Wineries, Cricket, an Island & Xmas Day!
The lead up to Christmas Day and the final week of Whitney’s Parents, Bother & Fiancé visit to Australia made for a lot of fun and activity filled days.
Christmas Day at Carrickalinga, South Australia. Super special and grateful to have so many of our family together. For those that couldn’t make it we had some really funny video chats to share what we were all up to. Santa thankfully located Scarlett and Nora in Carrickalinga. Santa consumed the cookies, the reindeer crushed the carrots (or at least that is what we understand happened) and the gifts left under the tree for the kids got the day off to a great start. We spent the morning opening presents, having brunch and getting ready to host everyone for lunch. Everyone arrived at our rental house ~11am. We had a fun white elephant gift exchange, ate a large blended lunch of Australian and USA Christmas favorites, and then we headed to the beach for a late afternoon swim. So not our typical USA Christmas and ~30 degrees C (86 Fahrenheit) sure beats the freezing cold! After our swim we returned home for some leftovers. Bedtime was a circus that resulted in me falling asleep well before Scarlett and Nora who I was putting to bed. Eventually they must have opted in to the process as I awoke a few hours later with them asleep. Job well done! 😊
McLaren Vale Winery Tour. Whitney, her Dad (Iowa Grandpa), Brother (Marc) and his fiancé (Nikki), Baby Hazel and me did four wineries (out of the ~74 cellar doors in this region!) + had lunch at a local Café. Scarlett and Nora hung out at our rental house with Iowa Grandma. McLaren Vale is a beautiful wine region about 45 minutes south of Adelaide, South Australia. We drove ~40 mins to our first winery, Coriole Vineyards. It was a beautiful boutique winery. From there we worked our way south towards our home. Our second stop, the d’Arenberg Cube, lived up to the hype as unique, modern and totally worth doing! Stop three, Hugh Hamilton Winery, was voted #1 by our group as the best total experience of the day – amazing setting, spectacular tasting room and scenery, wonderful team members, and the wines from their “black sheep” collection were loved! Then lunch at The Blessed Cheese Café in the town of McLaren Vale. It was a random stop but anything about cheese gets Whitney and my attention so we gave it a try. It was really good. From there we did one more winery, Battle of Bosworth. This certified organic winery was a superb finish to our tour. We enjoyed great service, loved their passion about organic vineyard management, and tasted more great wines. We then headed back to Carrickalinga.
Cricket at Adelaide Oval. A summer night, watching cricket under lights, at one of the most hallowed sporting venues in Australia. It was a lot of fun watching the Adelaide Strikers versus Perth Scorchers in a Twenty20 national league game. The 6:40pm Monday 23-December start time was definitely a cause for concern + the 70 minute drive to and from the stadium. But, as you know from our past experiences, adding a bit of travel stress, fatigue and limiting sleep doesn’t curtail embarking on unique experiences. It does cause some (often a lot of) damage to the following day or two, but never mind! It was everyone’s first cricket match. Making this journey with me was Scarlett, Nora and Whitney’s Dad, Brother + Fiancé. We sat right on the boundary, in front of the historic Adelaide Oval scoreboard and grass hill. The game was really entertaining – a batting run fest – and we made a couple of trips to “Adventure Hill” where Scarlett and Nora went through the kids zone of slides and where Santa was hanging out. It was a really magic experience to share – I love going to the cricket for any reason so sharing it with family and especially taking Scarlett and Nora to their first cricket match was phenomenal. We watched the Adelaide Strikers innings then about half of the Perth Scorchers innings before we headed for the exit and made the drive home. We took it very slow on the roads as the last 20 minute of the drive has a lot of kangaroos. We saw about a dozen or more 🦘 feeding next to the road or crossing in front of us. No worries when you are going 40 km/hr but super scary and potentially car damaging if you are going faster.
Granite Island @ Victor Harbor. This is a little island just off the coast from Victor Harbor, joined to the mainland by a causeway that you can walk across or take the horse drawn trolley. So we did the walk onto the island and caught the trolley back. It was a fun couple of hours. The huge waves of the Southern Ocean crashing into Granite Island are really amazing to watch from the lookout.
Other activities we have had fun doing over the past week have included beach playtime, swimming and walks along the beach, 9 holes of golf at The Links and lots of catch ups with Whitney and my family members. This included a Christmas Eve family hike to one of our favorite little spots known to the locals as “Secret Beach”. Grateful for everyone who has been able to come to Carrickalinga over Christmas. It has been a busy and really amazing experience for us all.
