On Wednesday the 13th January we took the short
drive to Angaston. On the way we stopped at the Mengler Lookout which looks out
over the Barossa Valley, particularly the areas of Nuriootpa and Tanunda.
We had a walk around the town of Angaston and picked up some
beautiful dried fruit at Gully Gardens Farm. We also had a quick look at the
Yallumba Winery.
We then went to the town of Greenock. All these towns are
lovely and there are so many old houses that are still standing because they
are made from stone. They look so nice. While at Greenock we visited the Murray
Street Vineyard Winery. Great wines there and we bought a couple. Another nice
day in the Barossa.
On Thursday we left the Discovery Van Park in Tanunda. The
weather was going to be cool for a couple of days and we didn’t need the pool
anymore and so didn’t need to be paying the $40.50 to stay there. We had to leave anyway because the park was
booked out because of the hot rod festival happening there on the weekend. So
we moved on to the Eden Valley Showground Van Park, for $21 a night on power
($15 no power but no water as well). It was a good spot to camp.
From the lookout over Eden Valley.
After lunch we took a drive to Keyneton, north of Eden
Valley. Tiny town and the history was funny as there was a lady there with a
lot of influence who opened a hotel in
the mid 1800s but as she was against the ‘demon drink’ and a big wheel in the
Temperance Society there was no alcohol sold there. It was mainly for dining
and accommodation for travelers.
On return to Eden Valley we had a drink in the pub there. No
problem with the Temperance Society in Eden Valley.
On Friday the 15th we took a drive in the morning
to the south this time, to the small towns of Springton and Mount Pleasant. At
Springton there was an amazing gum tree that would have had some fires through
it and ground around it washed away. An early settler, Friedrich Herbig who
arrived from Germany in 1855 used it as a home for several years before
building a house. He needed to upsize as he had 16 children over the proceeding
years.
After lunch we drove to Angaston and picked up some more
dried fruit. We went back to the van, pulled out the BBQ and had one of the best meals we have had
in a long time. A great steak and some fresh salad to go with it.
Saturday we rounded off our Barossa Valley experience by
visiting the town of Kapunda, but not before visiting the farmer’s market at
Angaston where we picked up some fresh food for lunch. My goodness, what a
history there is at Kapunda. There is an amazing museum there and the
information centre there is very good.
We had a walk around the old copper mine. The two sons of the two main
settlers in the area discovered the copper there and kept it a secret until
they could purchase the property.
Kapunda was also the place where Sir Sidney Kidman lived for
27 years and made it his main base of operations. Kidman had properties all
over Australia mainly concentrated in the area of the Artesian Basin so that
his properties could better resist drought. He could move his stock over vast
areas of the country as he had properties throughout. I won’t bore you further
with the history but Kidman interests me greatly and I shall be reading the
books about him. Sorry about the quality of the next photo but the info is
fascinating.
We did the full tourist drive around Kapunda. We had thought
that we might be wasting our time going there as a special trip as we would be
travelling through there on Sunday on the way to Clare and perhaps we could see
it on the way. We were glad that we made the special trip as were sight seeing
for five hours solid and could not have
done that while on the way to Clare.
We then went to Tanunda for the hot rod festival. The main
street was closed off and the street was lined with hundreds of hot rods and
thousands of people. There were a couple of bands and it was pretty cool.
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