Day 520 | 2 km north of Nuriootpa: looks pretty quiet
29 km | zzOz total: 16,848 km
Full gloom this morning, it never actually rained but I am feeling chirpy.
It’s all rolling hills out here, golden, if somewhat dull, paddocks with wheat ready to harvest, a dusty country road to tootle down, not a care in the world.
Somehow I miss a turn and bike on and up then down a hill to the next intersection, find a lack of signage, so it’s back up the hill again and of course there’s some obscure farm track over another hill that’s marked as the official route.
Gotta follow those signs because I’ve currently fallen off any map I carry.
A farmer rattles past in his ute and is interested in my trip, having a laugh about it all, I quiz him on the canola, for some reason they leave 30% still in the field, a windrow he explains, you harvest 70% of it before it’s fully ripe because the pods would otherwise shatter and the minute seeds just fall, then come and get the rest a bit later, but somehow the explanation is lacking and I’m only marginally more informed, ie, baffled. It’s almost a living between the wheat, canola and a few sheep, wheat is up this year, the sheep prices way down, an oversupply.
We could go on all day but there’s some wine tasting to be done and I move on up the goat track.
At the top of the rise the view changes from those vistas of gold to patches of luminous yellow green from the spring growth grape vine leaves.
Welcome to the Barossa Valley.