Not working today.

It’s Monday today.
I am not working.
The end.

Seriously though, it seems like forever since we were last in the caravan. Counting back, it was 19 Monday’s ago, or just over 4 months. That seems like 3 months too long to not have some days off work and have a weekend way in the van.
The weather was forecast for cool, cloudy but generally ok, so we headed off for a walk into town to just look around and stop me from opening a bottle of wine before lunch.....
the kids took the opportunity to just be kids for a while and stopped to play whenever they could. Swings, trees, bridges.... anything that could be climbed on, was climbed on. And that meant photos.

Despite the forecast of only 18 degrees, the kids ran off to the pool and stayed there for the next 3 hours while I exercised. Exercised my right to sit and drink and sleep and eat and drink and rest.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to another short but fun holiday. Time to start planning the next one.

Bathurst in Nuriootpa

I decided that today was going to be about me and my desire to sit on my A and watch Bathurst. I am not overly a car racing fan and I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the drivers or who drives what make/model or numbered car. But it doesn’t matter. At 10:45 I get to sit in the sun with a beer in my hand and watch the TV for the entire day. Not sure if I missed something, but this race was actually pretty boring, probably because of the extra care the drivers were taking due to the wet weather. I decided to turn it off for lunch, going to the pool with the kids for a while and coming back for the last hour or two of the race. That turned out to be a good decision as the final 20 laps was great to watch. (Not that I could tell you who won...)
Tea was a roast butterflied chook on the Weber, along with some carefully blackened vegetables that had to be masterfully sliced out of the foil and placed strategically on the kids plates to hide their true colours.
It was a big day of nothing, and I was exhausted from it. It didn’t stop me however, from sitting up all night and watching tv till midnight. Tomorrow is Monday and I get to sleep in and do nothing all - I can’t wait.

Wine day

We were hanging out for today as it gives us a real excuse to drink wine before lunch time. 1st stop was Saltram and some samples of their magnificent wines including one of my favourites - Pepperjack.

With a couple of bottles under my arm, and the clock ticking towards 11am, we headed down the road to the Farmers Market. Turns out the guys from Steiny’s Mettwurst were here so that saved me another trip that was only going to delay cracking open one of the fine bottles of wine I had just purchased. We also stumbled across our local cheese maker from Hahndorf- Udder Delights. Naturally, that meant I had to get a couple of Double Brie to go with my mettwurst and fine wine later this afternoon.
Next stop was another of my favourites - Grant Burge. The main reason I like this place is for their bulk port which magically gets purchased whenever I am up this way,  thanks to what can only be evaporation out of my barrel at home. There is a good chance that not all of it will make it home and into the barrel,

We stopped off at Mieglers Hill lookout on the way back which was a great view of the Barossa Valley and the perfect spot for some photos of us all


The rest of the day was spent sampling a handful of the wines and nibbles, mixed with some watching of Race 1 at Bathurst.
We got the fire cranking tonight (well, the mozzie candle...), but still not enough to provide the heat and smoke in our eyes and clothes that a real fire 🔥 produces. After knocking off a substantial amount of home made Baileys, it was time for bed to dream about another day of nothing ahead.

10,000 steps and The Blue Line

Apparently some people like going for walks and other silly things to keep them healthy and active. Personally I try to avoid it as I keep seeing people get hurt when exercising and I don’t want to get hurt. 
It appeared, however, that if I stood my ground I was going to be stuck on my own for the next two hours (which actually sounded very appealing but the look from Tracy was suggesting a family walk would be a better choice for our relationship.

It was only 9am and probably a tad too early to have a glass of wine, so I eagerly put on my runners and set off with everyone. The wives had been given a pamphlet outlining a 10,000 step walk around Nuriootpa that would showcase some of the backstreets and older historic homes, so off we went. Dylan decided he would be the holder of the map and lead us, following the big blue line on the map. I was naive enough to think this was a good idea and secretly hoping he would take a wrong turn, get frustrated, give up and head back to the caravan park. A fair enough assumption for a 10 year old I thought. I should have known better than to assume anything with Dylan. There was a blue line on the map that needed to be followed, and regardless of how many blisters or available shortcuts, we were following that blue line goddammit. There were 5 kids followed by 4 adults traipsing through the streets of Nuri, where I learnt that this town had houses on streets, just like any other town I had ever passed through. Not quite the historic walk I had been coaxed into doing. We had got about half way through when Liv, Daniel Tracy, Teddy and Kayla decided they couldn’t do any more, and they headed for the van. That left me supervising Dylan, Tyler and Darcy (albeit from 300 steps behind them). Despite my efforts to get Dylan to take a detour or two, we had to stop and make sure we were still on track with the blue line every ten minutes. Tyler and Darcy took the easy option when we hit the Main Street, heading for the park, but not Dylan..... the blue line said we needed to turn right, so right turn we did. I nearly got him to cross the main road at the end, but there was no way since the map indicated we had to take a path that went under the road (the blue line went missing under the road, so therefore that is where we had to go.). We could see the van park straight ahead, and my legs were speeding up sensing a seat with a cold  bourbon 🥃 calling my name.  But noooooo. The blue line said we had to go around another block, so that is where we went. Finally- we popped out at the bush land across from the van park and the blue line said we had made it. At this point Dylan ran ahead, leaving me and Taz to ourselves, ignoring the fact I was the only one out of 9 people that stuck it out and suffered through the entire walk with him. I hobbled back and slumped into a chair with a cold drink, immediately feeling every muscle starting to seize up.
We cooked some Yiros meat on the Weber before settling around “the fire” which was a mozzie candle that Liv had stashed away, laughing about Dylan and his blue line.

It was quite cold with the breeze picking up ahead of the predicted overnight showers and after today’s marathon efforts, I was buggered and crashed early. Looking forward to the winery visits tomorrow.

Nuriootpa

We had a dillemma of heading inland to Melrose, or staying semi-local and going to The Barossa for our first post-winter trip. After analysing the amount of aches and pains we both suffer in a daily basis just walking to and from the car, we decided that hiking up an 8km mountain side probably wasn’t the best choice if we wanted to be able to walk at all next week.
So Nuriootpa it was. Thanks to Kayla’s Cheerleading commitments we couldn’t go over the Labour day long weekend, so we have both taken Friday, Monday and Tuesday off work for a bit of R&R.
Despite all best intentions to leave home at 5, by the time Tracy got home from work and the kids managed to get themselves organised and I finished my day of tidying up last minute work stuff, we were running typically late. Thankfully it is daylight savings now and still light(ish) at 8pm, so setting up was a breeze.
The Mardle’s arrived (minus Daniel) shortly after us to discover we had set up the van on the wrong site facing the wrong way meaning their van would either have to be at the back of us, or they will need to innocently set up on the wrong site so we could share some communal grass.  Despite our best efforts, they chose the latter meaning we would have to socialise with them for the next 5 days😜
Liv did a great job of parking and setting up the van, only to find their extension cord wouldn’t reach the power outlet. Daniel (the master of erections) had just arrived, and, as Liv predicted, promptly changed the location to be even closer to us.
It was surprisingly cold as we sat around having a drink or 3 in the true tradition of caravanning. The weather looks like it is going to be great for the next 5 days except for a possible shower on Monday. The park is fairly empty as well except for a dozen or so Grey Nomads and one other family with a couple of kids. Just the way Grumpy Barry likes it.