Autumn Goings On - Part 1

So we have been a little slack on updating the blog recently so here is an update of what we've been up to for the past 5 months...part 1!

January 2014

January this year was full of holidays. After our trip to Rotto and then Down South, we booked a short trip to Adelaide in South Australia. Adelaide (or RADelaide as they like to call it) is the closest city to Perth...just over 1.5 hours flight away! Its nick-name RADelaide is a bit of a joke because its not exactly known for being the most exciting city in the world. However each January it hosts the Tour Down Under, a professional bike race and the main reason I wanted to head South.

We had 5 days in Adelaide and I had already booked 2 days for bike race watching, so we decided the spend the other 3 days doing the tourist stuff. First off was a day trip to the Barossa Valley. This is SA's wine growing region and is home to some famous wineries including Hardy's and Jacob's Creek. We did a bus tour to some of these wineries and got to sample some local produce. Although the wine was very nice, we were a little disappointed with Barossa Valley. It felt a little bit commercial and I guess we are just spoilt with having Margaret River just down the road! Rather randomly we also stopped off at a local farm to feed the animals. Still didn't spot a koala though!

Chris made a friend!

We did get to try kangaroo for lunch though...and it was very tasty! Sorry Skippy!

The Barossa Valley

The next day we went for a look around the city. It was a nice city but not really much more to say about it than that! Or maybe we just weren't interested in looking round properly because we both had hang-overs after too much wine!! We did manage to find a really cool spot for tea. Not surprisingly it was a BBQ place but our favourite food was the BBQ-ed greens!! Weird!

Finally race day came around! We headed to a small town called Willunga to watch the Queen Stage. The Queen stage is usually the most difficult or prestigious in a race and the difficulty came from 2 climbs up 'Old Willunga Hill.' We started off watching the race from the bottom of the hill and saw the peleton pass 3 times before they had to tackle the hill. I was wearing my "Shut Up Legs!" t-shirt (xmas pressie from Mum!) which is the famous mantra of one of my favourite riders Jen Voigt. And would you believe good old Jens had made it into the break!

Jens in the break away!

Our first climb up Old Willunga

Once the peleton passed us 3 times we headed up the hill to watch the summit finish. The climb is about 5km long and the whole way up was full of supporters. The organisers had also opened the road so anyone could ride their bikes along the course. We got very envious of all the people with bikes (I had to leave mine back in Perth!). We found a good spot about 400m from the top...then the waiting began. Eventually we started to hear shouts from lower down the hill and next thing we knew the break away came flying past... and Jens was still in the break! The rest of the peleton came along about 5 mins later. Not a big gap...we knew the break would be caught before the next climb but who would win?! After another half an hour or so the noise started to increase again and we knew the riders were on the way up again. And the leader was my favourite rider from my favourite team...Richie Porte! Chris and I went mad cheering him to victory!

Richie Porte on his way to victory

Tour de France winner Cadel Evans not far behind

After the presentations we headed off down the hill to get some food in the town. However I was feeling all energetic and had some energy to burn so I persuaded Chris to run with me up Old Willunga Hill. This was probably not the best idea in close to 40 degree heat! We had fun though and lots of people were cheering for us to run up! The run up was actually not too hard...it was the down that nearly killed me....I couldn't walk for about a week! Being QOM of Old Willunga was worth it though (even if my QOM only lasted a few days!!).

Cooling off in the sea after our run

SA beaches are not bad!

The next day we watched the final stage which was a crit race around the city centre. Unfortunately the temperature was hitting above 40 degrees and it was too hot to be outside with no shade. Instead we decided to go to the beach and hire some stand-up paddle boards. After our first attempt in Margs, we were feeling pretty confident with our skills. What we didn't realise was that we hired much smaller boards which were much harder to use. The waves were also a little bigger which resulted in a very grumpy Chris because he couldn't get off his knees!!

I tried to get a pic of you stood up...this was the best I could find ;-)

Finally it was time to head back home. We had a great time in Adelaide  but probably wouldn't rush back unless it was to watch the bike race. Next year we will definitely bring our bikes with us!!