Last day in Adelaide

We genuinely wished we’d given Kangaroo Island more time. This had been expressed to us repeatedly in the travel brochures, but I guess that’s the cost of a whirlwind tour.

The bus picked us up at the Hideaway (thank you, Rex and Michelle!) and we hopped on the ferry back to the mainland, where giant windmills spun to greet us. We again enjoyed the hills and valleys for the ride back up the peninsula, through the interminable ugly outer suburbs of Adelaide and into the picturesque city center. Then it was time for a treat: we walked right across the street and into the Adelaide Hilton, for our “fancy” hotel stay.

The Hilton is a funny place. The staff is friendly to a fault (THANK you for the half-dozen recommendations, now go away). The room looks like a Pottery Barn catalog, and the shower is of course awesome. There’s a damn pillow menu sitting on the nightstand, where you can call room service and order (free of charge) any of ten different pillow types to be delivered.

And yet, local calls cost $1.

We dropped our bags in the tenth-floor room with the amazing view of the central park, and walked down to the so-called Central Market, where 250 shops and food stands congregate under a single roof. It was a little manic for me, but we did find a souvenir or two and some sandwiches.

Then I walked three blocks to the local Hertz outlet and picked up the second of our rentals, this one for the exciting trip down the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne. Our conveyance is a big improvement: a brand-new silver Camry, with automatic and only 19,000 km on the odometer. High style, I tells ya.

Our afternoon’s activity was a visit to one more winery, a historic place called Penfolds. This vineyard was first established in 1844, only 8 years after South Australia was even established as a state, on 500 acres well outside of Adelaide. Over the years, Adelaide of course grew to surround the winery, which sold off pieces of land and is now reduced to a single 50-acre parcel surrounded by expensive homes. It’s the only central business district winery in the world and is “heritage-listed” to be forbidden from further development.

We sampled some wines and gawked at the $525 bottles of “Grange” in their locked refrigerator. Then we got a tour of the place - no one else showed, so it was just us and the guide - and we learned how wines are made, saw the contraptions they use to squeeze grape skins and so forth, and went 15 meters underground to where the barrels and bottles are stored.

One gigantic barrel, over 10,000 gallons in size, was nicknamed the Helen Keller. Apparently Helen once visited the winery, and in some kind of publicity stunt, she used only her hands and an abacus (not her eyes, of course) to measure the gigantic barrel and calculate its volume to within two gallons. You go, girl.

Mary Beth and I contemplated the logistics of stealing one of the Grange barrels (each contained about $200,000 worth of wine) but we finally settled on a much more manageable Reserve Pinot Noir for $42.

Our bad luck came back when it was time for dinner; the Penfolds restaurant, “Best Restaurant in SA” according to some official source, was booked out for the evening. Instead, we drove back to the hotel (roundabouts are muy scary) and ate at the downstairs restaurant, where our waitress was from California and I had the T-bone. Felt like I was back home.

Finally, tired though we were, we drove back up into North Adelaide, directly across the street from the amazing Indian restaurant, and saw “Stardust” at the historic movie theater. I thought it was kind of ridiculous, but cute. MB loved the wuv story. So, one thumb up, one thumb down.

And that brings us to the conclusion of our Adelaide portion of the trip. The next morning it was up and at ‘em for our trip down the Great Ocean Road.