Dawn over Lake Alexandrina, a stay at Ruby's Cottage ... over to Langhorne Creek, and Bleasdale Wines

In August of 2012, we took a day off  and spent the night on the shore of Lake Alexandrina. You wake to the sounds of herons and the waters lapping, while pelicans soar over the lagoon. There was not much of a sunset the night before, so we were really, really hoping for a spectacular dawn, and Mother Nature didn't let us down. In fact, she didn't miss a trick! Photographing sunrise over the lake was one of the three main reasons for being there. The second thing was, we wanted to have dinner out "somewhere," and had been wanting to give the Pier Hotel, Milang, a go. (The third reason was cabin fever. Gotta get out before you start chewing the furniture ... you know the feeling!)

It was the middle of winter downunder, of course. It was cold -- or what we think of as cold. Maybe one or two degrees Celsius, which would be something like 35 degrees Fahrenheit. But it was well, well worth the chilly fingers and toes, as you can see from the pictures we brought home.

One of the things that impresses itself on us the most, when we get out of town, and particularly when you get out of the hills too, and into the flatlands, is ... the size of the sky. It's, um, well, it's big, and every time you look at it, it's different. There's a movie called Local Hero -- wonder if you know it? It's set in Scotland, and filmed on the west coast, looking out towards the Hebrides. A few of these shots make one think of that movie. 

These images are uploaded at 1600 pixels wide (one or two are a little smaller, due to being cropped to get rid of unwanted elements), and they're well worth a look at the larger size. As Jade has said elsewhere, there's a place where art blurs into photography, and photography blurs into art ... and this is definitely it.

This one was captured the night before, standing in the street right outside the Pier Hotel, after dinner:

You're waiting to see bats, hear the wolves howl, and Frank Langella rides up on a tall, black horse, takes your invite to dinner but, oddly enough, doesn't touch the food ... speaking of which, The Pier Hotel is under new management lately, and the menu has changed. The fare is strictly "pub grub," but it was hearty, plenty of it, and the prices were quite agreeable. All in all, a nice evening, which we finished out in the bar, watching the London Olympics on TV before heading back to the Millennium Possum, with plans to photograph the sunrise next morning.

Back in 2007, we stayed a couple of nights in Milang, at a B&B there known as Ruby's Cottage. (As of December 2013 it's no longer a B&B, so the link that used to live here is deleted.) It's described as a "120 year old stone cottage," where "time can stand still." And that is so accurate! The owners have gone to great lengths to preserve the nature and flavor of the building, which belonged to a local lady by the name of (!) Ruby. She lived there all her married life, and actually passed away there. In fact, Jade will tell you, Ruby is still there...

Opening to door to Ruby's Cottage, and looking in, Jade stopped on the doorstep and said, "Whoa!" It's that moment when your eyes go slightly out of focus and you see/hear/feel something without recourse to your eyes, ears or nerve endings. Here's the difference between Ruby's Cottage and Martindale Hall, at Mintaro: Ruby likes visitors, whereas Mr. Mortlock, at Martindale, does not. So Ruby's Cottage "looked at Jade" for a moment as she approached the door, and the house said "Welcome, come in, have a cuppa," whereas Martindale Hall had said, "Beat it, you're not welcome."

So we went in, put on the tea kettle and had a cuppa. The house's kitchen is 100% modern, and the furnishings are lovely. Everything has been chosen to stay in character with the antique nature of the house. The gardens are especially lovely, and Lake Alexandrina, and the wetlands, are on your doorstep. Perfect! The thing we remember the most from this stay is the quiet. That, and the blazing stars. Milang is about two hours out of town, and when you've left behind the city lights...!

Leaving Milang, you're embarrassed by choice -- so many places to go. You could to a lot worse than head for the Langhorne region; and as you do, desolate salt marshes and flocks of forlorn sheep give way to some of the most lush vineyards you're ever going to see in this country:

Oh yes, this is wine country! The wines are very different from those produced in the Barossa Valley, the Clare Valley region and McLaren Vale. The Langhorne wines are closer in character to the Coonawarra wines, because of the climate. It's a lot cooler and wetter in the Langhorne region, for a start. In fact, the year we visited Bleasdale Wines (2011), we were told stories of local flooding, and the likelihood of a crop being wiped out. We tried several wines at Bleasdale and bought two, and spent a wonderful hour in their museum. The winery has an amazing history -- also a fantastic website, where you can read the novel-like story of the Potts Family, with genuine photographs from the period.

Vineyards at Bleasdale Wines, Langhorn, South Australia

The Langhorne region of South Australia ... and the weather is changing!

One of the original vehicles used when Bleasdale Wines was founded in 1850 --

-- and the modern equipment. Wine tanks ... that's a lot of wine. You're seeing one tiny corner of a field of such tanks, here. Seen from the air, on Google Maps, these ranks march on for a loooong way.

Original equipment: a "red gun lever press" ...

... and it's HUGE, dwarfing human beings.

Try some wines at the Bleasdale cellar door shop! We did, and bought two...

From Bleasdale, you'll go through the tiny town of Langhorne Creek itself, if you're headed in any direction, because that's where the roads go! The names of the roads tell all: the Strathalbyn-Langhorne Road, the Wellington Road ... and the latter takes you to the ferry on the Murray River. (In fact, we not only photographed but videoed the whole ferry process, and with any luck, we can get those videos edited up, so we'll show you the ferry across the Murray.) So, Langhorne Creek:

Langhorne Creek revolves around this point...

... a crossroads, the jumping off for Adelaide or the Limesone Coast -- your call...

Follow the signs! Wellington and the ferry, or Strathalbyn and the Fleurieu ...?

The day we did this trip was just after Easter, 2012. In South Australia, the weather usually turns fast at Easter... crash, bang boom, and suddenly it's winter. Like this. Fortunately, we were headed for home, and just in time!

We headed for home in fog and rain ... made one stop at the cricket oval in Mylor, to raid the picnic basket and use the facilities there. The driving conditions were interesting. The hills on the Fleurieu  Peninsula are rolling, often steep, and twisty-windy, with tight bends followed by drops down into the next gully. Driving in fog, the road seems to drop out of existence ahead of you, and trees loom up like Ents marching to war. It's exciting, and after half a lifetime driving in Alaska, Dave gets a kick out of it, anytime the weather in Australia hands him anything other than "clear and bright with dry roads."

'Red sky at morning,' Mr. Mick's for lunch ... meet The Ghost of Martindale Hall ... coffee in Mintaro, and -- homeward bound

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning -- or red sky at dawn, sailor be warned --

In fact, dawn over the Clare Valley was glorious, and we took a hundred photos -- more...

...but as the rose color faded, we could see just how much the weather had changed!

The morning was "sharp" rather than cold, but the sky was white, note blue...

Clare Valley Motel, on an overcast morning. It was actually dull ... a lot of enhancement makes
today's pictures much brighter, more colorful, and sharper, than the day really was.

Clare Valley Motel: checking out. Lola eager to be back on the road ... the natural habitat for Mitsubishi Magnas.

First: back into Clare for a few photos previously missed: the war memorial...

The Ninth Light Horse memorial, on main street, Clare...

There was a lot of glare on the window glass, but you can see inside to displays of photographs
and artifacts fro the First World War...

It reads, "For God, Empire and Home." A "grateful acknowledgment" of the
military service of one of the WWI veterans. 

The Ninth Light Horse: pro gloria et honore.

Main street Clare ... like a living time capsule. The buildings are original, and still in use.

A last look at the Clare Valley from the Quarry Hill Lookout...

Ready to turn south for home, with a just few more stops to make along the way --

First, lunch! We'd wanted to visit Mr. Mick's, a lunch restaurant attached to a winery, but every day since
arriving, by lunchtime we'd been far, far away from Clare. So -- 

Today was the day to visit Mr. Mick's -- and we were almost too late. They were virtually booked out.

Mr. Mick's ... ancient property, modern menu, and busy. We ought to have booked ahead, but --

They had a table left in the couryard, under cover and quiet. Nice!

Approaching Martindale Hall, the first building you pass is the coach house...

Welcome to Martindale Hall, with contact info and all.
About now, the camera started to seriously misbehave. Electronics in Jade's hands were whacko...

Martindale Hall, as you first catch sight of it, walking up from the parking lot...
The car had been zapping Jade repeatedly, with big static charges. Painful. Weird. About to get weirder.

The sky was lowering; the air was thick and heavy, as if a storm was coming in...
Martindale Hall seems to loom in the midst of its grounds, and its Merino sheep pastures...

A lot of photo enhancement makes this picture bright and colorful, In fact, the day was murky, dim,
and the original images are broodingly dark. Almost forbidding, in fact.

Martindale Hall isn't old by European standards, but by Australian reckoning, it's ancient...
there's a brooding feel about it. Jade began to feel weird within fifty meters of the steps. 

A plaque tells a tiny part of the house's history --

Photography isn't allowed inside, for security purposes. We've borrowed some of the brochure images to
give you a glimpse within. These pictures are in the booklet, which you can buy (we did), so it's cool to show them.
Credit where it's due: images are from the brochure, and call this a free ad for the museum and B&B.

A couple of Harleys in the parking lot. Now, that's touring in style!

Looking  for a -- strong! -- coffee after Martindale Hall, we stopped by the Magpie and Stump Hotel, in Mintaro...

Well, dang. No coffee today ... the coffee machine was busted! So, where next?

Main street Mintaro ... like a time capsule. The village is a heritage site -- almost the whole thing is original --

-- and one of the original houses is open as a cafe: the Teapot Inn. The walls are made of stacks of slate and
mortar; the ground floor is on three levels; the stairs are steep. A piece of history.

Outside the Teapot Inn, on main street Mintaro, an old Moreton Bay fig tree.

Red Sky at dawn, sailor be warned. Or traveler. The weather had changed overnight, and continued to worsen as Saturday passed by. Sunday, it would be raining, but on the last leg of the trip -- which ended at home -- the worst we had to contend with was low light conditions, murkiness and dust, a misbehaving camera ... a very haunted house, and a broken coffee machine!

We checked out fairly early, after taking a last stroll around the Clare Valley Motel. It had been a great stay. Cheers to proprietors Lee and Jan Stokes. One of the nice things about the place is that the Lee's "little mate," a lovely, friendly little whippet, is trotting around the grounds. He must be something like the mascot of the motel.

First stop after checking out: the Ninth Light Horse memorial, on main street, Clare. This Australian cavalry regiment served in Turkey and Palestine in WWI. If you'd like to know a little more about them, there's a great page on the Australian War Memorial website, and they also have a Wikipedia page.

We drove up to the Quarry Hill Lookout, for a last look across the Clare Valley from a bit of altitude -- and wished we'd done this before, in better light. The day was getting very murky indeed, when we returned to Seven Hills to see the Madonna of the Vines shrine close up. (We actually combined those images with the main Seven Hills and St. Aloysius post, and if you take a close look, you can see the weather was very different from the day the rest of Seven Hills was photographed!)

Lunch, anyone? We'd wanted to visit Mr. Mick's Kitchen, a lunch restaurant attached to a winery, since before we set out, and in the end we almost missed it. We hadn't booked ahead, and it turned out they had one table left when we arrived. We ate outside, in the courtyard, which was so nice. Mr. Mick's Kitchen specializes in tapas, and their menu is astonishing. Good food, and excellent service from friendly staff. A bit pricey, but worth it for the sheer elegance.

And then, it was on to Martindale Hall ... and that's a whole 'nother story!

Picture, if you will (and indulge Jade for going third person, past tense) ...

 The sky was steadily lowering, as if a storm lurked on the horizon. Daylight had grown murky, and the air was heavy with the mix of dust and smoke that is common to the region at this time of year. From the car park, a path wound up to the manor house, hemmed in on both sides by well-grown cedar trees that stopped any view. An ancient sundial stood at the end of the cedar-lined passage, neglected by the white, sunless sky -- it could have been any time. Any day ... any year.

And then Jade stepped around the sundial, and the house seemed to squat in the gathering gloom, dark with shadows against the gray overcast. She paused to take more photographs -- grumbling and cursing the camera, which was misbehaving. It was not like a Fuji FinePix HS10 to refuse to take a shot, but the shutter and light metering were reluctant, as if simply declining to take a photograph. As if the device simply did not want to photograph Martindale Hall at all, much less under heavy skies, in thick air that swirled with restless winds. Something was messing with it -- perhaps the same thing that had been making the car give Jade big zaps of static electricity lately, every time she touched it.

"Something wrong with the camera?" Dave wanted to know.

"It's just ... I dunno ... you'd call it 'declining the shot,'" Jade grumbled as they approached the flight of stone steps leading up to the grand doorway.

 The door was open, but a grilled security screen was closed over. Through the steel mesh shone the light of a huge chandelier, but every window was dark. Old venetian blinds were closed over them -- save for the blinds at one particular window, on the east corner of the upper level. Those blinds were open, and they were slightly skewed, as if being held aside for someone to look out. But no faces or figures showed at the windows.

Jade was not feeling very well, but this was the last day of the trip. They were headed straight for home after Martindale Hall, and who knew when they would have the chance to return? Dave had wanted to see the English manor house in the Australian wilderness since reading about it online, a week before they set out, so -- she 'sucked it up,' and followed him up the steps to the steel mesh door.

 An elderly lady was on duty there, more than likely a volunteer admitting tourists for $10 each, to view the grand house-turned-museum, on the proviso that cameras were turned off and lens caps were on. Jade tried breathing deeply and counting slowly ... the fast heartbeat, shortness of breath, faint nausea, tremors in the extremities, and breaking sweat were damned uncomfortable, but she could control them.

Beyond a small lobby, or vestibule, double doors opened into the manor house itself. Incongruously, raucous 1980s rock music bared from an unseen boombox -- just enough to distract, to make it difficult for Jade to put her finger on what was wrong. Until she stepped up to the double doors into the enormous, ballroom-sized main hall.

 Dave was three steps behind, chatting to the lady volunteer, when Jade froze, just outside the doorway into the main hall. she couldn't go on, she couldn't go back. The volunteer lady was talking about looking at the antique collections in this house-cum-museum; Dave was fascinated. And Jade? The house looked at her.

The house spoke to her, she heard the voice but not the words. She was aware of a feeling from it ... resentment. Her heart was fast and hard; sweat prickled brow, scalp, ribs, palms. A moment later Dave was right beside her, obviously wondering what was wrong.

At that moment, she would have sworn the house was shouting at her -- silent, wordless -- but the feeling has shifted. It had started as resentment, and now it was something more like curiosity. It was almost as if it had begun by saying to her, "I don't want you people here any more than I want any people here -- I don't like my house being traipsed through by tourists, get out!" And then a moment later, "My gods, this one heard me! Hello? Hello?" And louder (silently), "Hello? Can you hear me now? Hello!"

"Do you want to leave?" Dave asked quietly.

But Jade stepped into the main hall and turned toward the smoking room, and the library with the enormous, full-sized snooker table. "No. It's not going to hurt you. I'm okay." She was just as curious as the house; and it seemed that most of the house was willing, now, to share.

In the dining room a form, more shadow than substance, moved in the corner by the curtains. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, but as soon as she was looking right at it, concentrating on it, it was gone again. It might have been a child; but no child who was there on the day. Minutes later, someone moved in the doorway of an upstairs bedroom. Of course, no one was there -- at least, no one who had paid $10 admission.

Only one part of Martindale Hall still said No!! Even with Dave right beside her, hands on her shoulders, Jade could not enter the rear passageways ... narrow, dim, old, chill, and ... there, the house still said No, and it said it firmly.

A few days later, describing the event to a friend, Dave described Jade as being "blue" during these minutes. She felt weak, chill, trembling, and the weakness persisted after leaving Martindale Hall. What can we tell you?

Martindale Hall is not just haunted, it's very, very haunted. If you read a bit about the history of the place, and have a look at the Wikipedia page on the Mortlock family, well ... Jade is pretty sure it's one of the Mortlocks who loved the hall so much, he never left. Moreover, he's resentful of the fact his home has been turned into a museum and -- gods help us -- a B&B. He has a little rant when strangers barge in through his front door (as would we all) ... and probably about one in a hundred visitors can actually half-hear him. Jade did. And even though she was able to view most of the house, one part of it remained strictly off-limits. The blaring rock music is there for a reason. It anchors people like Jade in 2013, glues them to reality, stops imagination aiding and abetting all the things you can half-see, half-feel, half-hear.

Interesting, no? Call this episode The Ghost of Martindale Hall. Be sure to visit the house when you're in the Clare Valley and Little Cornwall area ... but go on a sunny day, and go with friends --

And be ready to hunt down a coffee, when you leave! Coffee was on our minds as we left, so we backtracked to the Magpie and Stump Hotel in Mintaro, only to discover that their coffee machine was busted! No coffee today.

So we turned our attention to The Teapot Inn, about a hundred yards away. It was a private house, built at the time Mintaro was design as a stopover for the bullockies carting copper ore to the ports on the gulf: the walls are a foot thinck, made of layers of slate and mortar. It's just amazing ... and they serve wonderful coffee, too! Just what we needed to warm up and chill out after Martindale Hall.

In fact, Mintaro is a fantastic little place -- a piece of yesteryear that's far more charming than you'd guess, if you just blast through without stopping. In fact, check out The Ballad of Mintaro, a real bush ballad by Ian Bidstrup.

And this is where we turned south and headed for home. By mid-aftenoon, the sky was so low, the daylight so murky, we put away the cameras, put on some music, and played with the Navigon ap on Jade's phone -- not that we needed to be told how to get home, put it was a lot of fun playing! And this brings you round in a big circle to the beginning of this blog: Home again, home again -- a good place to start a travel blog!