Adelaide: Rememberance, Wine, Old Bones and Beaches

Adelaide is a city on the southern coast and very close to the fabulous wine regions of Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. The first day we found our way to the Barossa Valley.  Lots of the big names were there including Wolf Blass.  I have to admit that the wine did not impress me, even the really expensive stuff.  I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the winery looks a bit like a large oil battery.   Still not tired of the pretty birds that are everywhere.  Here is another....

  We borrowed some bikes the next day and followed the amazing bike paths around the city and along the river.  We almost rode to the beach but the pathway was under construction, bummer.  We did manage to ride to a Rememberance Day ceremony on November 11.  If you have been following the blog you know we visited a lot of WWI and WWII sites while in Belgium and France this past summer.  We saw the rows and rows of white crosses in the European war cemeteries.......  We had to go to a Rememberance day ceremony.  We did and it was just as moving as the ones back home. 

The following day off we went to the area of McLaren Vale, another famous wine area in Australia, known for its shiraz.  This was a small tour of just four people and we went to small boutique vineyards.  One of these, Danshi Rise was run by an old biker guy who made amazing shiraz and olives.  I am not too sure if there was anything else growing on his land.....................

Off to the Naracoorte UNESCO (of course) World Heritage site.  These are on the Limestone Coast and are suprisingly, limestone.  The Victoria Cave has layers of bones of the Mega Fauna (here read BIG kangaroos, koalas and other extinct marsupials)

and I mean these are actually bones that are not replaced with minerals.  The animals apparently fell down holes in the caves and could not get back out so died down there and the bones were preserved due to the climatic conditions.  The one area that we saw was the size of an Olympic swimming pool and they had not even removed all the bones yet.

 The picture is in the cave of a marsupial lion (now extinct) about to pounce on a tree eating kangaroo (also gone).  These are the bones, not casts of bones, cool.


Also in this area is the Coonawarra wine region.  Some big names like Lindemans are here.  We did not stop there but at the smaller family run places.  Fabulous shiraz and cabernet. 

We also saw miles and miles of beautiful beaches. 
The temperature is around 28 degrees.  Ah, spring in Australia is much better than winter in Canada. 

PS (if you are not a geologist don't read this)
Also managed to find some cool rocks, check out the granites in this picture and the oncolites in the other.