Dan in Australia 2006-2007: février 2007

dimanche 25 février 2007

Trip to Barossa valley

Here we are, Barossa Valley! South Australia is famous for the wine too, about 40% of the wine in australia is from South Australia. And Barossa valley is named after the similarity from Barossa in spain. This tour was with JR from Groovy grape. We stopped at a place called Gumeracha where there was a woodcraft shop and a nice park.

In the park, there were a few peacocks and kangaroos

I dont know whats the animal it was, but they were really hungry in the morning.
So the two kangaroos were fighting.lol
See this video below:

Also we stopped at the dam where the wall is called "whisper wall" coz you can hear from one side of the wall voice from the othere side, the wall is about 140m.

Then we began our trip of tasting wine: totally we went to 4 vineyards and each time 5-6 kinds of wine and from the white wine to the rose and wine and at last port wines in which I prefer the last.

Aussie's famous Jacob's Creek (left)
Vinecrest Winery (right)

Richmond Grove (originally from New South Wales) (left)
Bethany winery, they collect grapes from the kangaroo island (right)

Above is one installation of the winery

We can see many champs of grape:

At last we stopped at one small town called TANUNDA town, nice and quiet town.

lundi 19 février 2007

Happy Chinese New Year

Traditional Chinese New year is on the 17-18th feb this year. And luckily this year, it happened to be in the weekend. I was invited by a friend Holly to her house, a really nice dinner, with my favorite prawns and chinese dumplins. Chinese Dumplins are called "Jiaozi" or in Japanese "Gyoza". Well in my region, Jiaozi is something similar to our "Wonton", but difficult for me to make. Anyway I managed to do several. Pity I forgot to take pics.

This new year is chinese PIG/BOAR year (one of the 12 animals) which is my animal. It is the symbol of wealth and health. While we have vulnerable word "Tzynu" (Wu/Shanghainese, means PIG, negative meaning), but the pig is still considered a good animal.

Wish everybody has a good fruitful pig year!

samedi 17 février 2007

Erik's last party in OZ

Erik's leaving and we need to have a party. Why not? It was friday night and I captured a nice sunset pic, it was near Adelaide Festival Center. Later, we found a balloon on the air (right) with a big screen broadcasting news.

Erik was a luck guy, he had a house with a swimming pool and a group of cool friends. To avoid some portrait right issues, I reduced the size of the photos..lol now hope not so easy to recognize everyone.

Later, around 12h, we went to the SUPERMILD, a bar but with nice music also.

lundi 12 février 2007

Trip to the Flinders (français)

Enfin le vrai ''Flinders Ranges''! Cette fois on a profité d'un week-end et a réussi à visiter l'outback australien. Les aventuriers sont Kalin la brasilienne, Eriko et Séb les allemands, Pras le Srilancais, son ami 4W et bien sur moi. On est parti d'Adélaïde tôt à 5h du matin et on est arrivé à une très petite ville qui s'appelle QUORN (regarde le plan ci-dessous, et la ville est nord de Port Augusta). C'était là le centre de nos voyages.

Nous somme dans la rue
Le premier jour, nous avons pu arriver à un hostel à Quorn après être perdu dans cette petite ville, en fait si petite qu'on nomme les rues comme 1st Road, 2nd Road etc. Le patron Steve était bien sympa et nous avons été distribués dans un dortoir, et Kalin a pu avoir sa propre chambre! Après des achats dans un supermarché, nous étions énergetiques pour le hiking dans les montagnes. A Yourambulla, on a eu de la chance à voir des peintures aborigènes, et voila ci-dessous, quelqu'un parmi vous peut traduire ces symbols?

Puis, on est arrivé à Mont Ohlsen (si je rappelle). Le hiking a fait 3h et ça a été un peu dur mais amusant. Surtout pour Kalin, elle est persuadée maintenant qu'il faut continuer à monter sans arrêter pendant l'escalade. C'est le temps de fêter la victoire!