Up a bit late again! Our early morning routine seems to have collapsed since we wound the clocks back. Had a coffee and some biscuits then on the road about 9am. Rode for an hour or so then stopped for fuel and a pie for breakfast. We rode through ongoing big paddock land. There were a few big tractors drilling with the now expected oversize equipment. There was quite a lot of wind, which I suspect is usual for here as there was a wind farm with numerous turbines spinning away up on the hill. We passed a couple of lakes at Locheel that were pink in colour the same as a salt works evaporation ponds, however these lakes were at over 100 metres altitude. Not sure of the reason, must Google it, perhaps it relates to the salt planes inland? The land was changing to rolling hills at this stage and we stopped to take a photo of the lakes and surrounds, but on the camera it looked very flat. I think it was a trick of the mind to make it look like rolling hills, as we have been so used to the flat that the minor change fooled me into thinking I am in the hills. Your eye provides visual information but it is your brain that sees, by putting together a series of small snippets of information to perceive the visual scene. I think my visual perception has been altered by all of this flatness, who knows, I think I need some mountains to reset my visual equilibrium, I need to head for the hills.
Road works after road works today. There was a fair bit of waiting for road works today. The GPS is very accurate at estimating arrival time, and the expected arrival time was 45 minutes before the actual time that we arrived in Tanunda in the Barossa valley, such was the degree of hold up with road works. Riding to the Barossa valley lead to a noticeable change in the surrounding countryside. Initially we came across smaller paddocks with more intensive activity including potatoes being planted, and a lot of small Olive groves. Interestingly the Olive trees had no fruit on them. Hopefully this does not reflect what has happened at home, it would be disappointing to arrive home and discover that the birds have taken all of the fruit.
We rode into Tanunda, which is the main town in the Barossa valley. This is a nice little town that looks like it has been here for a very long time. Historic cottages and monuments gave the place a lot of character. We stopped for some lunch at a good-looking café in the main street. Had a bagel and a good coffee. Looking at the map over lunch I could see the cure for my visual perception difficulties in the form of the route to Adelaide through Williamstown and Chain of Ponds through the gorge road. We headed off in that direction and it was a good choice. Sweeping bends tightened up and the country was truly rolling now with a mix of woodland and Vineyard making this a very appealing place. We then went into the Gorge area and this was a series of 35km/hr corners on a good road and very enjoyable riding. It eventually spilled out onto the Adelaide city outskirts.
Barossa valley was very picturesque and sadly I took no pictures, as I was enjoying the riding so much. I did feel a strange connection to the area, that I first thought was just feeling like I was home with the vineyards etc. but then I realised that I am part of the place! You see trillions of atoms from the Barossa valley have passed through my body, in the form of wine from here, and some of them will have been assimilated. Pushing it you say? Well at least the labels and Vineyard names looked familiar.
We rode into the centre of Adelaide. It has been a day of geographic illumination for me. For some reason I thought Adelaide was two things, a small city about the size of Christchurch, but of course it is not, at 1.1ish million it is more like Auckland in size. The second point is that I have always looked at the map and thought, Adelaide is just around the corner from Melbourne, but of course it is not. It will take two days for us to ride to Melbourne, admittedly we will go a slow route but still, it is a very long way between the cities. For some reason I also thought that the Murray River went through Melbourne but here it is on the outskirts of Adelaide, two days travel away from Melbourne. Ha, what do you know travelling like this is a great way to learn Geography.
Adelaide was a big city like any other. Busy, lots of people looking busy and stressed, shinny shops filled with expensive nick knacks, restaurants, cafes, and office buildings. I bet if you looked closely there would be a library and museum, and possibly a Zoo. Sounds cynical I know but on a drive through they all look the same. I have no doubt that if we stopped for a while there would lots of unique things about Adelaide and it looked very,… Big City. We rode out of town as it was going to be difficult to find accommodation, we did try but the GPS took us down a very small alley to a central city motel that did not exist and it really did not look that salubrious, so we hit Melbourne on the GPS and headed out of town, past the BMW shop, Audi shop, Ferrari Shop and the Toyota shop. I reminded me of the Great south road in Auckland that I used to ride my push bike down regularly, and it always made me laugh as at one end, near new Market there is the Porches Shop, and on the other side of the road are Ferraris, further on you get the Audis, Macerate is there somewhere too. Further along you come across the Jaguar and Land Rovers, then the Alfas, then you start to get the Nissans and Toyotas, eventually half way along are the Second hand Dealers initially late models, then getting cheaper and cheaper. Eventually you get to the car dealers with overpriced old cars, and attractive finance deals and look around and find you are in Otara. It is like a social hierarchy of vehicle buying.
We rode out and stopped in Murray Bridge, found a cabin. Got some take away roast chicken for dinner and a night watching TV.
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