Tanunda, Barossa Valley (July, 2023)
In July 2023, my partner Luke and I spent one whole week in the Barossa Valley exploring. We stayed in a super cute AirBnb in Tanunda and used that as a home base for the week! It was really cold - like so cold I felt like I was back in NZ as some mornings we woke up to the temp being -2 (celsius). I kinda wish I kept more of a travel diary while we were there as I wanted more content for the blog here here (we will just have to go off my memory). Let's explore the adventures that we had!
I had worked the weekend prior and we set off on our journey on Monday the 17th July. We assumed we had packed everything we needed but two ours into our drive when we inevitably had to stop for a bathroom break and some coffee, Luke realised he had forgotten his wallet (it's funny now but I was a grumpy bear at the time - it's safe to say Luke has never forgotten his wallet since). Thankfully, his parents went to get it for us and we only had to drive back halfway. But this did put us behind in time for our long-a** driving day. With a few random stops along the way - like the Giant Koala, we finally made it to our AirBnB, checked it and went out to find some food - we went to this really fancy restaurant '1918 Bistro & Grill' which was so yummy! I had a cocktail, the pork belly and some roast potatoes and Luke had a shiraz (surprise surprise) and the steak. We also had the Dessert Tasting Plate to share which had a mini sticky date pud, mini panna cotta, and mini chocolate brownie and that was one of the best brownies I've ever had in my life. We also had a dessert cocktail which had ice cream and creme de menth in it - I think it was a chocolate mint one - that was really good too. After dinner, we were pretty exhausted so off to bed we went! I also felt really bad at this restaurant because we were definitely underdressed and I was wearing my Slowly Slowly hoodie which has some blantant swear words on it haha - but one of the waiters actually complimented it so I think we were all good there.
Day 2 was exciting we drove to Adelaide to meet some of Luke's workmates there for lunch, went for a walk in the city and also went for a tour around the Adelaide Oval - it was a lot of walking but it was pretty cool. I'm not amazingly into sports but I definitely appreciated it a lot more than I thought. Like we got to go into the Journalists areas and I learned it was a popular spot for Pokemon Go when it first launched in 2016. We then did a little bit of astro photography at night but it wasn't the best location where we went - so we had to wait a few more days for the weather to get a bit better.
Day 3 was also exciting, we again drove back to Adelaide and went to Adelaide Zoo which was so cool! I saw pandas for the first time in my life. They were much cuter IRL and I finally understood why people think they're so cute (I still think pandas are a bit silly because they barely mate and only eat bamboo lol). We had lunch there and then went for a bit of a drive around the city. We ended up going to all the beaches and chasing the sunsets down there as well. After taking MANY MANY photos of the gorgeous sunsets, we drove back to Tanunda for dinner and had dinner at one of the bars there - Bar Musque. Nice drinks, food was average. But it was a good place to people watch for sure.
Day 4 was a pretty cool day too! We started off the day with the absolutely bestest donuts ever from Browns Barossa Donuts that were SOOO good - like the best I've ever had. I had a vanilla slice one and Luke had a mars bar one - my tummy wasn't too sore after. Then we set off on an adventure to all the cute shops around Tanunda - the book shop was my fave. After a cute explore around the town, we headed to Barossa Valley Chocolate Company where we had a wine and chocolate tasting that was so good and bought a lot of choccies back. This was my very first wine tasting - which is weird because I'm from NZ, you would think that I would have done more (but only ones in the comfort of my own home). For lunch we went to Maggie Beer's and oh my gosh, this was delicious and what an amazing experience! It was a set menu but it was really worth it. SO GOOD. I think we also went to the winery Saltram on this day too. Safe to say we came back with a lot of wine.
Day 5 we went to the cheese shop Barossa Valley Cheese and then drove to Hanhndorf and of course got Bratwursts and Beer for lunch because it's a German town and that's just what you have to do. In the evening, we went out in search of some wombats and did some more night photography. We went to Moorunde Wildlife Reserve and didn't actually see any wombats until we drove off lol and then did some astro photos at Big Bend River Murray (which was really cool how they had specific spaces you could set up your camera and telescope gear for ample star gazing). I'd love to go back to Big Bend during the day and watch the sunset there sometime. I also saw an owl on the road that night too which was pretty cool (I really think an owl is my spirit guide).
Day 7 was our last day there and it was chocca blocked full of adventures. We went out for breakfast at Four Seasons of Nosh which was really yum! Explored a lot of the cemeteries around the town and went for a walk around Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park (it was cold and rainy but we did see some roos here). Following this, we went to Chataeau Tanunda for even more wine tasting and this place was great, we tried so many delicious wines and even a port too! We also went to the 1950s themed diner for a milkshake in the afternoon and then we had our last dinner at Char Barossa - the mains were okay here but the dessert was delicious.
And on Day 8 we drove back to Melbourne and the only stop we really did was to look at the Pink Lakes which was kinda cool.
Hanmer Springs, Canterbury, New Zealand (April, 2023)
In April 2023, we made a quick trip to my home land, Christchurch New Zealand so that Luke could meet my family and friends and I could see everyone who I hadn't seen in awhile. We did some cool things like head out for a day in Hanmer Springs with mum and check out Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. Most of the trip was spent catching up with people so there's not too much to report here.