We picked up on a Sunday at the Medina Grand in Adelaide. We quickly escaped the trapped heat of the city and made our way to the Barossa Valley, one of the most famous wine regions in the world! Unfortunately, despite escaping the city, we were not unable to escape the heat. With temperatures pushing 110 degrees, we scrapped our plan for a picnic and had lunch at a fantastic little restaurant and coffee shop called Blonde Coffee in Angaston. After a relaxed lunch and conversation that bounced back and forth between getting to know each other and the adventures to be anticipated for the rest of the week, we made our way to the official trip start at Yalumba Winery. After a quick tasting and exploring the beautiful grounds at Yalumba, we got everyone fit to their Trek Madones and were off! Side note on Yalumba: they make a Mourvedre/Shiraz/Grenache blend that is one of the best wines I’ve ever had, who said MSG is bad for you?!? Given the heat, it was great to have a relatively short ride planned – it also gave everyone a chance to really enjoy our hotel! The Louise is probably in the top three hotels I’ve stayed at with Trek Travel. It is set at the top of a small rise, with views extending onto vineyards in every direction. The restaurant is exceptional with one of the top sommeliers in Australia there to pair wines with every course.
For our first full day, we rose to significantly cooler weather and a beautiful morning for riding. We set out for a couple different riding options out through Eden Valley and back again through Angaston. The riding in the Barossa is pretty fantastic, varying from vineyards to pasture land with rolling hills. There aren’t any big climbs, but somehow even the small ones are rewarded with stunning scenery. It warmed up again in the afternoon, and most people took advantage of the beautiful hotel and its pool as they were still adjusting to life in Australia. That evening we went to dinner at a restaurant called The Vintners. It cooled off to a beautiful evening and we sat out on a veranda surrounded by vines enjoying South Australia’s best wines before moving inside for a dinner. We had wonderful service and a great dinner. Many people took advantage of their first opportunity to try kangaroo!
The next morning it was time to say goodbye to the Barossa Valley and move on south. We shuttled through the Adelaide Hills, through Hahndorf, and down to the McLaren Vale for a private lunch at Woodstock Winery. I wish we could have spent more time exploring the McLaren Vale (it’s in the works for next year!), but we had a date with Kangaroo Island! A short shuttle after lunch brought us to Myponga Reservoir. Part of the group set off from the vista point above the reservoir, while some opted for a little shorter ride and started out from the seaside town of Normanville. After riding along the coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula we reached Cape Jervis, where the sign for Penneshaw still read 15km, but it was all by ferry!
Kangaroo Island is a pretty incredible place. It’s the third largest island in Australia – after Tasmania and Melville Island – at nearly 150km long and 50km across. With just one paved road on the island creating about a 200km loop, it’s not the most cycling friendly place on the planet. There are a couple of places that we could have ridden just for the sake of a ride, but with so much to see, who would have time to ride a bike?!? Despite technically being tour guides, at Trek Travel we don’t often feel like tour guides. Dave and I took this day to be just that! We had the opportunity to visit the island before the trip, and really looked forward to showing off the spectacular places we had found! The first stop was Seal Bay, where we met up with a naturalist who took us down onto the beach with the Australia Sea Lions. After a tour and a rare chance to see a sea lion pup that was less than a week old, we moved quickly on to Little Sahara. There are incredible sand dunes that you can hike up and across and around. A popular activity there is to bring sleds and snowboards and carve the sand! It’s like a giant sandbox for adults. The sand is so soft and the view is so great it was an awesome place to relax and spend some time. From there, we were off to Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary’s famous koala walk. When Dave and I were doing our research we were a little skeptical. It sounded like a petting zoo being sold as some kind of wilderness adventure, but boy were we wrong! What we found was certainly not a zoo. We chatted with the caretaker of the property about it. There were no cages, no fences, no baiting. They had simply created a habitat that was so attractive to the abundant koalas on KI that it would be unusual to see fewer than 10 koalas on any given day. They did not disappoint on the day we visited, with several choosing conveniently photogenic places to sit! As an unexpected added bonus, in this single stop on KI, we saw wallabies and a kangaroo! As we moved on from Hanson Bay we worked our way to the far western end of the island and Flinders Chase National Park. Nearly half of KI has never been cleared of vegetation and over 25% is National Park. Within Flinders Chase we visited Admirals Arch, where we were treated to the view of an active colony of New Zealand Fur Seals, and Remarkable Rocks which were – to say the least – remarkable! After taking some time climbing on the rocks and taking photos, it was back in the van and ALL the way back to Penneshaw for a private wine tasting with the wonderful folks at Dudley Wines.
Day five meant two things: back to the mainland and back to the bikes! I was super stoked to ride on this day as it climbed quickly up from Cape Jervis to the top of a ridgeline (most of the group opted to start the ride from the turn onto the ridge, rather than from the ferry – I think it was a good call). Once on top of the ridge the road wound and rolled with stunning views to either side. It was a bit like riding along the spines in southern Utah with their incredible views to either side, but with a completely different kind of scenery. Eventually the road descended into Victor Harbor, a picturesque little town on the Southern Ocean. As I was saying, I was super stoked to ride this day, but my shoulder had different ideas, and at the ride start I had to offer drive the van and let Dave ride. Needless to say, he wasn’t as disappointed as I was. The ride proved to be as spectacular as I anticipated, and everyone was very careful not to rub it in… too much.
Our layover day in Victor Harbor was a well deserved rest day. We rode an easy 20km each way along the Encounter Bikeway – named for Encounter Bay, which is in turn named for a meeting site of French and British explorers who were charting Australia in the early days after the discovery of the Australian continent. Because it was such a mellow ride (40km, along the coastline, not much to that) I gave it a go at riding that day. Our planned destination was Goolwa, where most stopped for lunch or at least a coffee (I had both). Some people took advantage of our long option out onto Hindmarsh Island, and most were back early to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at the hotel or in Victor Harbor.
Day six was our longest and most challenging day of the trip, even on paper. It started out with 80km trending very gradually uphill before being rewarded by a 20km descent into Adelaide. With temperatures once again forecast near 110 degrees and winds that no one forecast, it proved to be a very challenging day indeed. With the wind and the heat, many people were happy to call it a day very early on, some making it to lunch in Meadows (at a sprint point for one of the Tour Down Under stages), and a few resilient guests making the whole ride into Adelaide. I think whether they decided to go the whole way or call it a day early, everyone was happy with their decision.
Our last full day in South Australia was very much a “Choose Your Own Adventure” kind of day. We had two options written. Most of the group set off in the morning up to Mount Lofty. After quickly escaping town, it was up the Crafers Bikeway, a beautifully designed bikeway that climbs nearly the whole way up the mountain completely removed from traffic. It is a beautiful climb and a nice change of pace to know there are no cars trying to get around you through the corners. That, combined with views to the east of the Adelaide Hills wine region and views to the west of Adelaide and the ocean, it’s easy to see why this is one of the most popular rides for Adelaide locals. Others decided that they had had enough climbing for the week and took the morning to take advantage of the bike lanes and off street bike paths that criss-cross the city and rode to Glenelg Beach. They were hardly alone on the roads as it seems every cyclist in the city rides to the Cibo coffee shop in Glenelg for coffee on Sunday mornings. That evening we gathered for our last dinner together at the Universal Wine Bar in Adelaide. We got a last chance to sit down with our new friends and laugh and tell stories over the amazing wines South Australia has to offer.
It wouldn’t be a final morning with Trek Travel if we didn’t get one more ride on our Madones before saying goodbye, so we set off early for a ride up to Norton Summit. It’s a short loop, but a great one, with beautiful views and a fun descent back into town before saying goodbye.
It was the first run of the Trek Travel South Australia trip, and it was definitely a success! That’s not to say there aren’t improvements to be made, and Dave and I spent the week talking to the guests about what they loved and what they didn’t, and with that feedback, along with some research in the days following the trip before we had to leave Australia (mostly conducted by Dave since I had to jet early to New Zealand and on home – don’t want to take credit where it’s not due), I think that in 2010 the Australia trip is going to be one of Trek Travel’s top offerings!
