There were 3 mighty fishermen

Colin and I come from a family of fishermen. When our parents were little, they went on long camping trips to Yellowstone were the boys fished all day on the Madison river and my mom and grandma shopped all day. The tradition has carried on down to their kids and I am proud to say that my cousin is an avid fisherman and I am an avid shopper!

We decided that it would be very appropriate for us to continue the fishing tradition whilst down under. Colin purchased a nice rod, a jig set, a bucket, some bait, and we were off! We were so convinced we were going to catch dinner, calamari to be specific. We had been told that it was squid season and we couldn't have been more pumped to catch one off the pier. (I don't think either of us knew what to do if we actually caught one.) Our dreams were shattered after waiting 20 whole minutes with no bites. We learned from a little Italian man that we were too early for squid and the water was too murky for fish. Oh well. Colin had fun chatting it up with the Italian and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Phil was able to join us for a short while in between his shifts.
Puttin out the vibe for the fishies!
Look what we caught!!! (At the fish n' chips place across the street)

Handorf... founded by the Germans

The sign says it all, "Welcome to Handorf. Australia's oldest German town." Phil's Mom is from Austria and gets really excited about anything related to her old home, so we had to go to Handorf while we were in Adelaide. It's a small town with tons of shops, German restaurants, bakeries, and pubs. We stopped here for a make shift lunch. First stop was the chocolate factory (priorities people). Although we didn't buy anything, we sampled to our hearts content. Second stop was the cheese factory, where we purchased some lovely goat's cheese and sarsaparilla soda. For your information, sarsaparilla soda does not taste anything like root beer. Don't let anyone fool you! We also bought some Quince paste. It's a fruit spread made out of the leftovers from wine making. It was pretty darn good.

Then we popped into the meat shop to buy crackers and salami. Yum, yum! Viola, here's our lunch... we had to eat in the car since it was raining so badly.
Enjoying the local art scene!

There we go!

This is the picture I wanted to put in with my last post. This is the view of the winery and cellar door as you drive in from the main road. Colin works weekends at the cellar door. Basically he pours wines for tourists and kicks back by the lake when there aren't any tourists to pour for.

Tough life.

A hard days work?

Colin is lucky enough to work at K1 wines in Adelaide Hills, which is one of Australia's most popular wine regions. Could you imagine how nice it would be to work here? It's beautiful! I tried to post a picture of the driveway, but it won't rotate. I'll try again later.

Other things we learned at the museum.

Colin and I were a little bit disappointed about the North American section of the natural history exhibit. I believe what we see above is a Moose, apparently this was a difficult one to look up on Google... Way to play it safe, Elk or Moose?

Here we have an Elk, or as Australian's prefer to call it a Wapiti? What? Again they couldn't be bothered to consult an encyclopedia, wikipedia, or the Discovery Channel.

Adelaide to visit Colin...

Meet Colin, my cousin from Olympia, Washington. He is currently "studying" wine business in Adelaide, Australia. I love knowing that I have a family member in the Southern hemisphere! When I first arrived, Phil had to travel to Adelaide for work. Since I wasn't working yet, I jumped at the chance to see a familiar face and hear a familiar accent. This post (as with all of mine) is really late in coming... but better late than never.


Colin seems to have picked up Grandpa West's weird hat gene. Grandpa always had the goofiest hats. Huge brimmed Straw hats, baseball caps with trout sticking out of them, hats with large pieces of fabric attached to the back, they were all very unique. Colin is showing his way of keeping warm in the Adelaide cold (man was it COLD!). Here we have him modeling a baseball cap with a handmade toque over the top. Smashing!


Here we are with Colin at a celebratory party honoring the end of a grilling week at school for him and his friends. They defined grilling week as wine tasting after wine tasting. I'm no expert but... grilling? Really?

We spent my first day there running around in the rain. It came to Australia prepared for milder weather. I was so cold! Here we are stopping to take a photo of an art master piece in the middle of the mall. I don't understand the point of an outdoor mall in a place that's freezing in the winter and deadly hot in the summer!

Enjoying the local sporting events from the Irish pub. It was the Grand Final for the rugby teams. Was meant to be "bigger than the Super Bowl!" Not so, but we got free meat pies so it was OK.

We stopped into the Museum of art and the Aboriginal Museum of Southern Australia. The art museum was surprisingly lacking of art, it took us 3 minutes to see everything. The Aboriginal museum was interesting but disturbing. One thing I noticed is that everyone here like to point the finger at the wrong doings of America. We practiced slavery, we treated Native American's poorly, etc... It was interesting to go to the museum here and realize how the Aboriginal people here had been treated. The aboriginals in Tasmania were completely wiped out by Australians. After the last surviving Aboriginal Tasmanian died, there was an uproar about what would happen to his body. Eventually, people broke into where it was being kept, dismembered him, and sold off pieces to museums and collectors. How horrible! I have actually used this example when someone made a comment to me about American history, and it's amazing how little is known or acknowledged by people here about the way Aboriginals have been treated. This little tidbit of information that I picked up at the museum is very handy in putting a quick end to certain conversations.

A day of driving

I only work three days a week, which is wonderful! But can also leave me very alone while everyone else is. Usually I go to the gym, do laundry, read, etc... On this occasion I decided to put my driving skills to the test.

I drove myself down the beautiful Australian coast. I stopped by a small zoo where I got to meet a Koala, Kangaroo, and a Dingo up close.

My final stop was in Wollongong, where Phil's sister lives. The beach is so beautiful there. Miles and miles long. Along the rocky parts there are little swimming holes that get filled by the ocean when the tide is high. I tried to be secretive about getting the photo because I didn't want the guy swimming in his speedo to think I was taking them of him.