Wine Tours, License Plates, and Moustaches...Oh My.

My first morning back in Adelaide was an early one as I had booked onto a wine tour of the Barossa Valley. The Barossa is one of Australia’s most famous wine producing regions and is quite close to Adelaide. Sadly in the four months I have been here, I had not made it to the Barossa or the other wine regions around Adelaide. Adelaide is in the state of South Australia, which as I learned on the tour is responsible for producing 55% of Australia’s wine.

Before heading to the wineries, we went by the Giant Rocking Horse. As I have mentioned before, Australia has several “big” things like this to attract tourists or interest to whatever they are near.

In this case, the rocking horse sits in front of a little factory that makes wooden toys. We spent about 20 minutes at this stop which also featured a little petting zoo with a few kangaroos and a bunch of birds. I almost asked if I could have this peacock for Thanksgiving.

After the Giant Rocking Horse, our next stop was a dam that served as a whispering wall. If you have never seen one of these, it highlights some trait of sound waves and allows you to talk to someone across a huge dam in a normal conversational tone. There is a circular version of this in some palace or shrine somewhere around Beijing. After a few minutes of amusement with the wall, we headed for our first winery. In all we visited four wineries and had a nice BBQ outside of the third one. After the wineries, we had a stop in a little town to check out a few touristy shops and try shiraz flavored ice cream.

At the last winery we visited, there was a car parked outside with a surprising Queensland license plate on it.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been interested in license plates. I assume that it was because I grew up in a tourist town and there were always several interesting ones around. That or I spent time in prison in a past life. Whatever the reason, I notice them and find the mottos to be interesting. And in addition to the above plate, Queensland also claims to be the Sunshine State (like Florida) and the Smart State. In South Australia, we have the Festival State, the Wine State, Gateway to the Outback, and the Defence State (that is how it is spelled here). Victoria, home of Melbourne, has plates claiming that it is the Garden State (like New Jersey), the Place to Be, and On the Move. New South Wales, home to Sydney, has the First State (possibly like Delaware) and I am sure a few others that I can’t remember.

Changing subjects, another fascinating thing I have noticed lately is that you are treated differently with a moustache. I can’t say that it is better or worse, but I believe people make assumptions about you. It is funny to be rocking this for ‘movember’/for laughs because I remember giving my dad a hard time about his moustache years ago. He had apparently sported it for like 25 years before I convinced him that it looked ridiculous and he should shave it off. I suspect someone will have to sit me down and have that same chat soon. It will just have to wait until December.

Beyond going on wine tours, thinking about license plate mottos, and growing my moustache, I have been getting my stuff organized to leave and preparing for my final on Friday. I will try to get in a post before I leave for Tasmania on Monday. Things should start to get exciting as we (the royal we for Lebowski fans) are headed back out on the road.