On February 19th, we flew from Sydney to Adelaide, a city of about 1 million people in South Australia.   We had heard from a number of folks that the road trip from Adelaide to Sydney was one of the most beautiful and scenic drives in Australia, especially along The Great Ocean Road between Anglesea and Apollo Bay.  We decided to give ourselves one week to drive from Adelaide along the southern coastline into Melbourne and back to Sydney.  You will find pictures of the scenic GOR drive in the Victoria region of the website.

When we arrived in Adelaide, we rented a car and drove to the Barossa Valley, one of Australia's best known wine producing regions.  We picked up a local map and as soon as we drove into our Bed and Breakfast, we noticed a familiar street name on the map ---  "Hempel" Road.   Hempel Road turned out to be a dirt track in the middle of nowhere!

The Barossa Valley has over 50 wineries and we visited some of the leading producers of Shiraz including Elderton, Henschke, Peter Lehmann, Rockford, St. Hallet and Veritas.  For our friends who are wine junkies, we'll be shipping some of Australia's best wines home and look forward to sharing our bounty. 

From the Barossa Valley, we headed south into the Fleurieu Peninsula and directly to McLaren Vale, another well known wine region.  We had a number of "experiences" along the way (some good, some bad) including a sleepless night in Kingston (a town famous for its giant man-made lobster and a koala and kangaroo sighting in the wild.

Check out the links below for some fun shots of our "road trip."

Hempel Road
Road Trippin