Penola and Coonawarra

Today we travelled, in brilliant sunshine, up to Penola and then on to the Coonawarra wine region.     

We first travelled on a very straight road through the commercial pine forests.    Lots of money is made from the timber industry in this part of the country.

When we stopped in Penola, we headed for the most popular cafe in town for our morning cup of coffee.   And a good choice it was too.    

Penola is known as the town where the then Mary MacKillop met Father Wood, and established the Sisters of St Joseph, and set about establishing schools for Catholic children in South Australia, and then throughout Australia.    She only official took her vows and became Mary of the Cross, after she started her first school in Penola.    This all happened in the late 1880's.    Mary MacKillop became a Saint in October, 2010.   She is widely referred to as a 'Saint for All Australians'.

The main street of Penola, rather deserted, but very sunny.    The small Christmas trees were placed against every verandah post in the main street.   No decorations though.

A beautiful old pub.

 There was a history walk along one of the oldest streets, with free entry to some of the houses.

Mary MacKillop's first school, which included a bedroom and kitchen for the two teachers based there.    There is a copy of the curriculum that she wrote for the St Joseph Schools, which is very progressive for the time.  

 This old building had a very old iron roof.

 Lavender growing in the field.

Unfortunately when I downloaded the photos for the day, I did something (technology) and wiped most of the photos on the camera.    So no photos of the inside of the school house, or the oldest house we saw which had layers and layers of old wall paper on the walls.   It was very rustic!

Then we drove to the Coonawarra region, where there were rows upon rows of grape vines, 20 km long and 10 km wide.   It was a typically hot South Australian day, and you could feel the heat bouncing of the red earth.    The Coonawarra grapes grow in terra rosa clay soil, on top of limestone.  

We visited Wynn's Coonawarra, Katnook and Blok estate.    Walter and Darren sampled some of the wine and spent some money on delicious wines.    They had a 2004 wine from the Blok estate for dinner tonight.    Apparently it was very good.   I finished off the wine we had the previous night.   Not a bad drop either.    

We also ate the most enormous porterhouse steaks tonight.    They were 1 1/2 inches thick, and very large.    I bought them from the butcher in Penola, not cheap, but such a treat.

We are now in Southend, which is quite different from Southend in England.    The bay has white sand and bright blue water (the sun was shining today).    Population 250 people.   I will take more photos tomorrow, seeing that I deleted the photos I took today.   I hope the sun is still shining tomorrow.