A week in Tununda

Well, how things have changed in just under a week. I arrived in Tununda in the Barossa Valley knowing one person and hoping to stay two nights in the town. But I am still here six days later, having met some very cool and very kind people. 

I arrived on on day evening, fresh from my feral camping experience and met Hannes, whom I'd last seen in Tasmania before Christmas. He had travelled with us for several days, and is a good bloke, so we were always going to look him up. He is a traveller too and works in the vineyards here. 

Hannes hard at work

And again

I was going to camp but ended up staying where he stays at Rachael and Dan's house. Dan was away at the start of the week but came home to not the usual one foreigner (Hannes) but two (me). Or I guess three if you count Rachael who is originally from New Zealand. 

Dan, Tom, Rachael, moi

And then as the week progressed, I met some of Rachael's friends - Rebecca, Mel and Diane and sort of got adopted into bits of their lives, eating at Rebecca's as well as Rachael and Dan's, taking Dianne's kids motorbiking, mending Rachael's push bike, hanging out the washing and just doing normal day to day stuff, including meeting other locals, going to the Tununda Show ( like a town fair type thing)  and riding a pushy round  the vineyards and local properties. 

Rebecca

Diane, Dylan, Lochlan

I have had an exceptionally good time and have been very blessed by their collective and individual kindness. I love that there are people like them who are just nice, normal and open hearted people with no aside, who have time for wandering itinerants like me who just happen by and then move on. 

I have always tried to welcome people myself, but this time I was on the receiving end of it and at a time when although I didn't realise it, really needed that normality. And then it dawned on me just how lucky I had been. So thank you Tununda and in particular, those named people!

In fact, with the exception of one person, everybody whom I have met on my travels has been fantastic. Even she wasn't overly unpleasant, just very domineering and rude but she did pocket a considerable amount of our money (about $650.00) Still, I feel a bit sorry for her. 

Anyway, it will be hard to leave tomorrow, but I must; I came here to see Australia, and that's what I am going to do. But in the meantime, I am home alone as Hannes is at work, Rachael, Dan and Tom have gone camping, an I've been trusted to feed the two cats, supervise the chooks, and water the peas. I feel honoured, especially the chook herding bit; they are very friendly and keep coming into the house to see what I am up to. I just hope I manage to keep them safe from foxes; it is only two days after all.

My extended stay has allowed me to explore the area far more deeply that I would have, and sample many of the wines. This is a major wine producing area and many household names are based here - Jacobs Creek, Penfold, Wolff Blass, as well as smaller boutique producers. So for two days, tasting is what I did and it was marvellous!

What happens when horses eat too many grapes

I also learnt quite a bit about the whole grape thing. Things like most grapes have clear juice except for one red which has deep red. Wine is not made from eating grapes but wine grapes, which are very small with an intense flavour. 

Wine making is about the sugar content and flavour intensity in the skins only. Some wines are vat fermented and agitated, others are riddled - individually turned so that the sediment falls into the neck. 

And its done by one person who is indeed known as - yes that's right - the riddler. Champagne bottles are apparently the best shape as the sediment falls into the neck easily and the neck then gets snap frozen so that sediment collects in one frozen plug which is then dumped. That most picking is now mechanised, a recent  -within the last 10 years - phenomenon

I've done a fair bit of walking too, poked around local graveyards, been to the sculpture park ( not that impressive but I did like one because of its name - 'Are you Sirius?') and ridden to distant towns on the Murray Riverland. 

Are you Sirius?

Looking over Tununda

There I met two old ladies and within minutes, I knew their entire life histories, that one had a mental grandson ( her words, not mine) that the other had eight kids and nine grandkids, all of whom are apparently 'little bastards, shits from hell', that during their ( the women's lifetime) the Murray has gone from a clear water river in which you could see swimming snakes before you trod on them, to a muddy uninviting mass of water thanks to the introduced European carp which eats the native fish and then 'stirs up all the bloody mud".

Its also got some impressive river cliffs. 

So when I leave here, I will be heading north towards the Flinders Ranges and the Dog Fence. I'm planning on taking rough dirt roads where I can but am prepared, have sufficient food and water carrying capability, the bike is ready,  and I have my EPIRB. So flap not people, I will pop out the other end, alive and well and with my curiousty satisfied. Then I'll head over the Nullabor.