Autumn in the Clare Valley

Maryann and I spent this weekend in the Clare Valley wine region 130Km (80 miles) to the north of Adelaide. I was a very wet and gloomy weekend with drizzle and fog most of the time. Saturday was spent further west in the "Copper Triangle". In the late 19th century there was a large influx of cornish tin miners here and a May fair is held each year (complete with maypole dancing and cornish pasties) to celebrate their cornish heritage. (Note: May here is like November in the northern hemisphere!!)

Sunday was spent driving through the vineyards, and I took a couple of interesting shots. This one shows the method used to train the vines so that they can be harvested by machine.

Here you can see the distinct segregation of the different grape varieties within the same vineyard showing later through to earlier cropping vines from left to right.

In the bad weather, only a few commoner species of birds were seen. Willie Wagtails were common along the roadside. This one looks particularly unhappy to interupted!!

And Galahs were seen in the hotel gardens (this photo was taken a couple of summers ago and shows a female - distinguished by the red iris - males have a brown iris)