barossa weekend

Have just got back, literally, from a weekend in the Barossa Valley. It was meant to be a riding weekend, i.e. we were supposed to ride there, but I’ve had a couple of days off sick this week and am totally wet and useless and sooked a bit so we drove up instead.

We staying in the pub in the town of Tanunda, which is a lovely place to see but my travelling companion finds noise a problem when trying to nod off, so found the antics downstairs very distracting. Not me, I can sleep through guerrilla warfare so I’m feeling the most rested I have in months, which is lovely.

(in the lap of luxury at the Tanunda Pub. Bathroom across the hallway)

I was planning on spending not very much money this weekend at all. Mmmmmm… well it didn’t quite work out that way.

(Barossa vinyards between Nuriootpa and Angaston)

A Saturday ride to Angaston found me buying jars of homemade chutney, full kilo bags of prunes (you know you’re getting old when you’re excited by the price of prunes) and some Salvation Jane honey. Salvation Jane is a real weed in Australia that costs farmers thousands, so it’s nice to see someone making the best of a bad situation. I also got an icing pen and a funky new glass ring, met a sulphur crested cockatoo named Bruce and eyed off a new Madonna in the junk shop in the old church hall and a couple of nuns at the local craft shop (I went in looking for bed socks).

(all the teddy bears and old lady stuff you can poke a stick at, in the Angaston craft shop)

Also had pizza at a café that claimed to have been awarded the best pizza in SA. Don’t know about that – but is sure was prewdy pizza.

(top: lamb and kipfler potato, bottom: feta and caramelised onion)

Sunday (today) on the trip home I managed to buy an old greengrocer’s scale in Tanunda, more nuns, lots of coffee, pies, a trip to Maggie Beer’s Farm (just to look, I’m not interested in buying anything I said) saw me come away with jam and wine and bbq sauce and jars of dukkah. Great dukkah. Best I’ve had in a long time. Then the at the Lyndoch Lavender Farm I also bought skin cream, for my horrible old lady ankles, and bath salts and lavender lollies.

Good thing I came home. Weekends away suddenly get very very expensive.