It was still pretty rainy this morning in Clare and the creek at the back of the apartments was still swollen with the extra rain of the last couple of days. The cloud was low so it was a misty drive back to Mintaro to see if we could get to see Martindale Hall. Unfortunately, their driveway bridge was still flooded, so Martindale will have to wait for another time. I had also hoped to take some drone pictures of the valley, but that wasn’t going to work either.
So it was on to the Barossa for us. We wanted to visit a few more country churches along the the way and luckily only encountered one flooded road which was on a tangental short cut in any case. Saddleworth was the next town we visited which was another of the towns that supported the mining town of Burra. The railway line from Burra was shutdown in the early 2000s.
The next major town we passed through was Kapunda, which was yet another copper mining town. Marble is also found in this area and the South Australian Parliament house is faced with Kapunda marble. Notable people from Kapunda are Sidney Kidman a famous pastoralist (who once owned 68 cattle properties) and Darcie Brown, an up and coming Australian female cricketer. These days, agriculture – wheat and sheep farming are the major industries in Kapunda.
It is Deb’s birthday today, so we’d planned lunch at the St Hugo Winery. We’d thought on a Monday it wouldn’t be too busy, but as it turned out the restaurant was rather full. There was a full spectrum of diners including a young couple who’d likely not met very long ago (maybe this morning), a family that looked like they were contestants on ‘The Block’ and a table full of ‘wankers’ wearing t-shirts and white joggers who complained about most things. It did make for good people watching while we enjoyed a fantastic 3 course meal. The service was very good, but the sound track was more pub than swanky restaurant.
The Gramp family first planted grapes in the Barossa in 1847 and have played a big part in the Barossa wine industry, similarly to the Barry family of Clare. Hugo Gramp was appointed Managing Director of the family business in 1920 at the age of 25. Sadly in 1938 he was killed in a plane crash that also took the lives of Thomas Hardy and Sidney Hill-Smith. In 1983 it was decided to honour his early work and the St Hugo name was launched.
After lunch, we found our lodgings for the night which is a house in the main street of Tanunda. We took a quick walk up the street, but a sharp rain storm soon had us rushing back to the house, so we’ll explore a bit more of the local area later.
Until tomorrow!
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