Clare Valley and Moonta Bay

At the end of the Moonta Bay jetty

Towards the end of the Moonta Bay jetty

On some cool looking rocks

Justin on the beach

Justin on a bridge on the Riesling Trail

Grape vines on the Riesling Trail

On my bike...our butts really hurt by the end of the day!

Underground wine cellar at Sevenhill Winery (the make sacramental wine for the Catholic church)

The Sevenhill Winery with the church

This past weekend we had a long weekend because we had a Holiday! It was the Queen's Birthday. So we took advantage of the long weekend and ventured off to Clare Valley and Moota Bay. Clare is one of the main wine regions in South Australia. Our wonderful friends from church, Rowan and Nyoli, let us borrow their car to take on the trip.

We arrived in Clare Saturday morning to start a bike ride on the Riesling Trail. This is a trail that used to be on old railway line which was converted into a bike/hike trail. It goes for 25 K one way, but we only did about 18 K round trip because our butts were killing us! The trail goes along different wineries so you can just hop off your bike and go in for a wine tasting. It was quite nice. The main winery we checked out was Sevenhills Winery which is made by priests and they primarily make sacramental wines for the Catholic church. It was a beautiful place. Justin tasted some wine and thought it was pretty good. Eventually we headed back to the car to give our butts a rest and we drove around to some other wineries. We bought two bottles of wine from some small wineries which I liked because it is good to give business to the little guys!

After our wine tour we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed off to Moonta which is a small town on the Yorke Peninsula. The drive there was very beautiful as it was sunset and the sky was gorgeous with the hills in the background. We arrived in Moonta and set up our tent out Moonta Bay Caravan Park. There wasn't too much to do in the little town, so we ate at a small cafe watched some footy and were in the tent by 9:00 pm! We read by head lamp and dozed off around 10:00pm! We awoke to the pitter patter of the rain falling on our tent. We got up and packed up the tent as best we could in the rain and then we headed to the same cafe for some breakfast. After a delicious brekky (Australian word) of pancakes and eggs on toast we checked out the jetty and the ocean. After about 15-20 minutes we had enough of Moonta Bay and were ready for the drive back home! It was cold and rainy which didn't make for much of a fun time for hanging out on the beach!

So all in all we had a nice little weekend trip! The weather was a bit colder than I would have liked, but I must remember it is winter here now! We are also coming up on being here for two months! Crazy! Only 10 more to go! We miss you all!!!