Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

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February 18, 20157 min read2015

Dateline February 18, 2015, Robe and Port Fairy, Australia

We drove almost six hours to get to our next destination, Robe, one of the oldest towns in South Australia. We checked into the Harbour View Motel, where Robbie at the front desk offered us an 'upgrade' for an extra hundred dollars (we politely declined). Drinks at the Caledonia Hotel, built in 1858, then dinner at Sails, the best restaurant in town and probably in the province. A morning walk along the cliffs by the lighthouse, breakfast at the Marina Cafe, a lobster pickup at the fish market that became one of our favorite lunches of the trip on a picnic table at Cape Bridgewater. Then north to Port Fairy and the Quamby Homestead, where William and Ailsa host out of a property whose gardens were designed in the 1880s by William Guilfoyle, who ran the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. A round of golf at Port Fairy Golf Club, oceanside and beautiful, where a friendly woman at the bar afterward showed us a photo of the tiger snake she had recently found in her house and warned us about the copperheads on the course. A walk around Griffiths Island, a first wallaby sighting, and a second night at Clonmara Cottages. Onward to the Great Ocean Drive.

#australia #south-australia #victoria

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Australia

February 13, 20157 min read2015

Dateline February 13, 2015, Lambert Estate, the Barossa Valley

From New Zealand to Australia. We left Queenstown on an evening flight, with an overnight at the Auckland airport, then on through Melbourne to Adelaide, landing about 11 a.m. We picked up the rental car and pointed it at the Barossa Valley to visit Jim and Pam Lambert at Lambert Estate. We had met Jim and Pam about eight years before through a small online wine company we ran with partners, specializing in boutique wines from around the world, and visiting their winery had been one of the highlights of our last Australia trip in 2009. A great change this time around was meeting their son Kirk and his new wife Vanessa, who is from Peru. The two met in the University of Adelaide's wine science program and are now the winemakers at Lambert Estate. Over two evenings at the property we worked through about thirteen bottles between the four of us and the Lamberts and their friends Kingsley and Kathy, including the flagship Silent Partner Cabernet Sauvignon and the Family Tree Shiraz, which once beat Penfolds Grange nine-to-ten in a Milwaukee blind tasting. We chased kangaroos through the vineyard, dined at the Wanera Wine Bar in Angaston, played pokies (Bunny cleaned up), and slept gratefully in the Lambert Estate Retreat. A wonderful welcome to Australia.

#australia #south-australia #barossa-valley

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Australia

February 15, 20157 min read2015

Dateline February 15, 2015, Kangaroo Island, Meet the Koala

We left the Lambert Estate Retreat, headed over to Jim and Pam's to buy a few bottles for the drive to Sydney, and pointed the car at the Cape Jervis ferry through the Adelaide Hills route to Hahndorf, the oldest German town in Australia, settled in 1838 by fifty-four families escaping religious persecution. We strolled the shops and had lunch in town, then caught the 4:00 ferry across to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island. We were based in Kingscote for two nights. Over a motel dinner that turned into wine and conversation, we met Terry Modern from Victor Harbor, who was on the island for the Kangaroo Island Cup Carnival. The next morning we drove to the Parndana Wildlife Park, fed the smaller, darker island kangaroos in the enclosure, and met Dana, the conservationist who walked us through the koala — marsupial, related to kangaroos not bears, threatened more by drought and chlamydia than by predators, sixteen thousand on the island and ten thousand sterilized to keep the population in balance with the foliage. Two of Dana's rescues had been raised in a burlap bag with formula. Then on to Flinders Chase, where koalas sat in the trees right above our car, and out to the Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch, and Weirs Cove on the wild south coast. A wonderful two days.

#australia #south-australia #kangaroo-island

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