I Went Walking.

 I joined the Bridgewater Adelaide Hills Walking Group, and off I went to find all sorts of places that I would never have found had I been walking by myself. An added bonus was having people to talk with while walking, including the company of a woman armed with binoculars for the purposes of koala spotting.

She was good at koala spotting, too.  While I wandered along looking at trees and making new friends, she spotted koalas right, left, and centre. 

Walk 1.

Walk 2.

Of course there was more to walking than spotting koalas.  Across the valley I spotted an old stone hut, once used for drying tobacco. 

It was a very smokey morning, courtesy of bush fires in Victoria and an easterly breeze.

We walked on steep little roads past vineyards where grapes were drying on the vines,

"We don't do hills," the walk leader informed me happily. "Just the occasional gentle incline!"

Yeah right.

Just a slight incline.

 

At the bottom of another gentle incline I climbed a stile over a fence under the watchful eyes of a pair of friendly alpacas.

I'm watching you.

The walking group ground to a halt at a hedge of blackberries as everyone helped themselves to second breakfast.  Blackberry browsing was new to me, but I was easily persuaded.

Yum.

 

My fellow walkers were a wealth of local information, pointing out farmgate ice cream sales ("best rhubarb and raspberry ever!") and roadside stalls selling honey and jam. 

I found a big tree in Uraidla. No koalas though, it was the wrong type of tree.

 

We wandered back into Uraidla past the pub/cafe with cushioned seats placed strategically on the footpath and the scent of coffee in the air.  I quickly gathered that koala spotting notwithstanding, the high point of the morning was actually in the cafe after the walk. "Come join us!" The walkers chorused.

Bummer. Roger needed the car in 15 minutes and that meant I was leaving lickety split. I'll know better next time, won't I?

 

The least worst (only) pub in town.  With a cafe.