. The squirrel has been using the room as its main route into the house climbing through the bitten mesh in the top left corner of the window, so there was yet more squirrel debris to deal with. Bron emerged about 5 minutes before Colin arrived, clearly suffering from that extra glass of wine. Colin thought Udara was a mad driver (although he’s the safest we know!) so was a little shocked after his drive down – and this was a Sunday at 6am with no traffic, he’d have had his eyes closed all the way if it had been a week day!
After filling Colin in on the wildlife and scaring him about snakes, spiders and squirrels we headed off to trusty Buddes - the best spot on the beach for breakfast, before having a quiet afternoon in the house, and later an overly expensive dinner. This was due to the fact that all the places we eat in have closed for the season and only a few restaurants are open, the one we chose was the Moon Beam Hotel that thinks it’s in the heart of Colombo with its pricing – we won’t be back.
When we returned there was an enormous spider taking prime spot on the bathroom sink, as if there to prove to Colin that such horrors exist in our little jungle house. The boys bravely tackled it with a broom and a bottle of Baygon, leaving the bathroom door closed for the spider to shrivel and die while they could have a much deserved Bacardi and Coke. Colin did the honourable and flushed the monster down the loo. However, when Bron went in next it was déjà vu and another dead spider’s body had replaced the first, even bigger and uglier – we’ obviously killed a copulating couple, or killed the male before the female managed to eat it. Nice habit some of these monsters have?!
Monday
Back to work, and boy was it back to work with a bang! One of the aussie volunteers, Zac, has decided he’s had enough or working at FOG mainly due to the organisational structure being so far removed from how he believes an NGO should function. He cannot cope with the top down structure and thinks that the Foundation will be very hard to sustain without total inclusion and backing of the community. He has many valid points and is brave to head off to somewhere new. He’s done some fantastic work here and wherever he moves on will be lucky to have him. We also had some UK trainers pull out – they were going to do some much needed team building workshops for the staff but after meeting with the head of the NGO, who basically told them the staff would forget the training in a week so it was a waste of time, they justifiably rang me to explain they were not prepared to go ahead with it. BBC Leadership programme coordinators would tremble in their boots at the way the Foundation is managed – top down without the understanding of the huge benefits of training. Hey ho! I also discover my guys are thoroughly pissed off as they been having to do menial work while I’ve been away (this always seems to happen when I go away) so sport needs a kick up the arse again to get them back doing what they should be doing – coaching the kids and organising competitions rather than buying food and drinks and serving at FOG functions.
We all went out for dinner with Zac to support him – a difficult day with staff crying, people threatening to leave, and Zac having to hold it together for them all. Again most of Hikkaduwa was closed, probably giving Zac a further reason to move to Colombo and escape a dead town!
Tuesday
Back to buses. Time to stop the luxury of getting tuktuks to work so back to standing in 35 degree heat waiting for the bus with everyone else. Always something I dread, but once on the bus it’s a lovely trip to work through the town then along the coast and then always someone asking me questions as I walk with them from the Seenigama stop down to work: “Are you married? how long will you be here? how many family members do you have? what is your country? Sri Lanka good country.. good people.” - pretty much the same every day. Work is bloody hot and like a building site with builders everywhere, scaffold platforms moving constantly and you have to be careful not to walk into a plank or a SL builder’s crotch as Ynys nearly did when she walked out of my office (which since she walked in had been blocked off by said mini scaffold platform and one of the plasterers). They are frantically trying to finish the centre before 1st June – the dust gathers on my computer and I’m sitting hoping I’m not going to be coming down with something asbestos related! I get a lot done and then come home on the bus again after an encounter with a very happy village dog that usually follows me to the bus stop and is clearly very pleased to have me back to continue this routine. Back to total darkness in the house, no power for no reason so it’s out with the candles and off to the fridge to grab a Bacardi and coke as there’s not much else I can get done in the dark! Bron and Colin have been touring the coast in a tuktuk travelling to the stunning coastal villages of Weligama, Marissa and Unawatuna.
A wedding invite arrived from a good friend in the UK today tempting me back in June and back to a world so far removed from this one. 2 very different lands that I love for very different reasons. Well if I can find a cheap flight I’ll be back, if not it’ll be end of September.
The above is my first week back and as you can see no day is the same and these are just some of the things I can remember, a lot has been missed out! Off for a cold shower and a night out in Hikkaduwa town – it can’t get more exciting than that!!!
A Week Back in Chaos and Unpredictability!
The Wonderful Wines of Oz
Life in Sri Lanka is somewhat intense and without a real break for almost a year it was time to escape the chaos and have a rest, lose the wrinkles and enjoy somewhere a little less hectic by heading to my great aunt’s place in Adelaide. The journey took us through Singapore for a 16 hour stopover. 6 hours kip at the airport hotel in a bed which was long enough to fit my legs in was the start of 3 weeks of luxury. We’d only just managed to leave SL as the staff in the airport didn’t understand e-tickets and were mightily confused, we wondered if we’d be carted off by the ever growing military presence to be questioned about these 21st century means of travel, but one member of staff saved the day and we happily boarded our flight. When we arrived in Singapore we found out SL hadn’t actually activated our tickets (effectively we were still in Colombo) but a v friendly and helpful efficient Chinese lady sorted us out.
What a different world we had landed in – there were no toilet attendants trying to get money off us, the roads were bliss after the madness of SL drivers, and everywhere was so bloody efficient from checking in at the airport hotel, to getting the bus into town, to being offered genuine and useful help in the shops and cafes. All-in-all it was clean, safe, no touts or beggars treating us as walking wallets, shops had wearable clothes in them, cafes had drinkable coffee and wonderful chocolate brownies – the waft of chocolate reaching my deprived nose as the server lifted the lid off the brownie container was heavenly. We even saw a sign by one of the slip roads in the street reading “Beware, Vehicles Crossing” which we thought hilarious, though I’m sure no-one understood what we were laughing at and probably many crossed the street to avoid us!
We landed in Oz on Easter Monday delighted to arrive on a sunny autumn day, collected by Sue, greeted by 2 happy dogs at the house and spoilt by a wonderful meal of roast lamb to start us off on food we had badly missed. The first week was spent catching up on sleep and chilling out. Sue’s place is on the beach, a stunning setting and all the more as they were having an unusual hot spell. The water was clear powder blue with dolphins nosing along as they cut through the water - what luxury to be able to watch all this from Sue’s deck either with early (?) morning coffee in hand or sunset glass of wine. It was also fantastic to be able to cook again and many evenings were spent preparing some lovely meals with some even more lovely wines to accompany them. We also managed to make it up to the farm in Willunga for a night where Bron got his first sighting of Kangaroos and aussie snakes and the beautiful landscape of gum trees and scrub. Although it was all looking grey with lack of water – there has been a drought for months threatening farming and wineries amongst other things, a terrible time for the aussies.
One thing about living in 1950s third world SL is that you really are out of touch with most things that go on in the world and this may not always be such a bad thing. Watching the news again we discover that George Bush is being even more of a twat than usual, Tony Blair has lost his marbles and his party, the middle east is getting worse, and the Russians are so pissed off with the US that it could be back to the Cold War again. Aside from the news we wondered whether we had arrived in the 1980s due to the awful, ill-fitting, stupid looking clothes people seem to be wearing again. Sorry if this offends you fashion conscious types out there, and I’m sure I’d be puffball clad if I were still living in London, but really has the fashion world not just had the biggest joke on the general public for the second time?! Everywhere there were puffball hems, waistcoat top designs, stripes, polka dots, ill-fitting ¾ length trousers, unattractive plunge tops straight out of Dynasty, and pixi boots. Pixi boots?! Even jeans seemed to be edging back to waists rather than the more flattering hipsters we have adopted in recent years. And what are people wearing on their feet – the joke of Ugg boots has moved on to ‘Crocs’, bright coloured clog like shoes with holes in them. Please people what are you all excepting in the modern world??
Sydney Adventures
After a week of R&R and shock at being transferred back to the 80s it was time to head East for a few days. We flew to Sydney and caught the train straight to the Blue Mountains. I wasn’t too sure what to expect – it was school holidays in Oz so the place could have been crawling with noisy kids, also it was autumn not really a time of year to expect good weather. However we were very lucky and the day we arrived we could see clearly for miles, with no screaming kids in sight. The Blue Mountains are a wonderful range of mountains covered in blue gum trees giving off a blue haze in the sunlight, hence their name. It’s a 2 hour train ride from Sydney to the main town of Katoomba, first through some of Sydney’s less pleasant suburbs then winding through the breathtaking scenery of the mountains. The bonus for us was that it was autumn and the tress were stunningly colourful – reds, oranges, purples, leaves part turning both green and yellow gently falling to the ground. There are some easy and some tougher walks. Our first was easy, walking along the cliff top accompanied by the loud squawks of the King Parrot – a magnificent large black parrot swooping through the air making a terrible racket. Our second walk took 6 hours first walking down about 1,000 steps then along the forest floor losing all the ‘10m minute only’ tourist walkers to have the tall trees, screeching parrots, waterfalls, and sunlight beams all to ourselves. The problem was getting out – 1km upwards of steep steps, tough work for our 2 unfit bodies, but we made it and collapsed in a heap at the top of one of the lookout points on a rickety old bench that could hardly take our weight.
The following day we took our aching legs back on the train to Sydney where Bron was in for his birthday surprise. We stored our luggage in Central Train Station and I took him through the back streets avoiding all the great views of the harbour and opera house until we arrived at the Bridge Climb Centre. I had thought the best way for him to experience his first view of Sydney was from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I hadn’t appreciated that this of course might completely terrify him, but I had been subtly checking that he wasn’t scared of heights. Once through all the initiations, including wearing a terrible suit and harness, we got out onto the bridge starting at the bottom which is 60m above the harbour waters. Bron describes it as a fairly terrifying experience walking out under the bridge along a narrow catwalk with rush hour traffic and trains rattling overhead and fears of having to walk up a narrow little ladder to the top. I had already climbed the bridge and knew there were no rickety narrow ladders at the top so I wasn’t scared and was pointing out all the best spots in Sydney - where we would be staying, where the zoo was, what direction Bondi was in, and commenting on how small the harbour ferries looked as they cut across the water leaving little white trails below us. I’m not sure how much Bron appreciated his tour guide at this point! We were on the new Harbour Bridge Climb which takes you through the middle of the bridge and up the inner arch (the original climb takes you up the outer arch). This was a more interesting climb, and when we crossed the bridge at the top we walked across a narrow gangway looking down at the traffic below – the most historic part of the bridge as it’s where the 2 arches eventually joined, but sadly a part of the climb they were taking out the following week as they’d built a safer route down. The bridge is a magnificent feat of engineering and skill and seems quite an honour to be able to climb, it is painted grey (not the black you would imagine) and deserves the awe and wonder Sydneysiders attach to it. I think once we were back on the ground and Bron was getting over his shock in the nearest pub, he finally was able to feel he’d enjoyed his birthday surprise!
The rest of the tour of Sydney was on foot and boat and we squeezed in the last of the fantastic weather to do it. The obligatory brunch at Bronte Beach and the walk along the cliff tops to Bondi was as beautiful as ever, looking down from the jagged brown rock at clear blue sea dotted with surfers and lined with the white of the big Sydney waves. After this a stroll on the Woolloomooloo Wharf along the wooden slatted walkway past huge expensive motor boats, and back through the interior of the wharf which had kept some of the old machinery beautifully in tact. Leaving the luxury to those that could afford it we wandered through the Botanical Gardens to arrive at the classic view of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge for sunset. A great way to see a great city. That night we ate at Darling Harbour with its mixture of tourist tack, smart restaurants and wharf walks.
Our boat trip was the following day with Jen and Tracy who we were staying with. Jen and Tracy do incredibly well putting up with many visitors to Sydney – both family and friends from Oz and abroad regularly descend upon them and they are the most wonderful hosts. We arrived at their apartment on Sydney Harbour (the most tranquil of spots) on Friday evening after our Bridge Climb to find Peg and Fish already there supping on some v welcome champagne, Adam and Britt to arrive later. I cannot justifiably describe what a treat we had that night but try to compare a plate of rice and curry (which we eat EVERY DAY) to the below:
a welcome shot….
* not entirely sure what was in this shot but it was a shot glass with an oyster in it, I’m sure quite a lot of vodka, tomato juice, Worcester sauce, etc. – like a very upmarket Bloody Mary.
a nibble to start….
* champagne
* Maggie Beer's pate (the aussies amongst you will know what a thrill to the taste buds this is)
* giant fresh prawns
main course….
* red wine (endless glasses with Fish at the helm)
* roast pork with perfect crackling
* roast veggies
to finish….
* more red wine
* home made hazelnut and strawberry torte with King Island cream
…well my mouth is still watering thinking about it. A great welcome back to Sydney and a true taste of gourmet food that we’d forgotten exists! Suffice to say we also are not used to drinking that amount of wine and our hangovers the next day were horrendous and justly deserved!
Back to the boat trip…. Tracy has a motorboat kept in a beautiful little place outside Sydney called Pitt Water. We had a lazy Sunday morning with an egg and bacon breakfast overlooking Sydney Harbour before travelling to the boat about an hour’s drive away. Worryingly driving through rain but reaching sun the other side. Adam and Britt joined us and by lunch time we were slowly motoring out towards one of their favourite bays to stop for lunch. Being on the water in Sydney is always a treat, beautiful scenery and very busy with motor boats, sailing boats and little dinghies all dancing through the water, the sailing boats most definitely winning the elegance competition as they effortlessly sliced through the waves – a pleasure for all to see. We had pate and wine and steak and salad using the BBQ on the back of the boat which we enjoyed as we gently bobbed up and down with the waves. The skies started to get heavier so we made our way back with dramatic dark clouds chasing us. As we docked a huge rain storm descended upon us, this was to continue throughout the night. When we got back to the apartment Bron and I got totally drenched wading our way through rivers of water on the roads, dodging thunder and lightening to get a take away pizza – essential for watching a Sunday night film.
Wine Time
Our Sydney trip was short but memorable and it was back to Adelaide and off to the wine regions next. We hired a car (a tad unhappy with it being an automatic, after so many months away from driving, they could have at least given us a manual!) and headed off to the rolling hills of the Clare Valley. A really quite beautiful area of small hillocks, green / grey landscape covered in gum trees with fallen down braches and trunks scattered in the fields due to some of the trees not surviving the draught. The vines climbed the little hills in precise rows, spilling over the horizon, gleaming a lovely golden colour in the autumn sun. A wonderful area to explore as you drive from one small winery to the next along pale dirt roads, winding through the tress and scrub, and often in the middle of nowhere you come a across a the smart brown stone or red brick of a winery enticing you in to sample their wares. One of the smallest and most spectacular in Clare is Skillogalee – a little winery set on a small hill with vines running down into a tiny valley overlooked from the wooden balcony of the old farm cottage they use for tastings and a very tasty restaurant. This is where we had Bron’s birthday lunch on a day not quite so magnificent as the first where we huddled outside wrapped in the thoughtfully provided blankets, staring through the branches of their centre piece olive tree enjoying the food and wine and wishing the rain would stop so we could enjoy the view. In fact Bron was enjoying the wine, I was elected as driver and which was bad timing because we got 2 glasses free due to a mistake they had made with our table. The night before we got a glass of wine free too due to the mistake a waiter had made with our order – clearly they give the stuff away here wherever you go!
It was on our second day in Clare that the skies decided to open. After months of allowing the sun to dominate it was high time the rains had their chance to take over and, as it did a few days earlier in Sydney, it absolutely chucked it down. A good sort of weather for sampling wine! In Clare we visited Pikes, Tim Adams, Knappstein (who have the most delicious Sparkling Shiraz and not a bad port either), Skillogalee and Annies Lane. Next stop was the Barossa which we floated to in our rain storm arriving in Tanunda to try to find somewhere to stay. The pubs that used to be lovely quaint country pubs, like The Rising Sun which we stayed in in Clare with it’s dark wooden floor boards and cold tiled bathroom floor, had become monstrosities of neon lights, snooker tables and pokie games. In despair we tried the very helpful tourist info place who found us a small cottage for $60 a night – a lovely little converted garage, very cosy and perfect for us.
I was saddened that the Barossa had become so commercialised and, well, simply naff. I have great memories of bombing around there in clapped out cars and Utes when I was 19 going to wine festivals and getting free beer from the friendly pub landlord. Times change, but fortunately the wine doesn’t. I thought Bron should sample some of what I think is the nicest wine in the Barossa (though how can I possibly say when I’ve only been to a few places). We headed out to Henschke when the rain had stopped and it was another beautiful drive away from the new horrors surrounding the Barossa towns and back through lovely gum countryside, farms and cattle, horses and vines. Henschke do some delicious stuff, most of it out of price range but very nice to taste. I wouldn’t have hesitated at buying every single wine we tried there, they were quite superb and also supreme. This was where the flaw in my trip to Henschke came in as after tasting their wines everything else came second best. Hey ho! We still tried other wineries. some for their produce and some for their location such as Rockfords set in a lovely old wooden farmhouse with old style farm buildings and equipment and red autumn leaves crawling up the walls of the tasting room. Other places we went to were Saltram, Peter Lehmans, the awful Yalumba commercial tasting room although a lovely country estate setting, and on our way back to Adelaide we popped into Two Hands. This had been recommended by Henschke as one of the newer wineries to try out. It was fantastic. A very contemporary tasting room with trendy wine bottles and a modern twist to drinking wine. Again I couldn’t fault any of their wines - they were stunning. We bought a low alcohol part sparkling wine which they suggested we try with Gin and Pink Grapefruit Juice as a wee cocktail. We nearly walked away with their scrumptious port too which can also be drunk with ice in it completely changing the flavour making it taste like a cooling Sangria. The rain was so heavy outside it was very tempting to stay there all day but we had to get the paddles out and get the car back to the hire place in Adelaide.
…and a few days later it was back to our place in SL after a lovely trip to Oz which hasn’t changed a whole lot except for the Barossa and the cost as Australia is now as expensive as home, or were the high prices quite normal and just part of the westernised culture shock? A thought to ponder as I tuck into a cheap bowl of Pringles and a strong V&T in the jungle house!
