Last 2 days in Normanville

It's Friday morning now and we're having breakfast before packing and heading back to Adelaide. We're going to meet Kelly and Miller in McLaren Vale for lunch after taking in a bit of the Tour Down Under cycling on the way there.

How's Jo you ask? Hale and hearty again. Wednesday was a write-off for her but it gave her a chance to recover her strength after a really bad night and yesterday (Thursday) she was all go and raring to go for a long walk.

Whilst Jo was sleeping on Wednesday afternoon I played golf. I walked 18 holes in the afternoon heat and felt it when I was finished. The course was quiet - I hardly saw anyone else, although I did have a bit of a funny experience on the 2nd tee. I was about to play when I looked over and there, staring at me, just a few feet away were:

I turned round and there were another two, then another three. In total, I was surrounded by 10 kangaroos. They watched me intently - never threatening a move, but they're big animals and it felt kind of spooky being out there alone.

Jo planned our walk on Thursday. We drove up to Willunga and set out on the Shiraz Trail, which is part of the much longer Coast to Vines Rail Trail (aka The Kidman Trail). It's a former rail line which is now a walking, cycling, horse-riding track. Our plan was to walk to McLaren Vale, have some lunch and then walk back - a total of 12 miles (19 kms).

We were pretty well prepared - lots of slap on, wearing hats and carrying a backpack with a couple of bottles of water. Our first experience was the loud screeching of all types of birds, including:

It seemed for a while that there was some kind of bird war going on. We still don't know what was driving them all crazy but they were still at it when we returned five hours later.

The trail has little shelters and seats where the former stations were. Here we are at the first and second stops:

Jo was fascinated by some of the apparently dead trees and the growths on them:

After a few miles of walking through nothing but vines, we eventually came in to the outskirts of McLaren Vale and some vineyard visitor centres, the first of which was Serafino:

We walked past the town centre and out to the McLaren Vale visitor centre for re-fuelling and a brief rest before walking back and finding a suitable spot for lunch - which we did. Oscar's was the first proper restaurant we saw, adjacent to the Trail. We thought we may have been there before with Kelly and Chris, but we couldn't be sure. Anyway it was very nice - pasta for Jo and salmon for me, washed down with some Swell Pale Ale:

That's water that Jo's throwing back - honestly!