Aus 15 - And suddenly I was 70

In Adelaide just prior to my birthday, we stayed in the driveway of a house in Myrtle Drive. Our hosts had not been well and were staying in Respite Care and kindly offered us use of their home while we visited Adelaide. This was a welcome break as everything, including the van and our clothes, was covered in red dust from our visit into the desert region! So whilst camping in the van on the drive, we had use of a cooker, shower, washing machine and Netflix on a large TV. The van itself was treated to a good car wash!

Adelaide was the first big town we had been to for a while and Jim found a dry cleaner and zip mender!

I had a yearning to get out of my camping gear and to find a decent outfit to wear for my promised birthday meal. The shopping trip was entirely satisfactory, partly because Jim largely picked up the tab but also because after so long in camping gear it is really nice to be able to glam up a bit.

The image below is the Adelaide Arcade.

The only downside really apart from the extravagance, is where do you put it all in a smallish camper-van?  The only thing I can say about that is thank goodness we were not trying to live in this tiny bed on wheels for ever.  And our trip was beginning to draw to a close!

Whilst I spent an obscene amount of time browsing in the shopping district, admiring the buildings, the chocolate shops and the shopping arcade, Jim was visiting the main Art Gallery. Part way through my shopping trip I got a message from Jim to say that there was a portrait of his Great Grandmother in the gallery! She was both the subject of the painting but also an artist in her own right. She is depicted painting one of her own children.

Quite a few months ago I had worked out that my 70th Birthday would occur smack in the middle of our road trip. On checking the itinerary, it seemed that we would be close to Adelaide. Adelaide is famed for its wine regions and I could potentially justify a nice lunch at one of the restaurants in one of the valleys.

We had already been up the Clare Valley prior to our trip to Kangaroo Island (both the subject of other blogs) and now on our return to Adelaide we could go perhaps to Adelaide Hills or alternatively the Barossa Valley?

I remembered visiting Hentley Farm in the Barossa 5 years ago and yearned to return and have a meal there whilst tasting wines. So an idea was born. A Hentley Farm reservation was made for 28th July 2024.

The next challenge was where to sleep nearby in the van, so neither of us would have to drive. On looking closely at the map, I found a Public Campsite in Greenock, about 5 kilometers away from Hentley Farm, in Seppeltsfield, so we decided to park the camper-van, walk to the restaurant and walk back after lunch. Guest accommodation in this area comes at a premium, so we definitely saved a fortune in Greenock.

This idea largely went to plan. The camping spot was like many in Australia, around a show ground or sporting space, with toilets, water and peaceful surroundings, usually for a reasonable price and sometimes free. This one in Greenock was in the heart of the Barossa wine district and the village itself was really charming.

We set off at 11am passing well tended farms and vineyards and hoped to arrive an hour later having built up an appetite.

The route passed many vineyards and the area is well worth visiting both because it is really charming but also because there are many fine wines waiting to be sampled!

We were fine walking along in our smarter clothes, but 5 kilometers on a sunny day with no shade and a long road began to feel like we would deserve our meal when we reached Hentley Farm!  And we were not wrong.

When we arrived at Hentley Farm it was not quite how we had remembered it. We thought we would be dining in the old buildings but these were now being used only for booked wine tastings and platters. The restaurant itself was an entirely separate, new, modern glazed building looking out over their well tended vineyards.

We had an amazing experience and it was more than a meal. The dining room was only accessible to guests by walking through the kitchen. A nice touch. The chefs were welcoming and up for photographs, even with lunch duties pressing!

We had the tasting menu paired with wines and we were issued with details of what we had sampled at the end, just in case we wanted to order a case of wine to send home! We did not.

Needless to say, after eating and tasting all that, we ordered a taxi back to our campsite and had an afternoon nap! After all it was my 70th birthday treat. It might have been the first journey for a taxi to the campsite from Hentley Farm!

The next day was my actual birthday and suddenly I was 70! At lunchtime we had a pub lunch with cousins Anthony and Robin Radford and their granddaughter Sophie. We remembered visiting them 5 years earlier when they had taken us up to nearby Mount Lofty to see the Flinders Column with stunning views over the valley. It was so good to see them again. These are a couple who have led very interesting lives. So their stories never fail to disappoint! Nothing had changed except that the sticks of 5 years earlier had now been replaced by walking frames! Tempus fugit.

After a good lunch we left Adelaide to head off for Robe but before we were entirely done with my birthday celebrations, we stopped near Murray Bridge to visit another set of cousins who managed to produce a candle, a song and cake with our wine. Thank you the Tubbenhauer’s! (Did I mention that my Mother was Australian?)

When we left Murray Bridge the next morning, it was a blue sky day as we set off for Robe. We could not help but stop at Kingston to look at the oversized roadside lobster and of-course their lighthouse!

We had now driven nearly 10,000 kilometers and this meant we were on our last leg.  But we still had visits to Robe, Wye River and Melbourne to look forward to before returning to Sydney and Waterfall Cottage, close to where we would return the borrowed van.