Going South: Coonawarra & back to Melb (Feb 20-23)

Out of Port Fairy we made good time to the South Australia border. We got out of the car to take the obligatory tourist pic "You are now entering South Australia" and parked next to a herd of cows. To date we had seen a lot of cool animals on this trip, both native and non-native, but it was the cows that Luca loved, we got back in the car and he was mooing - funny. We followed the coast all the way to Port MacDonnell (saw some emu's and kangaroos running/hopping along next to us as we drove along) then headed straight up to Penola (Coonawarra) through Mount Gambia (which aside from poor road signage has an amazing blue lake).


Coonawarra is a renowned red win area in Australia, something to do with the thin layer of terra rossa soil on a limestone base. The wine area is relatively small and low key but everything is very accessible, the people at the cellar doors very friendly and there were some beautiful old buildings at most of the wineries. A good mate of mine, Dave Ronson, is the GM of a big wine producer in Australia and they have a winery in Coonawarra so we were set up on a tour of the Brands winery. It was great, we learned a ton - thanks David. Some great wine and generally a good time and again Kelly booked a real winner for accomodation in the town of Penola.


After Coonawarra we headed back to Melbourne with a night in Ballarat. We spent our last night in Melbourne staying on Chapel St which is the shopping capital of the country. Kelly had a great time checking out the stores but I know she could have spent more time there if Luca and I weren't with her. We checked out downtown Melbourne - which is so busy even on the weekends and has some great arcades and reno's of old buildings and finally headed out to the airport to catch the flying Kangaroo home. The end of an awesome adventure.

Cheers all.