Australia has been my home for the greater part of my life. It's beautiful, It's dangerous and It's ridiculously huge! I've basically stuck to the east coast of Australia purely for the fact I couldn't be bothered travelling any further! A bit hypocritical for a travel photographer right? I don't mind taking a half day flight to Germany because I know, once I get there, I can practically power walk to the next country. So my girlfriend (Mandara) decided it was about time we stopped being lazy and actually saw the rest of the country. This post is largely just a bunch of photographs, with some words in between.
South Australia
- Houses the third most expensive building in the world (Royal Adelaide Hospital - 2.7 billion AUD)
- Supplies a large portion of the world's crude Uranium
- And probably the only place in the world where a man was shot by his camel
But most importantly, it's world renowned for its vineyards, fine dining and unique wildlife. We only had five days to spare, so we chose to visit Kangaroo Island for the wildlife and Barossa Valley to get wasted. Like always, we travelled during the off-peak season around Autumn. Spring and Summer are the best times to travel, but like I've mentioned before in my previous post, this meant cheaper everything and snapped some pretty unique photos.
Kangaroo Island
It's also f*cking big. It may look small on the map, but it takes a good two hours to drive from one end to the other, so be prepared to travel (should be the slogan for the Australian tourism campaign).
We ended up hiring a car from Adelaide Airport and took a ferry across. It takes around 45 minutes to get to the east side of the island from the mainland. When we were hiring the car, we got told that the roads on Kangaroo Island were sealed, so went ahead and rented out a little Kia Rio. Unfortunately for us (and the Rio) a lot of the roads were dirt track and gravel. Driving at night can be a bit dangerous. There aren't any street lights on the dirt tracks and animals will jump out of nowhere onto the road for absolutely no reason at all. Drive during the day if you want to live. If you want to drive at night, rent out a tank or the civilian equivalent (Volvo?).
Things To Do
There was surprisingly quite a lot to do, and we really didn't allocate enough time to do the island justice. If you do plan on visiting, make sure you aim to stay at least four full days. Because we didn't have time to spare, and couldn't be bothered spending what little time we had travelling, we ended up sticking to the east side of the island (old habits die hard). We took a scenic hike from the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse through to Devils Kitchen. Every patch of grass in between was populated by some kind of animal. Kangaroos, Seahawks, field mice, Echidnas and Pademelons. What's a Pademelon? Glad you asked because I had no idea what I was looking at either.. I thought it was a cat or a retarded rabbit but one of the locals kindly corrected me. It's basically like a really really small kangaroo!
Unfortunately, they didn't have Australia's happiest animal, the humble Quokka. You'll have to travel to Perth or Google Images for that. The landscape was perfect and the skies painted with deep hues of every colour. Sunset and sunrise were great opportunities to get some pretty kick-ass photos, but night time is when the sky really shines. Kangaroo Island is great for Astrophotographers. On dark sky finder, the whole island is basically in an area that's considered to have no light pollution. If you're a keen photographer, I'd recommend purchasing and downloading the Photopills App. It's a great tool that allows photographers to plan their shots in advance. I used it to plan when I wanted to go out and shoot the milky way. Here I've aligned a shot of us with the milky way just touching the Cape Willoughby lighthouse.
If you're interested in Astrophotography, let me know if you'd be interested in a post just on astrophotography techniques and editing. I wasn't sure, figured it might be way too specific.
Barossa Valley
The area was historically settled by Germans and as such, there's a heavy German influence. A lot of the descendants of the original founders of Barossa are still there. The original settlers, being the efficient German workers that they were, researched the land. They found that the soil in the Valley had the perfect chemical composition to grow grapes. Since then, they've perfected the fine art of viniculture and produce some of the best wine in Australia.
Things to do
There's plenty of opportunities to go on wine tasting tours. Make sure you try to see as many of the boutique wineries as you can. The best way to do this, is through a tour group or private tour (no one wants to be driving). My nose is almost always blocked due to hay fever and a nasal septum that's more crooked than a politician on a spiral staircase. I practically only have about 20% tasting capacity. I also know nothing about wine. The most I could probably do is tell a red apart from a white, and that's mainly by looking at the colour. I don't even like wine. I have never in my life tasted wine this good. It tasted so good it didn't even taste like wine! It felt like when wine was created, this was the intended taste, and the original method somehow got lost along the way and now everyone else just drinks ass wine. Not in Barossa. If you're a veteran sommelier your taste buds will host festivities in your palate, while all and sundry are requested to attend. If you're uncultured or have never been a wine person, you'll be returning home with a few bottles, an accent and at least one monocle.
The food in the area is mostly grown locally and made fresh. We stayed two nights at "The Louise". It's a bit up market, but worth every penny. The service was amazing, most rooms had a fireplace (Mandara is a bit of a pyro) and breakfast was included, served directly to your room. They have an in-house restaurant, "The Appellation", which has built the reputation of being the best restaurant in the Barossa Valley. Again, the prices were on the upper end, but we were there for the wine and food, might as well try out the best the Barossa Valley had to offer! I really wanted to take my camera into the restaurant to take pictures of the food, but it was way too classy for that. I tried taking pictures with my phone without looking too much like a hipster, but it was a little too dark. You'll just have to trust me that their presentation was a work of art. Instead, here's more pictures of breakfast.
When describing the valley, picturesque doesn't even come close. We went in autumn bordering winter when most of the vineyards had been picked clean. By this time the leaves had already turned yellow. It was a photographers dream, so I naturally made Mandara pose in the cold while I took photographs. If you look closely, her hands are actually frozen onto the vine.
Overall I think they were great destinations. There was obviously a lot of South Australia we missed out on, but hope to come back and explore next time. I don't typically rate places that are local, but this felt different, and because the people and the town of Barossa Valley were far out in the middle of nowhere, it presented its own culture. Great place to go with your friends or just as a romantic getaway for you and your partner.
If you know of great off the beaten-track hidden gems, or have managed to get some sweet shots of South Australia (and don't mind sharing) post in the comments below!
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