Hello, welcome back to Fair Vinkum! and sorry for the radio silence that has been in operation for the past couple of months. I’ve been in Tasmania earning money and doing not very much else – not great material!
I’ve now had three different start dates for my new job at Kilikanoon Wines in the Clare Valley (http://www.kilikanoon.com.au/). It seems that Riesling and Shiraz grapes and the South Australian sunshine don’t give as much of a toss about my flight tickets and hotel reservations as I do. Originally I was intended to start on February 7th, then it rained so it was put back to the 21st. Then the sun came out again, so here I am. Lesson learned – when next working at a winery do not make any concrete travel plans until the weekend you’re supposed to start.
Anyway, I bid a fond farewell to everyone on Cradle Mountain on Monday morning and left Tassie for the Clare Valley via an overnight stay in Adelaide. Feeling slightly sorry for myself nursing a hangover from my last night on the mountain, I checked into the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace and was given room 1111 on the 11th floor, overlooking the Adelaide Oval, the old railway station and the botanical gardens. It was a fantastic hotel and I was in the mood to do nothing but stay in, have dinner, watch a movie and go to sleep in the biggest bed I’ve ever seen in my life with six (count them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) pillows.
I checked out late the following morning. ‘Good Morning Mr Pyatt – checking out?’ chirped the unnecessarily enthusiastic receptionist. ‘Anything from the mini-bar?’ ‘It’s a little early for me but sure, why the hell not – I’ll have a beer’. I of course did not say this, for the following reasons.
- She had the look of someone who didn’t exactly ache for witty repartee.
- I was sure she’d heard that one before.
- I was confronted with the same dilemma that I’m always confronted with when I check out of a hotel. Do you admit straight away that you’ve eaten the cashew nuts and Pringles and drunk three bottles of Stella, or do you lie, in the faint hope that whoever cleans the room after you have vacated it simply doesn’t notice that you’ve consumed half the contents of the fridge?
On this occasion, I ‘fessed up. ‘Yes, a bag of cashew nuts’. ‘That’s an extra $4.50 then Mr Pyatt’.
In anyone’s language that’s a pricey nut.
I killed some time in Adelaide (not easy to do – it’s a bit like Stockport but with sun…) until it was time to catch the coach to Clare – and so it was that come 7pm I was arriving in Clare amid rows and rows of vines and vineyards stretching as far as the eye can see. It’s a strange landscape really – on the one hand you have the vineyards which are all lush, fresh and green (due to the irrigation practiced by the growers) and then you have fallow fields and hayfields that are dry, arid and brown.
I finally found my way to my new house via a very helpful taxi driver and a phone call to the landlord (who was out) and knocked on the front door.
‘G’day mate, you must be Ally’.
This was Nick, and just behind him, Andy – two winemaking students from Adelaide who were to be my housemates for the coming weeks. I clocked a pair of Liverpool football shorts on Nick straightaway and soon we were getting to know one another over a bottle of local Riesling and a mutual loathing of Man Utd and Chelsea.
Since I arrived I’ve had three days of work at the winery. Things I’ve learned so far –, Caustic Soda burns, working outside in South Australia is bloody hot, wineries use hundreds of the biggest hoses you’ve ever seen, Sulfur Dioxide stinks, cleaning barrels turns your trainers purple, the water that comes out of the taps is rainwater, (something I found out after drinking a pint of it…) and most of all, I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WINEMAKING! It’s great fun learning though.
(and by the way – a piece of advice. If you’re ever in this part of South Australia, please remember - changing your facebook status to ‘just arrived in Clare’ can cause confusion…)
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